Anyone here that doesn't care about the lack of an EQ/Smart Playlist/Star Rating

[Iceman0124]

The lack of EQ really worried me at first, after a few days with my 80, I dont care, it really doesnt need it. Everything I've played from mellow acoustic,to jazz, to various styles of metal, blues, videos whatever all sounds clear and natural, not sure how they do it, but its a hands down winner in sound quality in my book.

[rayman22]

The lack of EQ really worried me at first, after a few days with my 80, I dont care, it really doesnt need it. Everything I've played from mellow acoustic,to jazz, to various styles of metal, blues, videos whatever all sounds clear and natural, not sure how they do it, but its a hands down winner in sound quality in my book.

the sound quality is way better then any ipod in my book

[DJ Labyrinth]

According to one of the podcasts covering the Zune, the EQ is a hardware component, and was not built into the Zune 80.  Thus, no firmware update can add it.  They were pretty critical of this design choice.

[M.J]

According to one of the podcasts covering the Zune, the EQ is a hardware component, and was not built into the Zune 80.  Thus, no firmware update can add it.  They were pretty critical of this design choice.

I've thought about that too. It's very similar too my fathers stereo system. The amplifier and EQ are seperate units.

[WillysJeepMan]

It is painfully obvious that techies are NOT Microsoft's target audience for the v2 Zunes.  Nothing wrong with that, but it would've been nice for MS to reveal that change in direction via press releases and marketing.  They turned left while we were still going straight. 

That's why there's so much frustration. 

[M.J]

It is painfully obvious that techies are NOT Microsoft's target audience for the v2 Zunes.  Nothing wrong with that, but it would've been nice for MS to reveal that change in direction via press releases and marketing.  They turned left while we were still going straight. 

That's why there's so much frustration. 

It doesn't matter if the Z4/8 doesn't have an EQ because it's mostly a device for the "mass". The main Z80 clientele are geeks, audiophiles and power users, and those are people that want an EQ and know how to properly use one. MS made a mistake on that one and the fact that is kept us under the dark until the last minute isn't very nice.

[SeaLevel]

The lack of EQ really worried me at first, after a few days with my 80, I dont care, it really doesnt need it. Everything I've played from mellow acoustic,to jazz, to various styles of metal, blues, videos whatever all sounds clear and natural, not sure how they do it, but its a hands down winner in sound quality in my book.

Agreed. I consider myself picky when it comes to the sound quality and I'm fine not having an EQ on my Zune 80. All the different music genres I have listened to sound great.

[Eternalodyssey]

I never really gave a crap about the star rating or the rediculous hearts. I wish that we had the ability to make playlists on the fly from within the device itself though. And I really think that having an equalizer on-board is a good idea to stick with as well.

[volvozuner]

I don't know why everyone is throwing such a fit.
I personally love the new rating system (no pun intended) i ether love or hate the songs. So MS made it simple
as for an EQ, I never use it on  My 30 so it's no big deal .
As for the play lists I like to make my own.

[WillysJeepMan]

I don't know why everyone is throwing such a fit.
I personally love the new rating system (no pun intended) i ether love or hate the songs. So MS made it simple

Yeah, because limiting your use of the 5-star ratings to 1 and 5 is too difficult. 

[scarface_74]

Smart playlist are much more important than just ratings.

I have a 60GB iPod that holds most  of my music and 1GB Nano just for working out mostly.  The 1GB Nano holds 882MB of data when formatted for Fat32.  I also have playlists  of about 500 songs -- and growing -- I want to listen to when working out (Workout Songs) and more mellow songs Jazz, R&B, Soft Rock  (Mellow) .  I don't want to have to adjust the playlists every day.

I have two smart playlist created with the following criteria.

Nano Workout
-Playlist is "Workout Songs"
-Ratings > 3 stars
-Skip Count < 3
-Selected by Least Played
-Limit to 700MB

Nano Slow Jams
-Playlist is "Mellow"
-Ratings > 3 stars
-Skip Count < 3
-Selected by Least Played
-Limit to 170MB

I have these two playlists set to autosync to the Nano.

These two playlists automatically do the follwing --
-It keeps the ratio of workout songs and slow songs as desired
-It automatically removes songs from the Nano that I skip a lot or rate low.
-It automatically keeps fresh music on my Nano by keeping the least frequently played songs on it.

For those who don't know, iTunes keeps tracks of all of these statistics whether the music is played/rated/skipped on the Nano or on iTunes.

[scarface_74]

The EQ is also important. 

Most of the time I'm listening to music, it's not via the headphone.  I'm riding in the car or have it connected to another stereo system.  Anytime that I'm having to connect the iPod via the headphone jack instead of the dock -- which provides line level output -- I'm always having to adjust the bass or the treble

[berfles]

I don't understand why you'd need 5 point ratings.  If you give a song a 1-3, why the hell would it be on there?  I only put music on that I love, not music that I don't like.

[kenshinakh]

Plus, if it is a song you don't like, why would you need something to tell you that you don't like it? LOL.

[cellocello]

Plus, if it is a song you don't like, why would you need something to tell you that you don't like it? LOL.

So you like every last song on your zune exactly equally, eh? 

[scarface_74]

I don't understand why you'd need 5 point ratings.  If you give a song a 1-3, why the hell would it be on there?  I only put music on that I love, not music that I don't like.

My case is a little unique -- I am a part time fitness instructor.  I have a lot of songs on my iPod/in Itunes that I personally don't care for but I use in cycling classes because it's music that the class likes.  I also have music that I would not want to listen to outside of class -- like DJ mixed aerobic music.  That's also why I need gapless support.

[kenshinakh]

Plus, if it is a song you don't like, why would you need something to tell you that you don't like it? LOL.

So you like every last song on your zune exactly equally, eh? 

Nope, I just happen to remember all the songs ratings I give it. In my head, I don't give stars, I just give it what I think of it. Its abstract, but I always know which songs I like more, because for my rank system to work, I would need 100 stars lol.

[vitor.fadel]

i dont care about any of those features... i dont use them...