EvilEivind
10-23-2004, 06:39
Well, my U2 hasn't exploded yet. =)
I've gotten it up and running, fully charged, and am currently exploring the features and learning the ropes. The user manual isn't quite as descriptive as it should have been (for example, I used ten or twenty minutes trying to figure out which I should remove when safely removing hardware; I could choose from USB mass storage device, Standardvolume (H:), or iAUDIO U2 USB Device) and it doesn't mention how you should move music files directly onto the player, as opposed to using JetAudio for the task.
The transferring speed was surprisingly fast; I can roughly move over 50 MB in 20 seconds. So it doesn't take much longer than 3 minutes to fill the entire thing up (490 MBs).
The player is quite small, though not as small as I had thought it would be. It's roughly as long as my middle finger. It's still small though! And easy to carry around.
Now, onto a few questions and complaints...
I'm not all too happy with the sound. But, I've recently purchased two sets of headphones which I'm still trying out, so that may have something to do with it. None the less...
The sound sounds both too and too little "bassy." There seems to be a bassy sound to the music, more or less all the time, making the song seem overall muffled in a way, and the sound of, say, a bass drum doesn't exactly pack the punch it really should, also appearing slightly muffled. I have been experimenting a bit with the two different bass functions, and though it helps to turn them both down, it still seems to be a problem.
A second complaint about the sound is that the songs, in a way, all have this similar feel, and the production quality of one song, or the lack of it on another, doesn't seem to really shine through. I especially notice this on the vocals, where the "s" sounds by the musicians sound way too similar to one another, whereas on one song it it should have a higher pitch, on another a lower.
I'm not a real audio buff or music expert, so sorry if my descriptions are hard to understand -- or even incorrectly phrased.
There seems to be a general lack of 'directness', in a way. The opening beep also seems muffled, and in a way not as direct as the beep I get when I turn on the DiscMan I've been using the past year.
Which leads to a second disappointment, namely the volume. I'd heard it was supposed to be a quite loud unit, with the volume going from 0 to 40. I've never really used to listen to music at a very loud volume, but it seems I usually need to turn it up to somewhere between 28-34 to get it loud enough. This is without any equalizing effects though.
A third complaint is the folder structure. Right now, I've been making individual folders for artists/albums, moving the music over to these folders. But often, when I open up the folders when using the player, the files seem to be sorted oddly, neither alpabetically by songname nor file name or track number.
For example, I put over the debut album of the Hidden Cameras, and the first file is "Golden Streams," which is the first track on the album. Then after that, there's the "Shame" track, which is track number eight!
Is there any way to fix this? Haven't yet found a feature for how to catalog files, but it should be somewhere.
Also, I tried using the player on a stereo, but the sound was quite low. When using the player in this way, should you turn the volume on the unit up to max? Or could this damage the unit?
Another problem was when I tried fast forwarding, or rewinding, certain songs -- I have it set to x4 speed, but on certain files, it seems to revert back to x2. These may be VBR files, but I'm not sure.
My bad experience with the sound could be to several things: the new headphones, the actual audio files (they're usually either encoded in 192 Kbps, or 128-320 VBR, or 320 Kbps), I may have gotten a bad unit (which I really hope I haven't!), bad audio settings/effects, or I may just need to get used to the sound.
Or, this may actually be how mp3s sound; but listening to them on my computer they sound pretty much as good as CDs, also when using CD-Rs with burnt mp3s on the DiscMan.
How should the JetEffects equalizer be used? Perhaps it's best to simply have them all turned up? I often choose "normal" though, as I don't really want to tamper with the original sound much, other than, perhaps, adding some bass.
Oh, and is it worth installing/using JetAudio? Will it, in any way, enchance your iAUDIO U2, as opposed to just dragging and dropping files?
I really hope the few problems I've mentioned can be fixed! It really seems like a super unit, and I really want to be happy with it. Any advice or comments would be much appreciated.
I've gotten it up and running, fully charged, and am currently exploring the features and learning the ropes. The user manual isn't quite as descriptive as it should have been (for example, I used ten or twenty minutes trying to figure out which I should remove when safely removing hardware; I could choose from USB mass storage device, Standardvolume (H:), or iAUDIO U2 USB Device) and it doesn't mention how you should move music files directly onto the player, as opposed to using JetAudio for the task.
The transferring speed was surprisingly fast; I can roughly move over 50 MB in 20 seconds. So it doesn't take much longer than 3 minutes to fill the entire thing up (490 MBs).
The player is quite small, though not as small as I had thought it would be. It's roughly as long as my middle finger. It's still small though! And easy to carry around.
Now, onto a few questions and complaints...
I'm not all too happy with the sound. But, I've recently purchased two sets of headphones which I'm still trying out, so that may have something to do with it. None the less...
The sound sounds both too and too little "bassy." There seems to be a bassy sound to the music, more or less all the time, making the song seem overall muffled in a way, and the sound of, say, a bass drum doesn't exactly pack the punch it really should, also appearing slightly muffled. I have been experimenting a bit with the two different bass functions, and though it helps to turn them both down, it still seems to be a problem.
A second complaint about the sound is that the songs, in a way, all have this similar feel, and the production quality of one song, or the lack of it on another, doesn't seem to really shine through. I especially notice this on the vocals, where the "s" sounds by the musicians sound way too similar to one another, whereas on one song it it should have a higher pitch, on another a lower.
I'm not a real audio buff or music expert, so sorry if my descriptions are hard to understand -- or even incorrectly phrased.
There seems to be a general lack of 'directness', in a way. The opening beep also seems muffled, and in a way not as direct as the beep I get when I turn on the DiscMan I've been using the past year.
Which leads to a second disappointment, namely the volume. I'd heard it was supposed to be a quite loud unit, with the volume going from 0 to 40. I've never really used to listen to music at a very loud volume, but it seems I usually need to turn it up to somewhere between 28-34 to get it loud enough. This is without any equalizing effects though.
A third complaint is the folder structure. Right now, I've been making individual folders for artists/albums, moving the music over to these folders. But often, when I open up the folders when using the player, the files seem to be sorted oddly, neither alpabetically by songname nor file name or track number.
For example, I put over the debut album of the Hidden Cameras, and the first file is "Golden Streams," which is the first track on the album. Then after that, there's the "Shame" track, which is track number eight!
Is there any way to fix this? Haven't yet found a feature for how to catalog files, but it should be somewhere.
Also, I tried using the player on a stereo, but the sound was quite low. When using the player in this way, should you turn the volume on the unit up to max? Or could this damage the unit?
Another problem was when I tried fast forwarding, or rewinding, certain songs -- I have it set to x4 speed, but on certain files, it seems to revert back to x2. These may be VBR files, but I'm not sure.
My bad experience with the sound could be to several things: the new headphones, the actual audio files (they're usually either encoded in 192 Kbps, or 128-320 VBR, or 320 Kbps), I may have gotten a bad unit (which I really hope I haven't!), bad audio settings/effects, or I may just need to get used to the sound.
Or, this may actually be how mp3s sound; but listening to them on my computer they sound pretty much as good as CDs, also when using CD-Rs with burnt mp3s on the DiscMan.
How should the JetEffects equalizer be used? Perhaps it's best to simply have them all turned up? I often choose "normal" though, as I don't really want to tamper with the original sound much, other than, perhaps, adding some bass.
Oh, and is it worth installing/using JetAudio? Will it, in any way, enchance your iAUDIO U2, as opposed to just dragging and dropping files?
I really hope the few problems I've mentioned can be fixed! It really seems like a super unit, and I really want to be happy with it. Any advice or comments would be much appreciated.