iPod vs. Zune: January 2008 High End MP3 Player Roundup
by Ryan Smith on January 21, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Audio/Video Quality
Digital audio quality has seen a big jump over the last several years. Both MP3 players and motherboard integrated audio have been the beneficiaries of newer Digital-to-Analog Converters that produce better sound with lower power usage and less susceptibility to the kind of EM noise that can be produced by the environments these devices can produce. The result is that while MP3 players aren't (and probably never will be) audiophile quality, they're easily good enough for anyone else. In fact the kind of quality that a good MP3 player should be able to produce these days should be better than most of the earbuds included with them, so there is little immediate room for improvement here.
To make sure all of our MP3 players were producing acceptable sound, we've measured them both objectively and subjectively. For our subjective testing we've listened to each one both through their included earbuds and a set of Sennheiser HD-497 headphones to listen for any problems or differences among them. For our objective testing we turn to the RightMark Audio Analyzer, measuring each device after having been patched in to a SoundBlaster XtremeMusic sound card under Windows XP. Because we don't have a pure reference source we can't create a baseline to compare the MP3 players to, but we're more interested in how they compare to each other.
Frequency Response
Noise Level
Stereo Crosstalk
| RightMark Audio Analyzer Summary | |||
| iPod Classic | iPod Touch | Zune 80 | |
| Frequency response | Very good | Excellent | Very good |
| Noise level | Very good | Very good | Good |
| Dynamic range | Very good | Very good | Good |
| THD | Very good | Very good | Excellent |
| THD + Noise | Good | Good | Good |
| IMD + Noise | Very good | Very good | Very good |
| Stereo crosstalk | Excellent | Excellent | Excellent |
| IMD at 10 kHz | Very good | Very good | Very good |
| General performance | Very good | Very good | Very good |
As we expected, all 3 devices perform approximately the same. The iPod Classic and iPod Touch are the closest, while the Zune falls ever so slightly behind. RMAA's own benchmarking standards rate the general performance of all of the devices at "very good" which we would agree with. From a mechanical perspective there are no significant problems or differences among the devices.
Subjectively we find ourselves agreeing with RMAA when using our Sennheiser headphones. The perceived sound quality produced by each device is the same among several types of music with nothing sounding off.
The results only change when we move to the earbuds included with each respective device. Earbuds generally lack bass due to their size, but the iPod earbuds in particular have it the worst. Music coming from them just lacks much in the way of bass even with equalizer settings apply and we can't ditch a tinny sensation. It's poor enough that we'd definitely switch to different earbuds.
The Zune's earbuds on the other hand, while still no match to a superior set of headphones, are very pleasing. They still lack bass like earbuds do but it's not even half as bad as with the iPod earbuds. Furthermore we don't get any sensation of them being tinny. As far as earbuds go we're happy with what we got out of them.
Video
All 3 MP3 players start out with an immediate disadvantage in video quality because they only display 16bit color. The vast majority of the time this is good enough for a device with such a small screen, but in the right photos and videos we can see some banding that results from the limited display. Strangely the Zune seems to suffer more from this than either iPod, we suspect it's due to the Zune's screen having the greatest contrast.
We do not have a colorimeter suitable for an MP3 player, so all of our considerations for video quality are subjective.
Touch, Zune, and Classic Image Quality
Among the MP3 players, we have a hard time deciding between the iPod Classic and the Zune for best quality. The iPod Classic's only real weakness is the size of the screen, meanwhile it's the only device to use an LED backlight which means it's capable of a higher level of contrast. Otherwise the Zune is brighter than the Classic at both default and max brightness settings and in spite of the Classic's LED backlight we feel that the Zune is able to pull off higher contrasts. The difference likely comes down to how each is handling gamma, Microsoft particular in an attempt to make the Zune look more vivid, and to our subjective eyes it's working.
On the other hand, the Zune and the Classic have the same screen resolution (320x240) but very different screen dimensions. Both iPods have a pixel density of 163 pixels per inch while the Zune is only 128 pixels per inch. The result is that the Classic has a slightly sharper image, but it's not all that significant. Rather the significant difference is that at a lower PPI the Zune starts to suffer from the screen door effect, it's possible to see the lines separating the pixels and consequently identify the individual pixels (unfortunately this isn't something that's possible to pick up on a camera, you'll have to take our word on it). For many people this shouldn't be a problem, but it's something that everyone will notice at one time or another; personally we find the screen door effect rather distracting. With a 3.2" screen, Microsoft should have gone with a higher resolution LCD. The Zune screen also is more obvious about banding artifacts that result from a 16bit display; this is likely due to the better contrast the screen can produce
Finally we have the Touch, which we've held off mentioning until now. The Touch has the appropriate resolution for a screen of its size (480x320) but the LCD used isn't very spectacular. The Touch can't match the brightness of the Zune, nor can it match the contrast ratio. While the Zune is vibrant the Touch is just plain and the Classic looks a little better than the Touch.
Furthermore the Touch suffers the most from the viewing angle problems that occur in the TN panels in these devices. The Touch simply can't be held very far off-angle before the image rapidly deteriorates, while both the Zune and Classic can be held more off-angle and both deteriorate at a less rapid pace. None of the screens are perfect but the Touch is the only device where you're likely to consciously notice the issue.
Given what we know we'd still pick the Touch as having the best video quality overall due to the higher resolution and less obvious banding, but it wasn't an easy choice. The Zune would be second with the greater contrast and vivid screen helping to make up for the lack of resolution, and finally the Classic below the Zune due to the small screen. The result is that while it's easy to write off the Classic for last place, deciding between the Touch and the Zune is much harder; it's probably something every person is going to want to look at themselves if they're going to make heavy use of the video playback features of the two devices.
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TedKord - Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - link
A mac IS a PC these days, only with fewer hardware choices and OSX instead of Windows/Linux, etc...Dennis Travis - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
Interesting. I really like the Zune but use Macs for my everyday computing. Go figure! I do have Windows machines also but it would be nice if MS made the Zune work with OSX. I know many with Macs who like the Zune.madoka - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
I know I'm not alone in this and as wrong as it maybe, everytime I see someone with a Zune, I think that that person could either not afford or was too cheap to pay for an ipod.marybear423 - Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - link
Riight...zune 80gb $249.99
ipod 80gb $249.00
Looks like all those "poor people" had to go cheap and shell out an extra $0.99 for their zune...
Brilliant. A+ for you.
kmmatney - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
I want to commend you on nailing a huge issue in your introduction - gift cards. I was thnking about getting one of the lasser known MP3 brands - but I had to by my plasyer with BestBuy gift cards, so that ruled out a lot of my choices. I ended up going with the 8G Ipod Nano, since I liked that out of my choices at BestBuy. When your stuck with BestBuy, to really only have a few choices for a high end MP3 player.rhangman - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
The only reason I bought an iPod was because at the time they were the only players that could be controlled by car head units. Just did a quick search and I couldn't really see anything for Zune's. Since I bought my head unit (Alpine) the number of iPod compatible decks (after market and stock) has increased significantly too.rcbm1970 - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
Almost every review I have read that compares the zune 80 to the Ipod classic points out one very import feature: the superior sound quality if the zune. It isn't the earbuds its the sound quality of the base components. I took my the earbuds that came with my zune 80 and listened to many of the competition, and there is no comparison; the zune 80 is superior. As with the Iphone and its horrible call quality, the marketing of the cult and its design ignores the purpose of the device. This should be about sound quality being the primary concern. The fact that you were craving for an equalizers shows how little you understand about the sound quality issue. Did you understand that you are to fully place the zune earbuds into your ear to get the proper bass sound? I also question if you gave yourself enough time to get used to the zunes control features. It was into the third week before I started to get used to the short cuts. I will stick with cnet and pcmag if you produce reviews such as this.rcbm1970 - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
I should clarify. By competition, I mean apple products. The creative products produce great sound. I haven't been able to compare to iriver devices, but the cnet folks have. This is really simple when shopping for these devices do look at the reviews, but then take your favorite set of headphones or buds (apple buds the exception) and listen to each device in the store. You will find the listening difference between the apple products and many of the others is analogous to dragging your hand across raw cardboard compared to fine finished wood. We have become so used to bad quality that we don't realize how good it can be.darkswordsman17 - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
People,d the reason you shouldn't include stuff like the Zen and the Karma is that they are discontinued (in the case of the Karmas for a few years now). The Zen Vision: M is the closes to a direct competitor that Creative made to these two, and it is discontinued. We can throw the Cowon X5 in there as well. The new Zen I don't find comparable because it is flash based. It would be nice to see a flash comparison (where the Zune and iPods would get handed to it in price/performance and features, although the Touch would do well but it costs put it out of most people's consideration). There is a reason why there isn't any company making a music focused HDD based player, trying to compete with Microsoft and Apple is asking to lose money, and neither of those two are really competitive in the flash based players (at least on features and price), which allows them to actually compete. Of course that doesn't stop the iPods and Zunes from outselling them still.As for the slowdown on the Classic, have you tried using one with the updated firmware? The launch units did have some very bad slowdown, but it has since been resolved and is now much speedier.
On the sound quality side, I was a bit unimpressed, as hooking them up to machines to check their sound quality doesn't tell the whole story. I have not seen a single person who has heard both the Classic or recent iPods (which many say sound better than the Classic although some say the Classic is better as well) and the Zunes who did not say the Zunes sound much better to their ears. The Zune 80 especially is known to have an execptionally clean headphone out (most people don't recognize noise in the signal when they hear it, mostly because they aren't used to using higher quality audio components, and no I'm not talking $50,000 speakers here either).
Thats not to say the author's findings aren't valid, they just don't tell the whole story. I suggest checking out one of the many DAP/PMP review sites (such as DAPReview, AnythingbutiPod) and also forums such as the portable audio one on Head-Fi if you want more user consensus and in depth testing.
Bottom line, if you need the storage and don't want to spend to get into the PMP category, then the iPod Classic or Zune are both quite good, each with its own strenghts. For flash players, the new Zen is very nice but has issues with the SD expansion slot (it doesn't integrate its music and other files with that of those on the players internal memory). The Cowon D2 is very good, although I'd wait because I think they're probably going to up capacity on them fairly soon. In that same vein the iRiver Clix 2 is pretty nice as is the Meizu M6 I think its called. The Sandisk Sansas are ok, but they are targeted more at packing features in than actually being that good at anything (sound quality, interface, etc). Lastly, there is the new Sony players, which although they lack the expansion slots that have become defacto, they have gotten rid of needing software for use and all the DRM crap that hurt Sony so badly. Also they compete well with the iPod and Zunes in price and features, all the while having some of if not the best sound from a portable music player. Personally, I wouldn't even consider the flash based iPods or Zunes at all as they're high on price and low on features compared to the competition. Couple that with Amazon being a better place to get music online than either iTunes or the Zune marketplace (no DRM at all, not just on some music, competitive price with better quality) and there's no reason to tie yourself to a setup like that (Amazon has a utility that will sync your downloads from them with iTunes so thats a non-issue).
Odeen - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
Any "high-end" MP3 player comparisons should also include the Rio Karma for a few reasons:The Karma is the de-facto standard in sound quality for MP3 files, and includes a dock that allows one to output line-level audio, bypassing the internal amplifier
The Karma includes a 5-band parametric equalizer. Not only can you individually adjust any of the five bands, but you can also change the scope of the adjustment, as the "width" of the band is customizable
The Karma is the only player that supports proper gapless playback with regular MP3 files. I don't know about you, but pauses and clicks where the music should be seamless is a huge reduction in sound quality.
The Karma is the only player that supports free codecs of both lossy and lossless variety. If MP3 suddenly goes the way of the GIF (i.e. the format creator starts pursuing royalties more aggressively) and your mp3's are outlawed, the Karma will still play OGG and FLAC files, formats that cannot be patented or restricted.
Basically, if you are comparing "MP3 Players", first and foremost judge them on how well they PLAY MP3's. I consider that any player wishing for itself to be considered "high end" should produce good sound quality without skipping or popping between tracks - which neither the iPod or Zune can. Everything else is pretty much gravy - whether it's a user interface that's not steeped in heavy geek, whether it's tight integration with a media management suite or music store, whether it's the ability to play videos or squirt. A high-end MP3 player should play MP3's better than anything else, and that's not what the iPod or the Zune offer.