Creative DAP Review

This range of MP3 players has been superceded by players such as the Creative Zen Micro Photo 8gb and the Creative Zen Sleek 20GB.

This is a "Warts and All" review of the DAP range. We credit our customers with enough intelligence to make the right decision for themselves. On top of that we think that a 'warts and all' perspective, although commercially marginally less lucrative in the short term, is ultimately more informative and we hope this keeps our customers happy. These notes do include some reference to the new Creative NOMAD JukeBox3 20GB models, but are more specific to the earlier DAP models.

Who are Creative?

Creative have come into the Jukebox market from the PC-sound side of things. They make the most popular sound card and speaker packages on the market, so they have a lot of technical experience engineering sound. This is reflected in the quality of sound you get from their Jukeboxes. That does not mean that creative JukeBoxes have better sound than, say Archos, but it does mean that the sound is surprisingly good to anyone who comes to Jukeboxes from the Walkman side of things.

DAP Down sides:

Currently, Blue is the ONLY colour Jukebox available in Europe, but Creative are 'evaluating other colour schemes.'

If you are patient by nature you may not notice the fact that the Creative DAP JukeBoxes have a pretty slow reaction time. It takes 25 seconds to go through the introduction, every time you switch it on. During playback the player's resources are dedicated to smooth playback so it takes the machines a while to realise that you're asking it to do something new, such as skip to the next track.

Creative Labs products do not always get along with other PC components and drivers. Check the online forums at Creative before you buy to see if there are any potential conflicts with other equipment that you have, so that you could head the problems off before they materialize.

This does not mean that you are bound to (or even likely to) encounter any problems. Most people are fine!

There are some problems with the Creative D.A.P. remote control, which is still in testing and has not been distributed as yet.

Although the Players will work with Apple Computers, there is no WMA support or data transfer capability for Macs as yet. The DAP range is still fantastic for Mac users, but at the moment you do lose the WMA advantage.

Other Information

The software that the Creative Jukebox comes with has some useful features, like the ability to Rip from CD to WAV, WMA or MP3 at bit rates up to 320 kbps.

There are also a lot of audio effects; the kind of sonic jiggery pokery that Creative usually get up to. The ability to speed up/slow down the playback and the virtual 4-channel sound, for example. More choice with sound settings is generally better and Creative have decided to test that theory. We did not actually find all of the EAX functions useful. That does not mean that you will not find some of them very useful.

The buttons on the front of the player provide easy access to the normal music-player functions. Finding your way round the DAP is a bit quicker and more intuitive than the menu systems used on some other Players like the Archos Jukebox range.

The data noise rates on the Jukebox are better than most PC sound cards - i.e. you get a better quality of sound recording directly to the Player than you would if you recorded through your PC first. You can record stereo from any normal analog source through the Line-in jack at CD quality rates (16 bit, 44Khz - 48Khz), but only as a WAV- to convert it to MP3 you have to load it from your Jukebox to your computer and 'let rip' (use the encoding software).

This is different from the Archos Jukebox Recorder, or the new Creative NOMAD Jukebox 3 which have the ability to record to MP3 on the fly. Being able to record directly to MP3 would be a big advantage if you are using the Jukebox professionally. For DAP models you must first go back to your computer, then convert your recorded WAV files to MP3 (or other compressed format). For people who intend to use their Jukebox as a portable recording device and not just as a way of playing music from the internet, that may be an important consideration.

Creative also suggest using a pre-amp when recording from a microphone, or similar input source, to ensure that you record sounds at the right level.

At the moment, only MP3s ripped using the Creative software can be played back on the Jukebox (unless the player is connected to the computer at the time). I.e. you may have difficulty playing an MP3 downloaded from the Internet if you are away from your computer. This is the kind of thing that Creative might want to upgrade in a future firmware release. It is something that they have addressed with the new NOMAD JukeBox 3.

The software and DAP Jukebox come tooled up for DRM (Digital Rights Management - copyright protection) so you can load protected MP3s onto the player, but you can't copy that same MP3 back off your D.A.P.

Songs are organised by artist; genre; album, or title and you can use ID3V1/V2 to tag your tunes. You can create as many playlists as you like from your computer or directly on your Jukebox.

It is possible to use the Creative DAP range as a portable HD like you can with the Archos range. It requires a bit of a work-around though: Save non-music files (or rename them) as x.wav, and you can transport them too. Creative are working on making this a regular feature in future firmware upgrades so that you don't have to work around the problem.

Jogging

It is worth pointing out that although the 8MB DRAM is there to stop the music from skipping or getting 'shocked', Creative freely admit the Jukebox is not designed for jogging - either on or with.

How life has improved

Civilisation in the 21st century, because batteries ARE included. Not only that, the batteries are rechargeable and can be recharged in the Jukebox using the mains adapter supplied with all models, saving you money and the environmental waste of replacements. Well done Creative. It is worth noting that using any batteries other than the ones supplied with the Jukebox may void the warranty. Creative claim that fully charged batteries will allow your Jukebox about 4 hours playing time (except the Jukebox 3 which has up to 11 hours battery life).