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[BadDog]

I know pretty much nothing about the portable players out there.  I downloaded the user manual for the Creative Labs ZEN player and it looks pretty good.  
1.   Any other brands I should look at?

Here are my needs and what I intend to do.  I have close to 60 GB library and I want to take it in the boat with me.  The ZEN looks to have enough navigation to be able to build playlist and shuffle etc. With 50 GB of music being able to find by artist and album is an important requirement.  My requirements are to have close to 60GB storage and be able to easily load albums into a playlist with minimum buttons to push. Is the ZEN the best to consider?  Anything new on the horizon?  I had decided that the best thing to do was put a Laptop in the boat but power problems, soundcards, removable USB drives, remote controls etc prohibit this at this time.

Any and all comments welcome!

[DJMUK]

As mentioned in a reply to your other post I have a ZEN Xtra 60GB player.  I have had it only a few weeks so probably don't know all the tricks but it seems to me that it will do all you need.

I have ripped some 400 CD's and transferred them to the ZEN very easily using MC9.1.  Creative supply their own software but MC is much better.  As I understand it both of these pieces of software can create playlists and send them to the ZEN but I have not tried this yet.

Another piece of software for managing files between a PC and the Creative Jukebox family of players which is highly regarded by it's users is RedChair Software's NotMad Explorer but this does not rip CD's

I'm affraid I do not have any experience of any other players.  As you may have noticed from the messages here the iPod is well liked but at present only has a 40GB disk.

Hope this helps.

[BadDog]

DJ, did you ever try to find a wired remote for the ZEN Xtra?  Their website only shows the wired remote as working with the ZEN and the ZEN Xtra syas the wired remote will not work with it.  

What were the main differences between the ZEN and the Xtra? Is it only the screen size?  I have no place I can see either of these models, only looking at them on the web.

[DJMUK]

I believe there are no remote control facilities for the ZEN XTRA and I had no need for it so it sis not bother me.

As far as a comparison between the ZEN and ZEN XTRA is concerned I suspect you have learned as much on the web as I know.  I went for the XTRA based mainly on the need for the 60GB drive and the marginally larger screen.

If you want more details I would try the following as further sources of information:

Newsgroup: Prosuct.Nomad at news.creative.com

Web site with user forums: http://www.nomadness.net/

Good luck.

[Nolonemo]

I have a Zen Xtra 60GB, with over 600 "albums" on it, and frankly, navigation on handhelds (I think the Zen is typical) sucks compared to MC.  In MC I use a three-column display, Genre, Album Artist, Album.  That way to find something I click on Genre, which shows me all the artists in that genre, I then click on the artist I want, which shows me only that artist's albums, and then I click on the album I want to play.

On the Zen, you can view by Genre, but within genre, all you get is a list of all the albums, so you have to scroll through all the albumes in the genre to find the one you want.  Or you can view by artist, but then you have to scroll through the 200 or so
artists on the Zen to get to the one you want to open to look at the albums.

Furthermore, lets say you do your first sort by genre, then you have a bunch of albums that say "symphony no. 1" or "greatest hits."  So you have to retag all of those to prefix them with the artist name so you can see what's what.  I'm in the process of prefixing all my album names with the artist name, so I will have an artist-album sort under genre, but the problem with that is that it makes the name so long you lose the end of the ablum title.  So you see a bunch of Mozart - Piano Concerto... with  concerto number not showing until the album name shows.

As far as I know all the hard drive players suffere from this liability.  The problem is that this organization structure may work fine for a 5GB or even 10GB drive, but once you get up to 60GB, it's simply too unwieldy.  Hopefully Creative will write some more powerful firmware for the Zens to streamline using them a little.  And eventually, the tiny screens will get larger so you can have a really usable display.  I mean, the 60GB lists for $400, and aside from the $150 retail hard drive it contains, has less horsepower and a crummier display than any $150 PDA.  Eventually the jukebox market will mature to the point where affordable usable units are made.

After all that venting, I have to say it is just incredible to have a huge music library in that little thing, and the sound is just great.

[BadDog]

I hear ya on the navigation. I have not used one but I think you are on the right track with naming Artist/Album.

I did some test using my kids MP3 disc player.  I got a 3.5 mm to 3.5 mm cable and ran the MP3 player (20 dollar unit) into the AUX of an auto head unit.  The output from the MP3 player was headphone out.  The sound totally sucked.  I then tried the Line Out on the MP3 player and it still blew.  You could not get full volume with out a terrible distortion.  I then grabbed the DVM and set it to 2VAC and measured the output, about .9 volts to 1.2 max.  

Next I put a cable out of the headphone jack straight to the Line In on the amp.  This sounded pretty good but the only way to control the volume level is with the MP3 player.  This is not as workable as using the AUX in as when you use the AUX in the head unit controls the volume.  I thought the AUX was for hooking up MP3 player, walkmans etc?  Perhaps the head unit it tried just had a crappy AUX input.

Anyone successfully wire a Zen to an Auto stereo?  I want to get the Zen Xtra but there is no remote for it which I need to control the volume if I go straight to the amp and the display better than the regular Zen.

How many characters can you display left to right with the Zen Xtra?

[Nolonemo]

I put a Blaupunkt MP3000 in my wife's car because it has aux inputs.  The sound is fine, and you control volume on the head unit.  The Zen puts out enough juice to sound fine.  In my car I use a cassette adaptor because I have a CD/cassette player, and that also sounds fine, no volume problems there either.

You get 22-25 characters across (depends on if you have a lot of fat letters or thin letters).  And that reminds me of another rant.  When Creative widened the display on the Xtra, the also made the letters in the display bold, so it displays about the same number of characters as the NX with its smaller window.  Why not let you choose a plain or bold font in the settings menu, so you can fit in more of the titles if you want?  Makes you wonder if any of the Creative engineers actually use the thing or run user focus groups.

[BadDog]

Nolonemo,
If I was having poor sound quality it must have been due to the cheap MP3 player.  If I understand this right your are using headphone out to the AUX in and the sound quality is good.  If for instance you made an MP3 disc and played it in the head unit the sound output from the CD player would be comparable to the quality from the ZEN headphone out to AUX in?  I hate to wear you out with these questions but I hate to spend 4 bucks on a player to find it did not fit my needs. There is no place local I can test drive one of these units so I am working on faith here.  The only use I will have for the ZEN is to hold my library to play in the boat or truck.

[Svempa]

Seriously take look at iRivers iHP-120
its expencive, but oh man it kicks ass.

[Nolonemo]

BadDog, I can't tell the difference between playing an mp3 disk and playing off the Zen through the Bluapunkt (it plays mp3 CDrs as well as having the aux inputs).  Of course, you're in the car so we're not talking about audio listening room comparisons, but I'm guessing that would be quieter than your boat anyway.  I would say if there's any problem with playing the Zen back through a head unit the problem's with the head unit, not the Zen.  Sounds like the problem you experienced was with the cheap flash mem player.

[BDR]

I have a new Zen Xtra 60GB that I have over 700 albums loaded.  I agree with some of the other comments with regard to lack of browsing ability when compared to MC9, but I do not know of a player with screen size large enough to give you the multi-column info like in MC9.

The original Zen may not be still available.  I believe it has been replaced by the Zen NX.  The NX is smaller, has better user interface and controls than the original, but does not have remote/radio and external record functions.  These are because the original Zen has a separate input jack for these devices.  But when the NX and Xtra came out this was eliminated to I assume reduce size.  I have heard rumors that the wired remote and radio capabilities may be added in the future, possibly using the USB port.

As for difference between Zen and Zen Xtra, My daughter has the Zen and I have the Xtra.  The only noticable difference is the hard disc size (30 GB vs 60 GB in my case) and screen size.  The larger screen is nice and even though it now has bold print as mentioned above, it still displays more info than the Zen and in addition is more easily viewed by us 40+ year olds.

As for plugging into your car/boat, I currently run mine via a AUX input jack using a standard 6 ft. mini-headphone jack wire.  The sound over my factory Mercedes Bose system is very good and as good as from the CD changer.  My wifes Navagator has an elaborate aftermarket audio/video system in it that I have pluged the Zen into via FM modulator jack.  Sound is also very good.  In both cases volume is a little low and you have to increase the volume on the head unit a little.  

The first clue on the bad sound you have with your daughters MP3 player is "$20".  An inexpensive player like that will not have as good of a sound as the Creative players which based on my research, have some of the best sound of any the MP3 players around including the IPODs.  If another device such as a portable CD player will play good through the AUX input of your head unit, then you can eliminate that as a source of your problem.

[GRAYDOG]

Been looking for a player for my son for Christmas and I'am not sure if i should get  him a hard drive player or maybe one of the new small HD players ( Rio nitrus) any thoughts ? He is 24 and want's to use it when he is at the gym and at work

[BadDog]

BDR,  when plugged into the head unit via AUX do you control the volume with the headunit?  See Nolemo's post above.  If I can control the volume up/down with the head unit I would not need the ZEN remote.  Rumor of USB remote?  I wonder if the ZEN Xtra would be a different model.  Was there a discussion board you got this info from?

[Nolonemo]

In theory you could control the Xtra with a USB remote, because you can control playback on the zen etc using Notmad or the Creative software (Note to Media Center - how about putting this capability in the Zen plugin?).