Creative NOMAD Jukebox 3

Richard Price
June 2002

I have never been a big fan of the MP3 format. Like any compressed format, a lot of information is lost during compression. Of course, it all depends on what you listen to.

There is very little discernable difference when listening to pop music but classical music is a different story. With a great variety of instruments and dynamics the weakness of the format becomes apparent.

Even though the NOMAD Jukebox 3 comes with sophisticated Creative sound enhancing technology to simulate everything from concert hall to bathroom ambience, an MP3 of Tchaikovsky just doesn't have the impact of a CD.

Some retro-techies still swear nothing beats vinyl with valve amps.

So I was really surprised to see most of the sample tracks included on the NOMAD Jukebox 3 were all classical MP3s.

Fortunately, the NOMAD 3 handles WAV files, as well as MP3 and WMA files, and offers 98dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for some startling sound quality.

WAV files offer exactly the same quality as a CD, only the format of the bytes on the media is different.

A line-in jack accepts analog/digital input makes it possible to record from tape, CD, MiniDisk, DAT, or old vinyl LPs.

Files can be recorded as uncompressed WAVs or MP3s (128Kpbs to 320Kbps).

Anyone wanting to use the NOMAD to record notes or interviews would need the optional Wired Remote which includes a microphone. There is no way of manually adjusting or monitoring recording levels.

The NOMAD features a number of tricks including a Smart Volume feature. This tailors the sound for specific environments such as a car or train. I found it difficult to spot the difference.

I was also a bit disappointed with the sound level of the Jukebox. Even with the volume on full it just didn't seem to be very loud - especially riding Sydney's CityRail network.

Perhaps the standard Creative headphones included with the unit are just not as good as they could or should be.

The NOMAD Jukebox 3 is smaller than its predecessor, measuring approximately 12.5 x 13 x 3.5 cm and weighing 294g.

A small Scroller wheel on the side of the unit now makes it really easy to navigate through the massive amount of data stored on the NOMAD.

The unit uses a lithium-ion battery that provides 11 hours of play time, which seems to go by very quickly. A second battery bay makes it possible to get 22 hours of play time.

Once the software is installed connecting the NOMAD to a PC is straightforward.

There is both a USB and Firewire/IEEE 1394 ( Creative refer to it as a SB1394) port to connect to a PC.

Anyone lucky enough to have a Creative Audigy card should have no problem using the Firewire connection, but the Adaptec Firewire card I used did the job.

Including Firewire support is a good move, filling up the NOMAD 3's 20 GB hard drive via a USB 1.1 connection will take about 16 hours and leave speed freaks unimpressed.

I am surprised Creative did not opt for USB 2.0 which is backwards compatible with the USB 1.1 standard and faster then Firewire.

Unlike previous Firewire devices I have used, the NOMAD did not show up in Windows Explorer. Transferring other files (photo, text, video etc) is done via Creative's own File Transfer Manager which looks surprisingly like Windows Explorer to me.

Other software included is Creative PlayCenter 3, the control centre for encoding, decoding, archiving managing and transferring MP3, WMA or WAV files to the NOMAD.

It also looks like users could effectively and quickly copy whole music collections from the NOMAD to any other PC on which the Creative software is installed.

As a non-MP3 person, I found the Creative NOMAD Jukebox 3 one of the most impressive digital audio players I have ever looked at.

Price AU$999 incl GST
www.australia.creative.com

By Richard Price, Editor, EnergyME.com

For information on getting a product reviewed email richard@energyme.com