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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Drazic - Saturday, October 25, 2008 - link
I have my Zune 80GB for 3 years now. It has never been broken and the screen is still in good shape! The Zune is very easy to use, has wonderful music and the quality is very good. Of Course there are not a lot of European people who have the Zune, lucky me:)So they can't compare at all. Even though the people are saying that more of the population in the VS has the Mac Note Book I most say that all the people that I know, friends, college's,either way don't even want the Mac Note Book. They rather choose for an HP or a Toshiba!:) Simple because you don't have to buy of put pro gramme's on the computer that's only from Mac. Honestly!? The Toshiba & HP's are more beautiful. What's in a name!? (careless, it's only the brand)charlie brown - Wednesday, April 2, 2008 - link
If anandtech are going to use an audio analyser, shouldn't they understand the values and equipment they are measuring? As a professional audio engineer I find their conclusions disturbing...Why haven't you published numbers for THD +noise etc - you just draw your own conclusions from some 0.0... percentage?
All players frequency response is +/-dB from 0-20kHz. These are all excellent when you understand the freq response of a headphone - even top of the range sennheisers. How can you possibly describe one player response as very good/excellent etc?! You would NOT hear the difference whatsoever.
What possible difference does -100/-110/-120 signal to noise ratio really make for an mp3 player?? (audibly - absolutely none) these are all excellent.
"Earbuds generally lack bass due to their size"
This is only half the story, they perform better with good coupling to the ear (im sure youve pushed some phones into your ear and heared the bass improve?).
Have you guys ever stopped to think that you are reviewing an MP3 player? The nature of MP3 (being an audio compression developed from the 1980's) is that it is a LOSSY compression. THE ENCODING WILL DEGRADE THE SOUND QUALITY MORE THAN THE PLAYER EVER WILL, EVEN AT HIGH BITRATES.
Why doesn't anandtech throw them on the ground and record which one breaks the easiest - i mean this is more useful than the conclusions taken in your audio test.
abpages - Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - link
Feature wise the Zune 80 kills the Ipod.Also, the ipod has video out, but can't outpid it's interface.
The Zune can. This might not seem like a big deal, but if you ever want to hook this up to a tv or in my case a LCD in my Car it is fantastic. No looking down at the device to choose song (and possible crashing j/k), everything is on the screen all the menus.
I own both and the new Zune has it this time.
Ron Stark
http://www.WebSiteDesigners.net.au">http://www.WebSiteDesigners.net.au
Heatlesssun - Sunday, January 27, 2008 - link
I bought two Zune 80’s at Christmas, one for the wife and one for me, and they are great devices. I want to address two criticisms in this review. One, the Zune Pass is very cool. At $15 a month one can get one album versus thousands. If you know what you’re doing, subscriptions models like Zune Pass offer better value.Secondly, I think this review makes too much out of the lack of TV and movies on Zune Market place. There are so many ways to get content these days that it’s funny. Heck, if you’ve cable TV, there’s a source right there, and you’re not paying for the content again, which is cool.
Really, a person just needs a good set of transcoding software, that frees a person from being tied to any one content source.
9nails - Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - link
Want an external speaker? Perhaps you need an additional USB cradle? Do you need a carry case? Or maybe you would like a car adapter kit? How about a screen protector to save that investment?All of these things are easier to find on an iPod Accessory shelf. But the Zune shelf is shockingly bare. Perhaps the case or a new set of (universal) headphones is all that you can find for the Zune. For me, more than anything, the availability of accessories was a major decision maker in the search for an MP3 player. My second major factor was cost. Third was storage capacity. And least significant was battery life.
NewBozo - Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - link
Be sure to get an Archos 605 Wi-Fi for future media player reviews. It is much less expensive than anything you reviewed here, has drag and drop capabilities and can surf the web and stream video over the built in wi-fi. It is amazing!...newbozo
rcbm1970 - Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - link
"Did you know that 60 per cent of Americans received gift vouchers for Christmas? We didn’t either, but that’s just fuel for Anand Techie’s latest Ipod vs. Zune dissertation (squeezed into 10 pages). It’s a bit of a one-sided argument with iIpod coming out smelling like roses and Zune always the close-secnd-but-never-first. Get your Apple-certified endorsement here."Nitram49 - Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - link
Dude! I own a Iaudio X5, Ipod Shuffle(Garbage) and an Ipod Nano. Every chance I get I use the X5 because there is no comparison in sound to the Ipod's. With the ability to tweak the sound and produce some serious bass it can't be beat. I mean with my JBL reference 220 or AKG k-81 DJ I can walk around with so much bass that it is impressive, and then if needed flatten it right out with a plethora of controls(EQ,BBE,...,). Nothing beats the HDD capabilities of an X5. I heard the D2 and I can't imagine how you let a chance to review that slip through your hands in a comparison. Also my friend just got an Iaudio 7. wow. Give those dudes at Cowon a listen and you tell me if I'm wrong.TedKord - Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - link
IMO, if you're looking for an MP3/video portable player, you shouldn't be looking at either MS or Apple. I had a Cowon A2 which blew my friend's Ipod classic away in every respect (video/sound quality, format compatibility, features) except HD size. It was also better than the Zunes I've tried, though I've not tried the newer generation extensively. Another thing that should be mentioned with the Ipod is iTunes. I hate that program, it made me load QT, and everytime I disable the autoload for QT, it reenables when my daughter uses iTunes for her Nano 3G. Plus, they made me sign up with a crdit card to enable album art. With the A2, I just dragged and dropped my existing mp3, flac and ogg music right to it - no reencode or anything. Same with the divx/xvid movies I already had - drag, drop, watch.The iPod Touch is a cool device, but more for it's interface than it's video/audio quality.
michael2k - Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - link
Why do you hate your daughter? It sounds like you need to get her a computer of her own if you don't want her to synch her Nano (and thus re-enabling QuickTime, which is used for AAC encoding for iTunes if she's ripping music) to your PC.Besides which, why do you want to manually load and unload your MP3 player? The whole point of computers is to do the tedious things for us (such as ripping, tagging, organizing, and synching). Your daughter, with iTunes, only has to plug and go. If she has more music than the Nano can fit, it will auto-select her favorite music, or she can select (checkbox style) her favorite playlists, or manually (if she wishes to be like dad) to drag and drop songs and playlists to her Nano.