A Different Vision For A Personal Stereo No one would argue with the fact that the digital personal stereo with memory represents the ultimate solution for listening to music while on the move. The MP3 personal stereo with memory represents the obvious choice for listening when you are out and about. There are no moving parts, so the device is largely shockproof and does not wear out. This means that it can happily be used while playing sports or working out, no matter how strenuously. Ill-treating the personal stereo is not a problem either because of its sturdy construction. Another advantage is that the absence of any kind of mechanism and the economical power consumption means that it can be highly miniaturized, so it is light as a feather and has an enviable battery life. The device is almost the size of a credit card and weighs less than 3 1/2 ounces (100 grams), with more than ten hours continuous listening (standard). In fact, more and more manufacturers of personal stereos are opting for rechargeable batteries, although it’s ridiculous. In view of the low energy consumption, a single AAA battery is sufficient. It only weighs a few grams, you can buy one anywhere, and it means you don’t have to shlep a charger along with all your other stuff. A few miserable party-poopers who are finicky music-lovers will always claim that MP3 reproduction is not good enough and that an audiophile would not be satisfied with the inferior quality. These arguments should be summarily dismissed. It’s true that MP3 compression does not offer perfect results, especially as music quality varies considerably with this type of sound. But nevertheless, when listening on the move in conditions that are far from ideal, MP3 is perfectly acceptable. Too Expensive, My Friend The real hindrance to this type of personal stereo is the price. The bottom line is that for quite a short listening time you have to fork out quite a hefty wad. There are two reasons for this. As the name implies, the device uses flash memory for storing the tunes, and this type of memory is still too pricey, even though it is gradually getting cheaper. The other reason is that manufacturers have an irritating habit of always entering the market at the top end. Let me explain: they begin by marketing top-of-the range, super-expensive items fitted with every conceivable gadget, in order to make as a big a profit as possible before bringing them down to a mass market level. Well, this is a vicious circle. The product is too highly priced so the public rejects it, and sales are low because everyone is waiting for an economical model worthy of the name. Where Should Manufacturers Be Economizing? They should certainly not stint on memory size. 64 MB, or an hour of high quality music, represents the strict minimum. Of course, it’s easy to change tunes by plugging into the PC, but you wouldn’t want to do that every single morning while on vacation or on a trip. For one thing, your computer may not be within reach. 128 MB represents an ideal compromise because two hours of listening means you can create a collection of your favorite pieces and not get tired of them within a few days. Obviously, 256 MB would be ideal, but you’ll have to wait for a while for that. Entry level models have limited memory, generally as low as 32 MB but that’s not good enough. So the rest of the cost comes from the extras. Manufacturers vie with each other to see who can offer the most. A wide LCD screen, remote controls on the headset wire, a second screen using the same remote, heaps of functions, rechargeable lithium battery, brushed metal finish – and who knows what else. The question remains, do we really need all of this? I claim that we don’t, if it means paying such a high price. In view of the number of tunes available, advanced navigation is not really necessary. Displaying the name of the tune is useful but not indispensable. In general, you know what you’re listening to, as was the case for CDs for so many years. The power consumption is so low that a simple alkaline battery is quite sufficient. And what’s the point of having a remote control when the device itself is miniaturized and within easy reach of your hand? For all these reasons, I have come to the conclusion that in order to get us to buy personal stereos with memory, all the makers need to do is remain within an acceptable price range. The MuVo Response Creative Labs started off from this premise, telling itself it needed to work on the essentials in order to reduce the costs. The MuVo has 64 MB of memory (a 128 MB version is marketed in the United States and may eventually reach Europe), and uses a single AAA battery. Its functions consist of just the basics. As a result, it is tiny and very light (28 grams). You really can take it anywhere. Even if you are wearing nothing but a tiny tanga on the beach, you could slip its elastic strap around your waist! Yet despite this, Creative Labs have not stinted on the audio quality. The sound quality is perfectly comparable to that of other brand name personal stereos. The MuVo replays samples with natural sound and without losing any of the registers. The sound is slightly rounded toward the low notes and that’s a good decision to make because listening with the earphones, the high notes tend to sound louder than the low notes. The headset that comes with the stereo is well-made and has not cut down on the spectrum, ensuring that every musical instrument can be heard accurately. On the other hand, it tends to veer toward the sharps. In any case, if I may give you a word of advice, whenever you need to listen with earphones, buy the Sennheiser MX500 ($17.95). They are high-fidelity and reproduce the sound evenly. But back to the MuVo. The functions are limited to the strict minimum: start/stop, next/previous item, volume and carrying strap. Frankly, that’s plenty. An equalizer is the only luxury that one might miss. The only other feature is a light that shows green when the MuVo is in play mode, orange when the battery is charging and red when the power supply has run out or when the MuVo is connected to a PC. The single battery offers a lifespan of continuous listening that we measured at 10 hours. That is really good performance and if you look at battery price, it’s really not expensive and means you won’t have to pack a charger in your suitcase for your next trip. Two Birds With One Stone But Creative Labs didn’t stop being creative there (terrible pun!). They said to themselves that if a drive needs a USB connector why not integrate a USB socket as well and make it a USB key. So you just have to slide the white tab to disconnect it from the battery housing and you have a USB key. Tiny as it is, all you need do is connect your MuVo to a PC running Windows XP or Millennium and it will recognize the device without any special drivers. A driver is supplied for Windows 98. Better still, when it runs under XP, if you activate the command, as soon as it is connected the contents window opens. The MuVo then acts like a hard drive. You can then drag the files of your choice on or off it. So it acts like a super-diskette that will enable you to transport document and image files and game updates. Even when it’s being used as an MP3 player, you don’t need one of those complicated utilities to upload files to the device. All you have to do is copy the MP3 or WMA files, and once the battery housing is reconnected, you can listen to them. It would be hard to make it simpler! Of course, this is not the most high-speed USB key on the market but the transfer time is acceptable. It takes 45 seconds to load 10 MB. The quickest keys, such as the Disk On Key, do this in 15 seconds. Loading the full 60.4 MB of the formatted MuVo will thus take around 5 minutes, depending on the number of files. That’s still quite acceptable. A Brilliant Idea The suggested retail price of the MuVo 64 is $149 (179 euros), but you’ll find them being sold on the Internet in the United States for $115. You’ll have to wait for it to become available in Europe, because it is unlikely to be marketed before the end of September. It would have been nice if the product had been less expensive, but quite honestly, the product is a stroke of genius. The idea of having a miniature, fast super-diskette that can be used as a portable hard drive for transporting data during the week, and, at the same time, serves as a miniature MP3 reader for the weekend, is an intelligent combination of uses, something that is long overdue. Of course, it may not have a high-fidelity, top-of-the-range sound, but in view of the versatility and the cost, that’s a price well worth paying.
