Creative Nomad II Cont'd
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| Look at them Headphones... |
The most intriguing thing about the nomad is its superb remote unit, which is far superior to the remote that even Sensory Science provided. The slick and sexy remote sports very high quality buttons with the best tactile feedback Ive found on any such remote to date. The buttons extrude from the remote so much that they are a cinch to find, and their placement makes their use intuitive you can easily control the player by feel using the remote. The volume rocker actually adjusts the volume digitally, meaning that the player itself adjusts the volume level in response to your remote the Sensory Science remote uses an impedance variation to artificially adjust volume (so that the unit itself is not changing its output level, but rather the earphones are changing their sensitivity to decrease the output response). Best of all, the engineers design the remote to connect to the headphones with a standard 1/8 RCA input jack. This means that if you want, you can substitute the stock headphones with any earbuds or phones of your choice. This is far more convenient than what the MP2200 does with its inline remote, which is fused with the stock earbuds.
The Nomad II is the only player to come with headphones
not just earbuds, but real earphones they are a sweet pair of behind the ear headphones decked out in silver and polished plastic, definitely a pair of new age phones that look crazy cool.
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| Remote w/ Digital Audio Control |
Some of you may have issues going into public with a set of headphones that stand out so much, but if you like attention, these massive muffs will get you plenty of it. My first reaction when seeing the headphones was a mixture of pleasant surprise at its tech-chic design, and also a sense of dread
weve come across enough cool-looking gear to know that in many cases the sound quality is sacrificed over aesthetics. Not so in the case of these phones. The stock headphones were truly impressive in their audio quality, providing an even balance of clean and well rounded bass response with a nice and clear high end. Creative calls these Bass-Enhanced Stereo Backphones, and they certainly do a very good job of providing an even and appreciably powerful bass line. This comes as little surprise, considering their size, but still, it is nice that some time was put into the design of the headphones. The headphones did tend to clamp a little too tightly to my ears, and this caused some minor discomfort with extended use, but the audio quality was such that I was like ok, who cares.
The real treat began when we found out that the Nomad II produced the most beautiful, clear, and lively music of the entire roundup. Pair the great headphones with a great sounding player and you get some sound that rivals and beats nearly every other portable player I have EVER come across, whether they be ancient tape players, CD portables, MD portables, or MP3 portables. Pimp out the tunes at higher volumes, and you begin to get a true appreciation for the clarity of the entire setup. I was mesmerized by a level of detail in stringed instruments that is hard to pick out in portable music. I was bombarded with percussions that were just so, which was a fresh change from the often sharp and harshly strident clash of percussions that many portable player/earbud combos tend to present.
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| Where does the card go? |
Vocals were clear and pretty localized, and stereo separation was above par (the Rio 500 had a more pronounced stereo separation). In the end, it was the well behaved bass that wins you over. I tried the Nomad II with my best earbuds, and the bass that it cranked was a whole new experience unto itself I dont think that I will ever get over the sense of depth and body that the bass had dont confuse bass from portable music with bass from a well planned home system because the home system would trash the most heavenly of portables
but the Nomad II definitely did the portable music industry proud in this one area. I was so very glad to find that the performance on the low-end didnt compromise the quality of high-end that I was momentarily stunned by the whole experience Creative did an excellent job of merging a great sounding player with headphones, it is a really great match-up.
The Creative Nomad II is really quite the player. There is no doubt that it packs the most punch for your dollar it is comparable in price to the other players in the roundup, has a very polished software bundle, is feature rich, and has the best overall audio quality of the bunch. By all accounts the player is a winner, and only its lack of memory expandibility, slightly clunky D-pad button, and slight audio artifacts during some operations could mar an otherwise A plus product.
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