JetAudio iAudio U2 MP3 Player

Reviews: Multimedia

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Nicholas Hart
Kurtis
JetAudio
Nov. 5, 2004

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Testing

The last, and only, flash-based MP3 player I reviewed was the Mushkin 128MB model. Therefore, my comparisons will be based on that unit. I'm hoping to build up a comparison base, but for right now I have to live with what I've got.

First things first, I have to charge the player before I can use it. The player charges through the USB port and its charge time is rated at two hours. I can vouch for that number as the charger indicated it was ready to go in about that time after every charge. While charging I went ahead and copied files to the player. This is the 256MB model, but only 245MB is actually available for use. The Mushkin player took nine minutes to copy 119MB of files. With USB 2.0, I copied 239MB of files to the iAudio U2 player in less than three minutes. That is definitely an acceptable amount of time and shouldn't have you pacing back and forth waiting for the copy to finish.

With charging completed and some songs loaded up, I went ahead and started playing around with settings and playback mode. For controls, there's a small joystick with the standard up/down/left/right action as well as the ability to be pressed in. The play and record button are pretty self-explanatory most of the time, but the record button also doubles as the "back' button when navigating menus. The interface took a little bit to figure out, but wasn't quite up to RTFM levels. All of the menu items are in text which is a good thing because there are a heck of a lot of items to choose from. As an example, under the "JetEffect' menu there is Equalizer, BBE, Mach3Bass, MP Enhance, 3D Surround and Pan. Each of these has a marked effect on the quality of the sound and with them you should be able to tune the player to suit your listening preferences.

To test out the battery life, I set the player to randomly play MP3s and set the volume to half. All other settings were left to defaults and I should probably note that the MP3s were all encoded at 192kbps as I'm told that makes a difference. The iAudio website states that battery life should be approximately 20hrs (according to their internal testing). I achieved 16 hours over the course of two days; I didn't want to stay up all night so I turned it off and resumed the next day. Granted, that's not continuous play time, but it's close enough and should more closely mimic actual usage. Either way, the rechargeable battery provides plenty of play time and is much better than spending your money on alkalines.

For the listening portion of the test, I ran through my normal group of Tori Amos, Korn, Cake, George Acosta, Phil Collins, Smashing Pumpkins, Blue Man Group etc. Essentially I copy some files and listen to those and then the next day listen to some others. The headphones included with the iAudio U2 are the same as what came with the other iAudio players, Cresyn AXE2 Earbuds. Of course these aren't going to be top of the line headphones, but they are worlds better than the ones included with the Mushkin or Creative Zen NX which I have previously tested. Upon turning on the player and listening to even the first few seconds of the included iAudio demo song "Friends and Lovers' I was blown away. I didn't know bundled headphones could sound so good. There was nothing tinny about the sound and there was *gasp* bass! I'm sure you could find some higher quality headphones if you wanted to spend the money, but in my opinion the included headphones are very good.

I also plugged the player into the Logitech Z640 speakers I have on my desk to see how the sound would compare. The volume level that worked fine for the headphones was barely a peep on the desktop speakers and I had to turn them up quite a bit to get a normal volume. This is actually a testament to the efficiency of the Cresyn headphones and of course their extreme proximity to your eardrums. With proper volume adjustment, the sound quality on the desktop speakers was very good; the iAudio U2 is definitely a quality player with great sound. Keep in mind that this is all at default EQ settings; there are plenty of adjustments that can be made should you find the sound not to your liking.

Say what you will, but I'm a fan of the Howard Stern show yet can only listen to it while I'm in my car. I was very excited at the prospect of being able to tune-in and listen while at work using the iAudio U2 FM tuner functionality. The tuner is a bit weak, the signal fuzzed out a lot while walking through the building to my lab. I also had some trouble when I was sitting at my desk. I did the "wave around in the air like a crazy man' test listening for a clear spot and was lucky enough to find that when it sits on the shelf above the desk, the reception is pretty clear. When walking around outside or just in my house, I had no problems.

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Page 1: Introduction & The Package
Page 2: Checking Things Out
Page 3: Testing
Page 4: Software
Page 5: Conclusion

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50 User Comments

1 - Posted by Guest on November 30, 2004 - 4:12 pm

This review convinced me on my purchase of a U2 1gb player. I was very impressed with all the detail the review had listed. It made me feel like I was trying the product without having to take the risk of actually buying it first. Gary, Chicago, Illinois

2 - Posted by Guest on December 12, 2004 - 12:40 pm

Great review! I looked into ordering online the 1GB size, but wasn't sure what came with it. The pictures & descriptions helped alot. I didn't realize 'till I saw this web site that it was charged from the USB port. I checked out Best Buy store, they sell different brands, but from the excellent description here, I ordered the iAUDIO 1GB for my daughter for Christmas. Thanks.

3 - Posted by Guest on December 17, 2004 - 12:39 pm

Good review. Keep it up. About the only thing I'm still unsure about is whether this has a built-in mic for live recording. I'm guessing it does, as I see a small hole in the pics on the back that says "mic." But no review I've yet read tells. Great detailed review, however. Thanks

4 - Posted by Guest on December 18, 2004 - 12:58 pm

Am I correct in that this will ONLY charge from a USB? Is there really no way to charge this away from a computer? I'm going to be disappointed if so, I had pretty much decided to get the 1GB version before I read this review. I'm realy grateful to find this out, though, before I bought it!

5 - Posted by Guest on December 23, 2004 - 11:54 pm

I bought the 1 GB version which was initially just fine however I have had two incidents where the audio player simply froze within 2 weeks of the purchase. The first time around, I don't think I did anything to precipitate the problem. Hitting the reset button fixed the issue. The second time around, I had the misfortune to leave the player connected to my PC while I shut the PC down. Hasta la bye-bye baby! The screen went blank and no amount of powering down or resetting helped the problem. The Jet Audio customer support people were unhelpful and in the end, I had to send it back to them. They did something to it that they either can't or won't explain to me and then returned it. The player seems to work fine but it really bugs me to have to pay $10 to ship it to them when it seems like somebody could just tell me what to do.

In short, great feature set, brittle product, abysmal customer support. Kurtis, I'd like to suggest that the standard testing include a few extra scenarios to see how the product handles it....

1. Disconnect the device without going through the windows "stop external device" business. I've had one MP3 player (the Philips/Nike one lock up on this and never come back...had to be replaced).

2. Shut the PC down while the player is still attached and see what happens. It's not a "happy" test case but it does, I think give us some idea of how well the player is engineered.

3. Call customer support and see what kind of help you get.

Just my 2 cents worth...I still have the player and plan on continuing to use it...but I also understand that it's not all that robust and needs special care.

6 - Posted by Guest on December 24, 2004 - 3:32 pm

Thanks for the prompt feedback gents.

"There is always going to be a bum unit in any production line...you can't make a generalization about all of them with a single experience." Well, fair enough. That works both ways though. You have a happy data point and I have an unhappy one. Which one represents the general case? We're both a little shy of having a statistically significant sample :)

"...I even took it apart." Wish I had thought of that. I'll bet that JetAudio simply took the player apart and removed the battery to do a hard reset. For the cost of shipping, I could have bought a watchmaker's screwdriver.

I was honestly trying to suggest additional tests for the review process. Sounds like you do 'em already so we're good to go there (although it would be handy for us review readers to know that you had done them). I certainly did not mean to imply that you guys look at products through rose colored sunglasses.

Merry Christmas.

7 - Posted by tedp on December 26, 2004 - 11:00 am

Has anyone tried the v1.21 firmware upgrade for the iAudio U2? Looks like it adds some worthwhile new functionality.

8 - Posted by tedp on December 28, 2004 - 11:37 am

Fair enough. I've just been through the upgrade process. It's fairly painless => you download an upgrade progam, install it on your PC and have it load the firmware. More when I've had a chance to play with it.

9 - Posted by Guest on December 29, 2004 - 12:07 pm

Bought a U2 for my 13 year old son for Christmas. He has already updated the firmware solo. Only complaint is that all of his music files are RealAudio format and there doesn't seem to be any way of converting them to usable formats for the U2.

Any ideas?

10 - Posted by Guest on December 29, 2004 - 1:27 pm

Thanks, we'll give it shot. But we tried a couple of conversion options and came to the conclusion that Real uses some sort of conversion-lock on its music files.
Seems pretty short-sighted to me, since many players (including the U2) don't play RA files.

11 - Posted by Guest on December 29, 2004 - 2:50 pm

They're .RAs, and actually show up as ".RAX" I'm guessing the 'x' indicates some sort of encryption/protection that prevents conversion...sound about right?

It's really no big deal. He's been using Real as his source for music downloads. The work-around is that Real does allow for CD burning, so any of this stuff that's burned can be converted to MP3 from the CD. Just can't be directly downloaded from the computer...

12 - Posted by Guest on December 29, 2004 - 9:11 pm

That's exactly what he's doing. And, I'd guess, what many others will be doing, too. Maybe someday soon the folks at Real will get the message and change the way they do business. Until then, they're going to lose lots of income. There are just too many alternatives to waste time with a format that's not easily adapted...

And getting back to the U2 -- other than this problem (which wasn't the U2's fault at all), my son is really pleased with this player. In addition to updating the firmware, he also switched out the logo for an alternate animation at the JetAudio site.

One minor thing he was not thrilled with was the ear-bud headphones that came with the U2. Said they hurt his ears, so he's using a more-comfortable set.

13 - Posted by Guest on January 4, 2005 - 12:11 am

Great review guys. I'm considering the purchase of my first mp3 player and the U2 is near the top of my list. When you tested it, did you recall whether or not you can use the "shuffle" feature within a particular music folder, or are you forced to shuffle through all of the files you have loaded on the player? Thanks!

14 - Posted by Guest on January 4, 2005 - 3:12 pm

i was wondering how many songs (roughly) a 1 GB iAudio might be able to contain?

15 - Posted by Guest on January 8, 2005 - 2:59 pm

I was ready to buy one based on your report. Then I found the price on a 1Gb model, & sticker shock hit. I can buy a SanDisk 1 Gb player for @ $100 less.

16 - Posted by tedp on January 10, 2005 - 12:06 pm

I've played around with the firmware upgrade (upgrade to v1.21) a little bit now. It's not quite as significant as I thought it was unless you happen to listen to audio books whose CD's are one big track or Billy Connolly (same problem). Then the ability to set bookmarks is really handy...especially if two people are sharing the player. The clock I feature I could take or leave. The bugs fixed in v1.21 never happened to me so they were a no-op as far as I was concerned.

17 - Posted by tedp on January 21, 2005 - 11:31 am

I just had the same problem the unregistered guy up reported (U2 hung after a PC reboot, can't reset).

18 - Posted by Guest on January 22, 2005 - 9:07 pm

Excellent review of this mp3 player. I purchased a 1GB player a couple of weeks ago based mainly on the reviews on this site and am very happy with it. (I particularly like the setion where you show what comes in the box!) I've been using the player at the gym (FM and MP3), in flight, and at home with great results. The only nits I have to pick with it are that the player sometimes mixes up the order of the songs when you load them on (very minor point) and that the cover to the USB port feels like it will break with prolonged use. THanks for the quality report!

19 - Posted by QuickBen on January 30, 2005 - 7:41 am

Going to NYC next week and looiking to pick up a U2. Anyone know of a retailer that carries the U2 on Manhattan?
Thanks

20 - Posted by QuickBen on January 30, 2005 - 6:35 pm

I'm only in the US for a week, and customs/shipping makes it not worthwhile buying it from a US online store.

21 - Posted by KeltinGermany on February 2, 2005 - 2:15 pm

Is there an advantage to having the recording / direct encoding function within the MP3 player? I presently use software (Polderbits) to encode analog music files -transferring them from a cassette player to my computer via the microphone port. Would I be able to do this more quickly or more skillfully with something like the Jet Audio iAudio U2?

22 - Posted by Guest on February 5, 2005 - 3:56 pm

Great review and comments. I am looking to buy my first mp3 flash player and have narrowed it down to the the iaudio u2 or the iriver ifp790. I am a little confused as to whether the recordings I make using the line-in function or FM tuner can be uploaded to my computer. I would like to record radio and other audio to be used in other applications. According to the iriver site, this cannot be done. Can iaudio do this? Your thoughts/suggestions/models?

23 - Posted by Guest on February 5, 2005 - 11:40 pm

Great! You have helped me make my decision! P.S. I just stumbled onto this site and now it is bookmarked...thanks!

24 - Posted by Guest on February 9, 2005 - 12:56 am

Since you guys have tested both players, which would you recommend, the U2 or iaudio 4? Also I was wondering if you'll be coming out with the iaudio 5 review anytime soon? I definitely want one of the three and was hoping your advice would help.

Thanks!

25 - Posted by DarkMystik on February 9, 2005 - 2:51 pm

Hello~! *^^* This seems like a really nice player to get. I was looking around at other opinions and I came across a comment:
"just so you know, the U2 is not compatible with online stores that use protected WMAs, which is most of them. i learned this firsthand"

I'm confused!! Help? ^^;; Thanks~! =)

26 - Posted by DarkMystik on February 9, 2005 - 5:22 pm

wahhh!! thanks for the super duper fast response =)

woooo, i didn't know that getting music at online stores meant that there were extra "security" measures such as protected WMAs that won't play on certain MP3 players =p okie dokie~! i think i'll stay away from those online music stores then ^^ thanks for the tip *^^*

27 - Posted by Guest on February 19, 2005 - 2:32 am

Does anyone know if there's a belt clip you can use with this player? I know there's a belt loop but it doesn't help when wearing shorts.

28 - Posted by Guest on February 20, 2005 - 2:41 am

is it possible to opt for an armband instead of a necklace? and roughly how much does the 1GB player cost? thanks!

29 - Posted by Guest on March 7, 2005 - 6:33 pm

awesome review! this is definitely the one i want to get! i was just wondering if you knew of a store in which i could buy it, rather than online?

30 - Posted by Guest on March 12, 2005 - 11:13 am

Wow, i've been going back between this player and another player (iRiver ifp 795) and this one i'm really leaning towards! I just can't decide weather to get the 512mb or the 1gb version. Can you guys tell me how much songs both of them can hold?

Also, can this player transfer other files besides music, like a word document or any other thing you got on your computer?

Thanks for this review, I just wish it wasn't so pricey for the 1gig version, and newegg seems to be the cheapest place.

31 - Posted by Guest on March 12, 2005 - 11:19 pm

Thanks for the reply kurtis.
I would also like to know about the 512mb, and the 1gig one, I know you said it depends on how big the song is, but what about an average? How many songs average acn the 512mb hold, and how many average can the 1gig hold? Thanks for help!

32 - Posted by Guest on March 17, 2005 - 10:49 pm

Well, Kurtis. I have been convinced and I got the 512mb version on the 16th(My birthday) and wow, I love it alot. It's perfect, easy to use and everything! But, I went to the display and I wanted to view lyrics as I listen to music(during class or something, when i'm bored) and I can't figure it out at all. I looked in manual, I looked everywere and just can't figure it out. It's on, but I pressed every button and tried every different combintation(atleast I think) when playing a song. Thanks for the help, this is a GREAT mp3 player, i'm so glad I got it.

33 - Posted by Guest on March 18, 2005 - 2:35 pm

Alright thanks, it's no big deal was just confused on why it wasn't working. But yeah the thing you said about having the music file embedded in it does sound correct, it would probably make the music file little bit bigger. Oh well, I love this player alot and I totally recommend it, but now i'm gonna go create a account for this site. ;) Thanks for the replies Kurtis.

34 - Posted by Guest on April 5, 2005 - 12:01 am

I am taking back my Ipod Shuffle and getting the 1G...I can't decide though on the u2 or the new 5. Confused.

A few answers to some of your questions. Most brick stores don't have iaudio, however, http://www.bhphotovideo.com in NYC has the line...even the new 2G. You can find them also on price searchers, like http://www.shopping.com.

There is also a site I've seen mentioned on sites:

http://www.suntecint.com/

They offer a "lifetime warranty" whatever that means...

From what I've read on lyrics, you have to DOWNLOAD them from a lyrics site, and then upload them to the player; that's how I understand it...I could be wrong.

35 - Posted by Guest on May 1, 2005 - 2:42 pm

My U2 doesn't work anymore - same problem, powered PC OFF, and U2 is dead :(( reset button doesn't helps... please help!

36 - Posted by Guest on July 13, 2005 - 12:14 pm

Someone asked several months ago about buying the U2 in Manhattan. Check out this site for where you might be able to find iAudio products: http://www.cowonamerica.com/buy/

37 - Posted by Guest on July 20, 2005 - 1:48 am

I'm already in trouble with the IT guys here at work!

I installed Jet to rip a .wav to .mp3

It took nearly 2 hours to rip a 3½ minute track!

And ever since all media players on this pc now play at 1½ speed. IT IS TERRIBLE!

Now I have to either suck up to the IT guys to fix it or put up with all music in chipmunk. IT SUX!!

Very unhappy

38 - Posted by Guest on September 10, 2005 - 10:00 am

Thanks, great detailed reviews!
I plan to register later, when I have time. For now, just a small question re a term appearing in a comment:
What does "rip the CD" mean?

39 - Posted by Simon Funk on December 5, 2005 - 1:23 am

Hi, great review. I am curious: how practical is this unit as an always-ready voice recorder? I.e., can it be left in a mode where you just slide the Hold button, hit record, and you're recording, hit stop (Record button again?) and it's done and ready to start a new recording--and happy to wait hours for it? Basically I'm wondering whether you can avoid having to navigate menus each time you want to record, and also how much it sucks up the battery leaving it in ready-to-record mode. Any insights here appreciated. It sounds like the best/smallest medium-quality voice-recorder around. (If you know of a better one, let me know.)

-Simon

40 - Posted by Kurtis on December 5, 2005 - 1:29 am

I always suggest just getting an actual voice recorder if you intend to use it a lot. They are just easier to use and more dependable for that situation because that's what they're primarily designed for. For example, I tried recording an interview with the JetAudio iAudio M3 mp3 player, and for some reason the recording never started and I had no recorded interview. Then again, maybe I'm just a clumsy idiot.

My thought is, spend the $20 or so to get a nice little voice recorder (you can get one about the same size) if you intend to use it very often.

41 - Posted by Simon Funk on December 5, 2005 - 2:13 pm

Since I've been looking for weeks and haven't found one of similar size (any pointers appreciated), I'd still be curious to know the answers to the above questions about this particular unit. My additional constraint is that I run Linux so it can't require Windows-specific interface software (which rules out a lot of the voice recorders). And if it happens to also serve as an ogg player, that's a bonus I see no reason to forego. I understand your point, but it's only valid if this particular unit truly doesn't function well as a voice recorder, which is why I'm asking. There's no inherent reason a blended unit like this can't be as good as a purpose-built voice recorder, and market size dictates the former will be more cost effective despite (ironcically, because of) the bonus functionality.

42 - Posted by Kurtis on December 6, 2005 - 11:40 pm

I think this would work fine as an always-on unit. You would need to adjust the timeout to keep it always on and maybe tweak the backlight settings to maximize battery life. The U2 works fine as a voice recorder as long as you aren't trying to record things from a distance. It works best up close to the audio source.

I also think you would have no trouble using this with Linux. I needed no special drivers or software to use with Windows. I just plugged it in and it came up as a drive letter. The hardest time I ever have with Linux and flash drives is finding the right command to mount them

43 - Posted by Simon Funk on December 7, 2005 - 12:26 am

Great, thanks for the info! I note on their site the current firmware supports ogg, so this is one of the few units that will play my music collection too.

44 - Posted by GHECKO on January 6, 2006 - 4:25 pm

I downloaded some songs from napster and tranferred them to my U2. They wont play the U2 just plays the songs in front of it or in back. Does anyone download music from the net? If so, can you tell me from what site and the step by step process to get it to my U2, so I can play the downloaded songs.

Many Thanks!!!!!
Ghecko

45 - Posted by SelArom on February 2, 2006 - 11:08 pm

Hi, I'm inches away from buying this thing, but there is one thing I have not yet seen mentioned: is it necessary that you use iaudio's software to transfer files? Well what I mean is, can you use the "Sync" option of windows media player to transfer playlists and files to this device? I know you can drag and drop files, but I have 4 pcs networked and they all link to my mp3 directory through wmp and I would like to be able to plug into any machine and switch songs. can this be done? thanks a million, GREAT REVIEW!!

-SelArom

46 - Posted by Kurtis on February 2, 2006 - 11:11 pm

Ghecko: I would suggest not buying from napster, but rather using something else like iTunes. It seems a lot of players don't support whatever format Napster downloads songs in...

SelArom: You can use Windows Explorer like with a USB drive, that's something which is mentioned in the review.

47 - Posted by SelArom on February 23, 2006 - 8:40 pm

Kurtis: thanks for your reply! i did realize you can drag and drop files, but what I meant was, can you synchronize playlists and songs using windows media player so that playlists are auto-copied to the player?

48 - Posted by Nick on February 24, 2006 - 11:22 am

Thats a good one, I haven't tried that. Im not sure what format the U2 uses for playlists, im guessing it would have to be the same. You can use JetAudio to do this, but I really don't know about WMP.

49 - Posted by taytay on February 26, 2006 - 3:04 am

hey guys. is the fm radio good on this one?

50 - Posted by Kurtis on February 26, 2006 - 8:36 pm

read the review :-P

http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/159/JetAudio+...

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