Review

[ZuneJay09]

I really was looking forward to the zune hd and went into it with an open mind. Im going to focus my review strictly on the sound quality of the zune hd because for my uses, nothing else mattered. I am very surprised to read all the reviews about how much better the zune hd sounds that the ipod touch because in my experience that wasnt at all the case. I ripped a few cds in the highest quality possible and tested them with my westone 3 in ear monitors. These headphones are not quite your average to be fair, costing close to 400 dollars. From the second the music started playing I noticed a lack of sound quality that was shocking. The bass wasnt clean and the mids and highs were seriously missing. I tested these with the EQ off and with multiple formats and even over HD radio. I was very dissapointed in this device which sucks because I was really looking forward to this device with the nvidia tegra processor which rocks compared to the arm in the ipod. Does anyone else agree with me? My ipod touch 1st generation was in a complete different league compared to this device, although the zune did not have any background amplifier noise at all like my 1st gen does. Ive seen one other review on a website that noticed the poor sound quality as well and have been shocked to see the majority of the reviews saying it is was above the majority of ipods. Once again I only could test between the 1st gen touch and the zune hd, both with eqs off and both in the highest available ripping from a CD. I have a feeling to the majority of people using lower quality headphones, it would sound louder and cleaner if you didnt know what to listen for, almost like comparing a class d amplifier to a good ab one in car audio. any thoughts? im really disappointed, I wanted to keep this but returned it.