Yesterday, I compiled my list of the five most welcome products for digital audio that came out in 2009. Today, I'm following it up with my list of the year's five biggest digital audio duds.
An image from the infamous online commercial for Songsmith, Microsoft's reverse-karaoke software.
(Credit: Microsoft)Zookz. The breathless pitch got me interested: a mysterious online service was getting ready to compete against subscription-based download service eMusic. But where eMusic limits users to a set number of downloads, this mystery service would offer unlimited music and movie downloads. How could this be? Wouldn't users just download all the material they wanted then cancel their subscriptions? How could content owners let this happen?
The trick: Zookz was based in Antigua, and according to the company, this meant it wasn't subject to those silly little things known as U.S. copyright laws and royalty rates. Unfortunately, the country of Antigua didn't agree, and days after the public beta launched, Zookz disappeared into the digital ether with a promise to refund subscribers' money.
Jango Artist Airplay. I liked Jango's online radio service back when it launched in 2007. This year, in what looked like a desperate bid for new revenue, the company launched a service called Artist Airplay, in which bands could pay for placement on appropriate Jango stations. While Jango's CEO tried to tell me this was a reasonable new marketing opportunity, I saw it as a new form of the old pay-for-play deal that beginning bands often fall for.
With regular marketing, everybody pays more or less the same amount for the same class of services and the music sinks or swims on its own merits. With pay-for-play, artists buy exposure. There's only one problem: the resulting conflict of interest drives discerning listeners--including people who might actually pay you for your music--away. Jango Artist Direct may not be as stark as those pay-to-play "showcases" and "band battles" where all the audience members are other bands and their friends, but I believe it's better for beginning artists never to start down this slippery slope. Then again, I thought users would never be ignorant enough to click on search advertisements in massive numbers, which is one reason why Sergey Brin and Larry Page are multibillionaires and I'm not.
Vevo. As long as we're talking about Google, let's talk about YouTube, which the search company owns. It's a great source for music videos, and its APIs have formed the basis for music-finding apps like Muziic and TubeRadio. Users love it. Unfortunately, the companies and artists who own the copyrights to many of those music videos don't love it--the videos are expensive to produce, and the ad revenues from YouTube and other online video sites are scanty to nonexistent. Google is also lukewarm about music videos on YouTube, finding that the cost of policing copyright and complying with take-down notices is more than the money they can earn from selling ads.
In December, two record companies--Sony and Universal--joined together with Google in a new joint venture, Vevo, to address the problem. This was supposed to be a back-end business-to-business kind of deal, where YouTube users wouldn't know (or care) that certain videos were actually being provided exclusively by Vevo, which would sell short video advertisements to run before them. Unfortunately, the glittery launch party drew undue attention to Vevo's own site, causing its servers to buckle under the load. The entire episode left music fans scratching their heads.
Songsmith. The idea wasn't all that bad. Karaoke is fun. Making music on computers is fun. So why not, reasoned some Microsoft researchers, create a program that fills in audio accompaniment as users sing. Unfortunately, the $29.95 price and unbelievably mockable promotional video turned Songsmith into an Internet laughingstock. Later videos featuring Songsmith's accompaniment to the vocal tracks of songs like Queen's "We Will Rock You" and Van Halen's "Running With the Devil" highlighted the silliness.
CMX. In August, reports broke that the four major record labels were considering a new type of "digital album" format that would include album art, lyrics, and extra content. There was just one problem: Apple was already building its own competing format, code-named Cocktail and eventually released as iTunes LP. I think the entire concept of a digital album is weird anyway: I'm not convinced that lack of album art is a big reason why users are buying singles instead of albums. (The real reason is the Chumbawamba factor, or the fact that a lot of albums contain only one or two good songs.) And iTunes LP doesn't exactly seem to be taking off, although some of the extras--outtakes and videos--are actually quite valuable. But creating a competing format that wouldn't be supported by Apple? That's just plain dumb. To be fair, we haven't heard anything about CMX since iTunes LP launched. Here's hoping this product is killed before it's ever born.
The economy took its toll on digital audio in 2009, with CD sales continuing to decline (even as vinyl makes a resurgence), digital start-ups going bankrupt or disappearing after takeovers, and labels expressing dissatisfaction with would-be digital saviors like MySpace Music. Even so, there was actually quite a lot to cheer this year. The following five products aren't necessarily the best, but to me, they did the most to move the state of digital audio forward in 2009.
Outside the tech press, the Zune HD didn't get the love it deserved in 2009.
(Credit: Microsoft)Windows 7. Microsoft appears to have recovered from Vista with a new OS that runs efficiently, looks good, and satisfies users. Released on October 22, the latest version of Windows also includes some important new features for digital audio lovers. I was pleasantly surprised by Microsoft's decision to support for Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), which is the default format used by Apple's iTunes. With this simple move (along with native H.264 video support), Microsoft has finally acknowledged that Windows Media isn't taking over the world any time soon, and will hopefully move to the much more sensible strategy of making Windows a sort of "Swiss Army knife" of digital media. In addition, the new Remote Media Streaming feature lets you access the media library on your hard drive from any PC over the Internet, reducing the need for third-party solutions like JukeFly or online music lockers like Lala. Plus, for professional audio recording, Windows 7 is much more stable than Vista was at launch. Love it or hate it, Windows is still the OS used on more than 95 percent of computers worldwide, and Windows 7 is probably going to be around for a long time--like XP was--so these advances, however overdue, are major news.
Spotify and Rhapsody on iPhone. Music fans have been waiting for the celestial jukebox--the ability to listen to millions of songs on demand from anywhere--for years. In 2009, the music industry finally started coming around to the idea that on-demand access to millions of songs could be the digital business model that saves it. Nowhere was this clearer than in Apple's decision to approve iPhone apps from Spotify in August and Rhapsody in September. These two subscription services--Rhapsody in the U.S., Spotify in Europe--give iPhone users access to millions of songs, on demand, for a few bucks a month. Single-song downloads have been great for Apple, helping iTunes become the top music retailer in the U.S. starting in 2008, but the company may be coming around to the idea that subscriptions--or at least on-demand streaming--represents the future, as evidenced by its acquisition of Lala earlier this month. When Apple finally takes the plunge, Rhapsody and Spotify subscribers can be smug, knowing that they've been able to stream songs to their iPhones since 2009.
Sonos S5. I've been singing the praises of Sonos's multiroom home-audio system for a couple years now. There's no other equivalent system that offers such easy set-up, solid sound, reliable streaming (thanks to its dedicated wireless network), and slick user interface--including an iPhone controller. The only drawback has been its relatively high price of entry, especially compared with cheaper competitors like Logitech. The release of the Sonos S5 this November (read the CNET review) is a major step forward in affordability, giving you single $399 device--receiver, amplifier, and speaker, all in one--that lets you get started down the Sonos path. You'll still need a $99 bridge if you have a wireless home network and want your S5 to be in a different room than your router, but the S5 is Sonos's most affordable product to date, and a move in the right direction for multiroom digital audio.
iConcertCal for iPhone. For live music fans, nothing's more frustrating than missing a show because you happened to miss the listing in your weekly paper. This year saw the release of several iPhone and iPod Touch apps for finding and tracking local gigs, but my favorite remains iConcertCal, released in July for $2.99. (It was briefly removed from the iTunes Store earlier this month to fix a bug, but it's back now and working fine.) Unlike other gig-finding apps, iConcertCal doesn't require you to enter a list of artists you want to track--instead, it grabs all the artists whose music you have on your iPhone. If you want an even bigger selection, you can download the free iConcertCal desktop add-in for iTunes (useful in its own right), link it to your iPhone with a user name and password combination, and the iPhone app will then track every single artist you list in iTunes. You can also use it to see all local shows happening in the next couple of days.
Zune HD. At last! The latest version of Microsoft's portable music player, released in October, has everything its predecessors lacked. Classy industrial design. Touch screen. Gorgeous on-screen interface that makes it easy to find favorite songs or music you've recently added and scrolls through images of artists as you play their songs. Well-designed PC client software that does everything you've come to expect from iTunes and looks way better doing it. It's not perfect--the browser and lack of app store are kind of weak, and I'm still bothered by what sounds like a bass roll-off and lack of oomph in the midrange--but the Zune HD has so many features that iPods still lack, like wireless sync, a built-in subscription music service (with 10 permanent monthly downloads to boot), and the ability to add songs to a currently playing playlist, that it makes my iPods seem a bit out of date. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the Zune brand is still tarnished by its initial weak launch, and outside the tech press, the Zune HD didn't get the love it deserved. Perhaps when (if?) Microsoft moves these features into the next version of Windows Mobile, we'll finally see Microsoft considered as a viable competitor to Apple's mobile music juggernaut.
Tomorrow, I'll follow up with the five least welcome digital music products in 2009.
I had a fascinating conversation with MediaNet CEO Alan McGlade on Friday morning. Unless you're deeply involved in online music, you probably don't know MediaNet, but it's the back end powering a lot of music services you might have used, including MOG's subscription service that launched earlier this week, as well as Microsoft's excellent Zune Pass subscription service and iLike's online music marketplace. (MySpace acquired iLike in August, and in November, links to iLike's service began appearing directly in music-related search results on Google.)
Fox Interactive used MediaNet's technology to embed this list of Aerosmith songs in a story about the band. Readers could then listen to a sample or buy the song.
(Credit: MediaNet)They've also got more history in online music than just about anyone. The company started off as MusicNet, with part-ownership by three of the then-Big Five major labels: BMG, EMI, and Warner. They powered RealNetworks' music initiatives before RealNetworks bought Rhapsody. They powered Yahoo Music. They powered MTV's online music store.
These early stores went nowhere. Content owners insisted on digital rights management (DRM) restrictions, which meant that content from these stores had restricted use rights and couldn't be played on every device--including, in most cases, Apple's iconic iPod. Setting up a store using MediaNet's platform often took 18 months and significant technical expertise. In the meantime, Apple focused on a dedicated online store for its own devices, and completely dominated the market for music downloads.
But the landscape has changed. Labels don't want to be beholden to Apple. They no longer insist on DRM for single-song downloads, and have realized that the more outlets there are for their digital music, the more customers they'll reach, and the more sales they'll have. (Amazing it took this long to figure out.) MediaNet is, in my opinion, incredibly well positioned to take advantage of this sea change.
In October, the company released a set of technologies called MN Open that make it almost trivially simple for companies to add a wide variety of music consumption options to their Web sites. Sure, companies can still use MediaNet to build an end-to-end service like MOG.
But say you're Fox Interactive and want to make a story about Aerosmith more engaging. Using a MediaNet component, Fox created a link for the first mention of the word Aerosmith that took users to a page with more information about the band, and links to play and buy some of their popular songs. Fox also posted Aerosmith songs in a box directly on the story page.
MediaNet handled all the heavy lifting: licensing the music, streaming the samples, and fulfilling the transaction. Fox kept its brand and design throughout the process, and users didn't have to leave the site to buy the song. Best of all for Fox, it didn't have to make any up-front payment to use MediaNet's technology. Instead, MediaNet takes the customary cut of any song purchased through the site (about 30 percent, if it's anything like Apple). The model's the same for sites that offer free ad-supported streams or subscriptions--MediaNet takes a portion of each transaction, then handles payment to the content owners.
Now imagine this kind of integration on sites for radio stations, record labels, or your favorite bands. Imagine your ISP or cell phone carrier offering you a music subscription service bundled with your Internet service or smartphone. In this world, users won't have to go to iTunes or Amazon MP3, or subscribe to Rhapsody (or MOG for that matter). Music will be available for consumption everywhere. And content owners will get paid regardless of where users buy it.
According to McGlade, it's already happening--he said MediaNet is adding about one new distributor per day, and has already got about 50 customers using the MN Open platform. One site, GetPlaylists.com, was able to add playable song samples and downloads-for-sale in only two days with MN Open, according to McGlade.
Thanks to this upsurge, the company--which is owned by a private equity firm and no longer has any direct ownership affiliation with the major labels--has recently crossed over into profitability. A rare situation indeed in today's online music landscape.
It's a great vision, and something that Microsoft, the original platform company, could have done. But Microsoft spent years pushing the Windows Media Platform, which made heavy use of Microsoft codecs and file wrappers (instead of MP3s, which were becoming the industry standard). Microsoft also spent a lot of effort trying to enable the labels' DRM demands--for example, by building a platform to enable subscription-based downloads to be transferred to portable devices. Then, just as the labels were getting ready to abandon DRM, Microsoft basically gave up pushing Windows Media as a general-purpose platform for distributors and device makers, and instead started trying to mimic Apple's end-to-end software+service+device with the Zune strategy.
Talk about an opportunity lost! Instead of struggling along with something like 2 percent of the digital media player market, Microsoft could have ended up powering the music technology on thousands of Web sites.
Another aside: while MusicNet offers a lot of flexibility for distributors--downloads, samples, free streams, or subscriptions are all supported--McGlade is most bullish on subscriptions as the digital business model of the future. He admits that old fogeys accustomed to CDs and vinyl will have a hard time giving up the concept of ownership, but suggests that today's teenagers don't care--they want music on demand from any device, any time, in any location, and don't need to have the files physically present. McGlade thinks that subscriptions will have the best chance of taking off if they're bundled with some other product, like ISP service.
Scoff all you want about subscriptions, but the concept keeps coming up: music industry expert Donald Passman also believes they're the best chance for the music industry to thrive in the future. Even Apple finally seems to be bending to the idea of streaming music with its acquisition of Lala, although Lala isn't a straight subscription service, but more of an online music locker with some free streams, plus fee-based individual streams.
Last week, a music site called BlueBeat made headlines by offering Beatles songs as free streams and 25 cent downloads. The Beatles are known for not making their songs legally available on iTunes or any other online forum, so observers rightly asked "how are they doing this legally?"
EMI, the record label that owns The Beatles' recordings, has a simple response: they're not doing this legally. But here's where the story gets very strange.
The legal reasoning in this case is straight out of "Alice in Wonderland."
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons (public domain illustration))BlueBeat is owned by a company called Media Rights Technologies, which specializes in digital rights management technology. DRM is supposed to be used to prevent copyright infringement. But according to a 2007 blog post on HuffingtonPost.com by the company's founder, Hank Risan, MRT backed into this business after being--get this--targeted by the RIAA for copyright infringement.
As Risan explains in his post, he and a partner had posted a bunch of streaming-audio files to a Web site about the history of music. The RIAA issued a takedown notice, and the site took the streams down.
The streams had been protected by Windows Media DRM, but according to Risan, an update to the Media Player broke the DRM. In response to this flaw, Risan created MRT and built his own DRM system, which he claimed would be far more robust than the systems on the market at that time. Then, in 2007, MRT sent cease-and-desist letters to Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and RealNetworks, ordering them to use MRT's DRM technology instead of their own, on threat of legal action.
The legal reasoning was twisted--basically, MRT argued that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act should force these companies to use the most robust DRM technology available, even if that technology was created by somebody else. Predictably, nothing ever came of this demand.
MRT's legal reasoning is equally funny this time around, as Ars Technica reports. According to the report, MRT claims that it didn't post the exact Beatles recordings. Instead, it posted "psychoacoustic simulations," then added simple video content to them. This constitutes a new audiovisual work, and isn't covered by the existing copyrights, MRT argues. In fact, MRT even went so far as to apply for copyrights on the "new" works!
Perhaps this is all some kind of metacommentary on the frustrating inconsistency of U.S. copyright law, but I predict that MRT is going to be laughed out of court. In the meantime, if you want your Beatles music online, it's still available on BlueBeat as of the time I posted this. I didn't want to give the company a credit card to test the whether the downloads work, but the streams sound pretty close to perfect...especially considering that they're only psychoacoustic simulations.
Most of the audio engineers I've met--both home and professional--are Mac people, and Avid's ProTools running on a Mac is often cited as the industry standard. But there are Windows loyalists out there.
In late 2007 I took an introductory audio production class taught by David Huber (who wrote one of the bibles on the subject, "Modern Recording Techniques") and Scott Colburn (who has produced albums by The Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, and Sun City Girls, among many others). Both of them used Nuendo from Steinberg (which is basically the upmarket version of Cubase) as their primary digital audio workstation (DAW), and they ran it on a Windows PC.
Windows 7 should offer better performance for digital audio than Vista.
A Windows XP PC, that is. Both were very diplomatic when discussing software and other gear, but they expressed pretty serious reservations about Vista. Microsoft made a ton of changes in Vista that were supposed to improve performance, including moving certain audio capabilities out of the kernel, but these experts--whose livelihood depends on having a high-performing DAW--thought it was too untested and unknown.
Although they didn't say so, I imagine that the driver incompatibilities reported with other hardware could have been an absolute nightmare with all the gear in a professional recording rig. There were also reports of unstable MIDI timing, drop-outs, latency, and other problems (many of which were addressed by Service Pack 1). They weren't alone: the general advice for audio engineers on Windows was stick with XP. (If anybody had a success story using Vista to build a DAW, I'd love to hear about it in comments.)
In case you haven't heard, Microsoft releases a new version of Windows next week. I've been using the RTM version for a few weeks now and find it far more stable and inviting than Vista was at launch. (Although a colleague did uncover a gnarly power-management problem in Media Center related to a faulty audio driver.) Now, some of the audio experts are starting to weigh in, and it looks like the work Microsoft did to improve performance and compatibility with Windows 7 are paying off in the world of audio production.
Noel Borthwick, the chief technical officer for Cakewalk--which makes a wide variety of audio software for Windows, including the Sonar DAW line--has posted a blog entry describing how the new OS should dramatically reduce latency, particularly on x64 multicore processors. (Borthwick also went into more obsessive detail on Peter Kirn's Create Digital Music blog.) His conclusion: "I will be building a new DAW soon and Windows 7 X64 will be my OS of choice."
The long and short of it? If you're building a new recording system, Windows 7 sounds like a more reasonable choice than Vista. But if you've got a system that's already working well, don't mess with it--there still might be driver incompatibilities with older gear, and upgrades from Windows XP require a clean install, meaning your old settings will be lost and you'll have to reinstall your apps.
Correction, 2:34 PDT: This post incorrectly characterized the audio-related changes that Microsoft made in Windows Vista. Microsoft moved certain audio functions out of the kernel and into the user stack.
Microsoft is banking on multitouch support as one selling point for Windows 7, and HP--traditionally a loyal supporter of Microsoft's consumer strategy--is helping the push by releasing an update to its TouchScreen PCs.
The touch-enabled version of Rhapsody for HP's TouchSmart PCs lets you search by writing an artist's name on the screen.
HP has worked with several partners to create touch-enabled versions of various consumer entertainment apps, including Hulu, Netflix, and Pandora Internet Radio, but hard-core music fans will probably be most interested in the touch-enabled version of Rhapsody.
Among the cool features: you'll be able to write the name of an artist directly on the screen, and Rhapsody will take you to that artist's page so you can begin listening to their songs. (Check out the video demo on RealNetworks' blog.)
More generally, Rhapsody remains one of my favorite subscription-based services, with a great selection and strong editorial content. While my other favorite, Microsoft's Zune Pass, offers a slightly better deal with 10 free downloads per month in addition to unlimited streaming, Rhapsody works with Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch. The Zune Pass does not.
Unfortunately, the TouchScreen only comes with a 14-day free trial, which seems a bit paltry: earlier this month Dell announced it would ship some new consumer laptops with a one-year free subscription to Napster, which includes the right to download 60 permanent files over the course of the year.
The more time I spend with my Zune HD, the more I like it. Sound quality aside--and I know opinions differ dramatically here, but I'm stuck with my ears and my preferences--there are a bunch of features that make Apple's products seem like they've fallen behind the curve. Here are five things in particular that I miss when I use my iPhone or one of my iPods:
Zune Pass Apple has long maintained that people want to own rather than rent their music. I counter that a subscription-based music service, combined with a state-of-the-art player, is one of those features that you have to try before you realize how fantastic it is. It reminds me of the first time I beta-tested the Xbox Live gaming service back in 2002--I didn't understand how addictive online console gaming could be until I spent eight hours playing Moto GP without even looking at the clock.
Here are a couple of real-world examples from yesterday. First, a friend came over for brunch and we began talking about Gram Parsons, one of those towering influences whose music is sorely lacking in my collection. In the past, we might have talked for a minute, maybe gone online to hunt down some ancient YouTube videos, and then forgotten about it. But with the Zune Pass, we were able to walk over to the Zune HD (which I have plugged into a first-generation AV dock and connected to a Bose Wave player in my living room), connect to the Marketplace through my home Wi-Fi network, and sample a bunch of Gram Parsons songs while we ate.
A Zune Pass makes the Smart DJ function into a great music-discovery tool.
Later, I ripped the nervously funky Can LP "Ege Bamyasi" to my hard drive. Curious to discover some similar music, I used the Zune software's Smart DJ function, then listened as it drew music from the Marketplace that I don't know very well, like Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Gong, and my favorite discovery, Faust. Trying the same thing with iTunes' Genius function suggested plenty of new music from the iTunes Store but to hear it, I'd have to buy each song as a download. (Note: you can't create a Smart DJ playlist on the Zune HD device itself, although I expect that feature to be added later. Instead, you have to use the Zune software, then save it as a playlist.)
These are the kinds of music-discovery features that make the Zune Pass a great deal at $14.99 a month. And on top of that, each month you get 10 MP3 downloads to keep.
Quickplay This feature lets you "pin" favorite songs, albums, playlists, or other types of content to the front menu of the Zune HD. It also has a "New" section that automatically displays the six items you've most recently added to your collection, a "History" section that displays the last six things you've played, and a spot to access any currently playing song that you've paused. I miss this instant gratification, particularly quick access to recently added music, on the iPod.
Background art Remember how cool it seemed when you could first look at album covers as you played songs on your MP3 player? The Zune HD makes this seem hopelessly obsolete--instead, it scrolls through album art and pictures of the artist as each song plays. No purchase is required--it works even with the LPs I ripped. It's similar to how the Zune software (and iTunes) can populate your music collection with album art from a database in the cloud, only more sophisticated. (You can see this feature in action starting around 2:00 into this video demo.)
Wireless sync This feature has been part of the Zune experience since 2007, and once you get used to it, you'll hate dragging your iPod to your computer every time you want to load new music. Microsoft seems to have improved the sync experience in the Zune HD and Zune 4.0 software--all you have to do is leave the Zune HD's wireless connection on, and it will periodically sync automatically with your PC, even if you don't have the Zune app open.
See what my friends are playing Zune's social-networking functions haven't been very useful because of the relatively small number of people who own a Zune. I'm hoping this changes with the Zune HD. Already, the Gram Parsons fan says he's going to buy one. Once we connect to one another, I'll be able to see his playlists as he runs through Gram Parsons, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and all their musical neighbors. With a Zune Pass, I'll even be able to play any song that he's played, immediately, on my device, as long as it's available in the Marketplace. Again, this is an absolutely amazing tool for music discovery.
Apple's still riding high with the iPod, particularly the Touch, but the Zune HD is clearly moving ahead in terms of innovation. Now if Microsoft can open the Marketplace to third-party apps and fix the browser, Apple might have reason to worry.
Zune HD
(Credit: Microsoft)I find it hard to evaluate an MP3 player until I've lived with it for a little while. Specifications, demos, and even quick hands-on tests don't tell you the most important thing: how does it sound? Can you listen to it for an hour? A week? The rest of your life?
On Tuesday, I spent a few hours with the 32GB versions of Microsoft's new Zune HD and Apple's latest-generation iPod Touch. To me, these are the top-of-the-line competitors in the MP3 player market--if you're a serious music listener with nearly $300 to spend, these are your two choices.
On a straight specifications basis, each of them has clear advantages.
The iPod Touch excels as a portable multifunction computer, with tens of thousands of available applications, and it's the only choice for Mac users. The Zune HD has superior music-discovery features, particularly when used with a Zune Pass subscription. Plus, it has an HD Radio and a sophisticated desktop PC client that makes iTunes look stale.
On industrial design, I think they're about even--a commendable feat for Microsoft given how far behind the previous Zunes were. On user interface, the iPod Touch may be more intuitive at first, but the Zune HD is way cooler--I love the way artist images and words scroll across the background as you play a song--and gives you far more customization over the music-playing experience. (I'm amazed that the iPod Touch still doesn't have an easy way to add songs to a now-playing queue, for instance.)
But what about the actual sound? To try them out, I ran them into the audio input jack in my car, which is how I most often listen to portable music. I turned each device up to just below maximum volume (I've heard my iPhone distort at its max), and made sure the EQ settings were completely flat.
iPod Touch
(Credit: CNET)The Zune HD sounded very crisp and clean, with clear separation in the bass, but the midrange--guitar, vocals--didn't seem full or loud enough. When I turned it up to try and get a fuller sound, the treble became overwhelming.
The iPod Touch was noticeably louder at the same volume setting on the car stereo. The trebly parts--cymbals, high-hat, the squeak of a saxophone reed--were still distinct, but the bass sounded rounder and warmer, and the midrange (the most important spectrum when choosing audio gear) shone through. It made me realize how much sound was missing when I listened to the Zune HD.
The difference became most obvious when I took a couple songs--Radiohead's "How to Disappear Completely" and Mr. Bungle's NSFW funk-bizarro song "Squeeze Me Macaroni"--and listened to them back to back on each player. On the Zune HD, the acoustic guitar in the Radiohead song sounded clinky and thin, and the percussion in the Bungle song was unbearably high-pitched. On the iPod Touch, the guitar sounded like guitar and the percussion was complementary rather than overwhelming.
A few hours later, I tried a similar test through the relatively cheap headphones that come with the Zune HD. Here, the Zune fared a bit better--it sounded louder, so I didn't need to turn it up so much that the over-boosted treble hurt my ears--but there simply wasn't as much audio information coming through, especially at the low end.
Hearing is subjective--apparently younger listeners are beginning to prefer the "sizzle" of highly compressed MP3s, and one listener's "crisp" is another's "harsh." And I'm an analog fan, with far more records than CDs in my home collection. But to me, the Zune HD sounded pretty good, while the new iPod Touch is the best-sounding MP3 player I've ever heard, comparing favorably with a decent CD player.
Your lesson? Don't just read the specs and look at the interface before you buy an MP3 player. Spend some serious time listening to it, at volume.
Microsoft is making a selling point of the fact that the new Zune HD and associated software update are optimized for Windows 7, which is due out on October 22. I've got a copy of the final release code of Windows 7 on my work PC, and there is some useful synchronization between the two. For instance, the Quickplay menu in the Zune software--which lets you get immediately to music you've recently added, your Smart DJ stations, and any other favorites you want to "pin" to the list--is propagated into the Windows 7 Start menu. So even if you don't have the Zune software open, you can simply navigate to the Zune icon in the Start menu and all your Quickplay selections will show up.
The Zune software adds Quickplay selections to the Windows 7 Start menu.
Of course, Microsoft's had access to final Windows 7 code for a long time. But what about Apple? The company kindly sent me a new-model iPod Touch and Nano to test out, and I noticed that the boxes say they're compatible with Windows XP and Vista (and Mac OS X 10.4.11). Windows 7 isn't mentioned. I downloaded and installed iTunes 9 on my Windows 7 PC anyway, and I'm now happily syncing my music library. I haven't noticed any bugs or errors. (Your mileage may vary--this isn't a review, just my personal experience.) But this underscores my general impression of Windows 7 as a solid upgrade to Vista--not a fundamentally new OS, like Vista was to XP. As Microsoft has said, if your apps work with Vista, they'll almost surely work with 7.
Reverse-sync, one of my favorite features of the Zune software.
The more interesting question is how did I get my music library onto my work computer in the first place? Simple--the Zune software has, from the very beginning, had a reverse-sync feature. You simply drag all the songs from the Zune icon to the PC icon, and they go happily traversing your USB cable down into your PC. iTunes has no such reverse-sync, and in fact is pretty strict about only allowing you to sync with one library at a time, although there are plenty of third-party apps that can do it for you.
We've known the specs for the Zune HD since May, and I've even gotten a couple brief hands-on demonstrations, but I discovered a few more surprises in the run-up to the retail release Tuesday.
(Credit:
Microsoft)
My favorite surprise on the device was a new feature called Quickplay. It solves one of the greatest problems with an MP3 player: as you add more music, it gets harder to find and immediately start playing the songs you're most excited about. Quickplay basically adds an alternate menu on the Zune home screen--it appears as collection of small album covers, offset slightly to the left of the main start menu--which automatically displays songs you've most recently played, as well as songs you've most recently added. You can also manually "pin" songs and albums to the menu. I also liked the way images (such as artist photos) drawn from the Zune Marketplace and cached to your device gradually scroll across the screen as you play a particular song, giving you more to look at than a static album cover.
Within the Zune PC software, my favorite surprise was the Smart DJ feature, which sets up an endlessly rotating playlist based on a particular song or artist. Like a lot of other Zune features, it works best if you've got a Zune Pass (which costs $14.99 a month)--in this case, it'll rotate not only through songs in your collection but also through the millions of songs in the Zune Marketplace, delivering the same kinds of surprises that Pandora fans have grown to love. If you don't have the Zune Pass, it simply draws songs from your collection, similar to how iTunes Genius works (in this case, Marketplace songs are greyed out but clickable if you want to buy them).
Zune's Smart DJ feature put together this playlist based on The Pixies. Here, it's playing a song from the Zune Marketplace--a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Stone Free" by the group Belly.
There were also a couple of mild unfortunate surprises. First, Microsoft has removed the "squirting" feature, which let you send songs directly from one Zune to another. This feature was supposed to be a big selling point of the first Zune but was crippled by unreasonable rights restrictions that let you play songs only three times or within three days (whichever came first). Microsoft and content owners gradually loosened those restrictions, but the feature never made much difference--mainly because there were so few Zune users out there to exchange songs with. (The "first man with a telephone" problem.) Now it's gone. You can still share songs with your friends through the Zune's social-networking features--if you have a Zune Pass, then any song in any of your Zune contacts' library will be immediately playable on your machine--but that requires an active wireless connection and isn't quite as spontaneous as the Zune-to-Zune sharing. That said, I only used it a handful of times in the three years since I've had a Zune.
The other disappointment is the complete lack of a competitor to Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. There will be applications, including games, but Microsoft will release them directly to users through the Zune Marketplace or within software updates. There are no public APIs for developers, no distribution model, and more surprisingly, no immediate plans to connect to the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, Microsoft's app store for Windows Mobile phones, which launches on October 6. Why? Because Microsoft wants to build only one app store, and it can't be sure that apps built for Windows Mobile will work on the Zune HD.
There's plenty of other great stuff about the Zune HD, including a built-in HD Radio, bright touch screen, high-definition video output, and all the great wireless and social-networking features introduced in previous versions. It's the best Microsoft MP3 player yet and the first to pose a credible competitor to the iPod Touch, although it's still focused on digital audio and video, while the Touch (and iPhone) is more of a portable computer.
Be sure to check back later this week for the full updated review from CNET's Donald Bell, and we'll both be posting more personal impressions of the new device as we live and work with it throughout the coming weeks.
