To buy or not to buy?
Written: Apr 12 '01
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Pros: Great storage capabilities and easy interface
Cons: Somewhat lagging software, playlists are limited
The Bottom Line: If you are looking for a fast downloading, and affordable mp3 player, stop looking and try the Archos Jukebox 6000.
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| mikezepato's Full Review: Archos Jukebox Studio (20 GB) MP3 Player |
The Jukebox 6000 is a 6GB hard drive based mp3 player made by the computer company Archos. It seems that many of the hard drive based mp3 players that come out are made by computer companies rather than companies that have already created a lot of audio products (Sony, Panasonic, Phillips, etc.)
Archos is mostly know for making some of the worlds smallest Notebook And Desktop Peripherals. This is their first attempt in making a MP3 player.
First some Specs.
Weight: 290g (12oz)
Drive Capacity: 6GB
Interface: USB
Transfer Rates 1.15Mbps
OS supported: Mac & PC
Battery Life: 6-8 Hours (on 4 AA NiHM batteries)
Bitrates supported: Everything including VBR
Size: 4.5 x 3 x 1 Inches
Display: Backlit LCD with ID3 Tag Support.
Head Phone output (called ear on the unit)
Line Out (hook it up to your home stereo or car)
Line In (allows you to listen to other devices, NOT record)
DC power input
If your like me, you want a lot of music in one portable storage device. My first MP3 device was a RAVE MP media player with a whopping 32megs of ram. This allowed me to store about 30 minutes of music. It was a cool device but you can get sick of the mp3s on your small player real fast. After the newness factor wore off it sat on my shelf collecting dust. The next thing that came along that sparked my attention was the first true MP3/CD player to hit the market, the El Cheapo Genica MP3 Player. I then spent a lot of time burning MP3 Cds and trying to somehow organize my music on different discs. Even though I was able to put 160 MP3 Songs on a disc, it was still annoying using CDs. The worst thing was finding a MP3 file that was corrupted on one of your CDs. I then had to go back to the computer and reburn the entire CD with the corrected file. There had to be a better way.
When I was at Comdex one year I saw the first portable Hard Drive based mp3 player, the PJB-100. It was everything I wanted, long battery life, lots of storage, and a LCD screen to show you your tunes. I was really disappointed to find out the cost was so much (over $700) but that is the price you pay to have the latest and greatest. Other hard drive based MP3 players started popping up including the Creative NoMad Jukebox and the Neo 25. The NoMad Jukebox was a turnoff because it was so big and you had to use some silly software to put files on the device. You also could not use it for a portable storage device since you could only copy files on to it.
The 6000 comes in an attractive looking box that actually looks pretty good. After I admired the box for about 2 seconds I open it up to see what goodies where inside. Inside I found everything you would basically want.
The contents include.
Archos MP3 Player with 6 Gig Hard
Very bright blue carrying case made of wet suit material
Sport style head phones
Power Supply so you can plug the 6000 into the wall and charge the batteries
USB cable to hook up the 6000 to your USB port on your computer (Mac or OS).
4 NiMH batteries
Manuals that give you the basics
CD with USB drives and Music Match software to make mp3s
The first thing you will notice about the Archos Jukebox 6000 (which I will call the 6000 from now on) is the small size. This is the main thing that attracts people to the 6000. Nobody likes to carry around an electronic brick unless you are a major geek and still wear a calculator watch that covers half of your arm which makes you look like the Borg. When I first opened up the box of the 6000 and saw the player, I was surprised they were able to fit a lap top hard drive inside. Every hard drive based player that I have seen has been much bigger. The only thing I found missing that I would want, is a cigarette lighter adapter for my car. I am sure that they will be releasing one in the near future.
Because I knew I was writing a review, I decided to break my long tradition and read the manual before I did anything. When I opened it, I found an Addendum added to help explain errors in the manual. It seems that the Archos was original going to ship with NiCAD batteries (ACK!) but luckily they were smart enough to get rid of that idea and use NiMh batteries which last much longer. After taking about 30 seconds to read the manual I decided that I knew enough and fired the 6000 up.
After spending about a minute playing with it I was able to start having it play music (they include 3 songs on the player) but had no idea how to control the volume and could not figure how to turn the unit off. I then went back to the manual and read how to control it. Everything is controlled with the use of the 6 buttons on the front. To change the volume you have to go in to the menu. I found this a little strange and wished they included a little analog wheel on the side so I could just spin it and not have to think about menus. After adjusting the volume all the time you quickly learn the steps to adjust the volume (Menu/Play/+ or - ) and now I can do it pretty easily. To turn the unit off, you hold down the stop button for about 2 seconds. UPDATE: With the latest version of firmware you can now press down the ON button and use the + and - buttons to chagne volume, a nice new feature.
It takes a little while to learn how to get around on the archos but you can move around quickly once you learn the functions. When showing it to friends they wanted to start playing with the buttons and I always had to show them how to get around and adjust the volume. Now that I have been using the player for awhile, getting around on the device is not a problem at all.
The 6000 came with a pair of sport style headphones that wrap around the back of the neck. I found these to be quite comfortable and they actually sounded pretty good compared to other headphones that are bundled with MP3/CD players. The headphones are the kind that stick in your ear and you will either love them or hate them. Since the headphone jack on the 6000 is a standard 1/8 phono headphone jack, you can use any head phones you want.
If you plan on doing sport actives such as jogging or biking, you will like the included carrying case. The carrying case is made of a wet suit like material and has a belt loop on the back side. The top of the carrying case has a zipper to keep the 6000 inside the case. There is no way the 6000 would be able to fall out of the pouch. The manual says to put the 6000 in upside down but I found that it always played no matter what position I put the player in.
NiHM batteries are included with the 6000 and will last around 6-8 hours depending on how much it has to access the hard drive. I was able to get about 6.5 hours out of the unit playing 160kbps mp3s. The 6000 has 2 megs of buffer ram so it does not have to spin the hard drive all the time making the batteries last longer. I found that the hard drive would spin up for about 3 seconds every 60 seconds when playing 128kbps files. When playing 320kbps files it would have to spin up every 20 seconds. The higher bitrate your files are, the shorter the battery life. Most people seem to get about 7-8 hours when playing standard 128kbps files.
To charge the batteries you just plug in the Power Adapter to the bottom of the 6000. It takes around 5-6 hours to charge. The manual talks about about a wired remote so you can control the 6000 but there was not one included, Archos has said a remote will be available later.
It seems like the 6000 was not designed to change the batteries. To remove the batteries you have to use a small screwdriver or a small tool to remove the sides. It is about impossible to do it by hand (I was able to do one side after much work by hand). Its not very hard to remove them when you use a small screw driving but having to always have one around when you want to change them can be a pain. Luckily the batteries last a long time on the player and most people will never have to swap them out. Just make sure you plug your player in at night if you use it during the day.
Transferring mp3 files to the 6000 was pretty easy since it shows up as a hard drive on your computer. I have always hated using mp3 players that require you to use their software to load mp3s on the player like the Nomad Jukebox. I plugged the 6000 into my laptop with the included USB cable and pressed the ON button. My laptop saw the USB device and asked me for the drivers. I put in the CD and in a few seconds the 6000 showed up as a drive letter on my computer. Copying files were as easy as drag and drop. Since I already knew how to copy files around, I did not need to learn some priority software. Because the Archos acts like a hard drive, it is possible to copy any kind of files TO and FROM it (MP3s, Word Files, JPG, etc.). This is good if you want to transfer files between home and work. 6GB USB hard drives are around $250 so paying $100 more for a portable USB drive that plays mp3s is a pretty good deal! After you are done copying your files, you shut off the 6000 by holding down the stop button and unplugging the USB cable. I found transferring files to the 6000 very easy to to do.
Included on the CD is a copy of Music Match which allows you to create mp3s files from your CDs. I messed around with it a little and it seemed to work fine. I prefer to use other software that allows me to control the ripping process more but Music Match is a great piece of software for those that need a simple process to convert their CDs to MP3s. I am very glad they included Music Match instead of Real Player Jukebox made by the evil company Real which likes to know every little thing about you and will put you on every mailing list in the world. You can't tell I dislike Real Audio, can you? :)
After I loaded on my music (New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Trance music, etc.) I started to listen to the player with the included headphones. It sounded pretty good and most people would be happy with the results. There were some distortion bugs when the unit first came out when using the EQ but Archos has released new firmware that fixes it and the sound is a lot better than it use to be.
I wanted to know how much of a difference the sound was on the 6000 compared to other hard drive based mp3 players. To test the difference I copied the same mp3s files to the 6000 and a Neo 25. I started them at the same time and adjusted the volume so it was about the same loudness. I was then able to switch my head phones back and forth between players (I used the ones that came with the 6000). I have to admit that the Neo 25 sounded a little fuller but it was not a huge difference. If I was picking a player only based on sound, I would choose the Neo 25 over the 6000, but the sound quality was not such a huge difference that I would decided against the 6000.
If you want the best sound possible from the 6000 and money is no object, I would recommend getting the Bose Acoustic Noise Canceling headset which cost $299. These headphones are amazing and can make anything sound good. I tested out a pair with the 6000 and was totally blown away by the sound quality. The reason why they sound so good is because they amplify the audio signal for the headphones so it does not depend on the internal amplification in the 6000 (You can even plug them into the line out jack on the 6000). Another major advantage of using these head phones is that it will cancel out the sounds around you. One downside of using these headphones is they require batteries. They last around 80 hours on 2 AAA batteries. If you plan on using the 6000 while traveling on a airplane, you should look into these head phones. You may be able to find other Noise canceling head phones that are cheaper but be sure they self amplify the audio signal.
My next test was to hook up the 6000 to my home stereo. I was very impressed on how well it sounded. The quality was about the same as any other well built MP3 player. If you plan on using this with your home stereo, you will be very pleased with the sound quality.
After I got done playing with the 6000 on my home stereo it was time to see how well it performed in the car. I was able to connect the line out on the 6000 to the Aux input on my car stereo. Just like my home stereo, it sounded very nice. I usually use my Neo 35 in my car and the sound quality was about the same. Because the 6000 is so small, I was able to put the player on my dash and it was easy to control while driving. It was a little hard to see the LCD screen while driving, but was not a big deal since I had a bunch of music cued up.
The playback works on a directory system much like your hard drive. You organize your music by putting your mp3 files in folders and sub folders. I created folders with names such as 70s, 80s, Trance, Classical, Disco, etc. and then placed my music in sub folders.
Every time you turn on the 6000, it places you in the root of the hard drive. You can then use the - and + buttons to move between folders and mp3 files. Once you have the folder you want, you press the play button and it will go into that folder. To move to the parent folder (one folder up) you press the stop button. The LCD display has two lines that it can display characters on. The 1st line shows you the folder and mp3 names and 2nd line shows you information on where you are on the hard drive and displaying the time of a song while its playing. It displays a little icon on the 2nd LCD line depending on what you have selected.
Folder Icon - Folder
Music Icon - MP3 File
Playlist Icon - Playlist File.
One feature I found very useful is it will show you how many mp3s or folders are in the current folder and at what position you are at. For an example. If I had 36 folders and I was on folder number 10 it would display 10/36. It will also tell you how many folders deep you are by using a UP arrow icon with a number.
If a mp3 file or folder name will not fit on the LCD display, it will scroll the name which is very useful. When it starts playing a mp3 file it will read the title ID tag in the mp3 file and display it. You can not display other information in the ID tag such as Artist or Album. They may be able to add this feature in a future firmware update.
The 6000 was able to play every mp3 I was able to throw at it. I tried bitrates from 22 to 320 and it was able to play them all including Variable Bit Rate mp3 files. The only problem I found was the time on the LCD would count very fast with VBR MP3s. It seems that a lot of other MP3 players on the market that have this exact same problem.
I created a few playlist with Winamp and the 6000 was able to access the playlist and play them fine. One thing I found kind of annoying is every time you turn the 6000 off and back on, it does not remember where you where. It will place you in the root of the hard drive when you turn it on. The Neo 25 also did this when they first came out but they were able to fix it in firmware updates and hopefully they will add this feature in the next firmware update.
When pressing the menu button it will display the following features.
Volume
You will be using this one the most. I found it kind of strange that they put the volume in the menu instead of having their own dedicated buttons but once you get use to it, it is not that hard to change the volume.
Sound
Bass, Treble, Flat (Flat puts the settings back to 0)
Play Mode
Normal, Repeat All, Single, Shuffle, Scan
Language
English, France, Dutch (more languages coming in firmware updates)
Hard Disk
Shows you the free diskspace in the form of "Free (MB): 5068/5717"
Diagnose
Hard Disk OK
Firmware
Show the what version of firmware you have loaded on your unit.
External
MP3 (norm)
Line IN
Contrast
0-15
When the Archos first came out in December of 2000 there were a few bugs but they have since fixed them.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 349
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Epinions.com ID:
mikezepato
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Reviews written: 1
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