X-bit labs

Creative MuVo TX FM Portable Audio Player: Miniaturization in Action! (page 3)

Category: Multimedia

by Sergey Samarin

[ 11/16/2004 | 11:16 PM ]

Performance Tests

I stumbled on the problem of support of certain audio formats by the player when trying to test it. Particularly, the Creative MuVo TX FM wouldn’t reproduce uncompressed WAV-files of Microsoft’s PCM format. It is in this format that all test signals I employ for testing portable audio players are stored in. An attempt to convert these files in other (compressed) formats leads to a distortion of the signal shape, i.e. to impossibility of examining the player’s characteristics. This is illustrated by the next spectrogram. The ideal 1kHz signal is marked in the lilac color, while the same signal converted in WMA is colored blue. As you see, even a slightest compression brings in a lot of distortion. So, no tests today.

Ideal test signal (lilac) against compressed “ideal” signal (blue)

I should also note that the player refused to work with the Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless format as well as with variable-bit-rate formats. This is certainly a disadvantage of the player, but maybe new versions of the firmware accessible via the Internet are going to add this functionality. In this review I’m just reporting of what I heard (or didn’t hear) with the current firmware version.

As for my subjective impressions from listening to the player, I have no complaints at all. The maximum volume is normalized and is free from overloads. It means the player will always give out a clear and powerful sound. The player is handy in use; the menu is intuitive. The only thing you might want is a quick select button for switching between the player and the FM receiver modes.