Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox

The Big Kahuna of Storage
Like the Remote Solution Personal Jukebox before it, the Nomad Jukebox uses a hard drive for storage, as opposed to other, smaller portable audio players that use flash memory (which is notoriously expensive per megabyte). If you own 150 CDs or less, you'll be able to have all of your music with you at all times. The ability to efficiently navigate your collection takes on new importance with such a massive volume of songs. Luckily, the Nomad Jukebox attacks this problem on multiple fronts. You can browse music by genre, artist, or album, as well as searching for a specific song by name. It collects this information from the ID3 tags that are attached to most MP3s. When you rip CDs to the Jukebox, this information gets added via the CDDB database, but with many MP3s downloaded from the Internet, you'll need to add the ID3 tag yourself. Just right-click a song in the software to add this info manually.

Slick Software
The two-paned Creative Play Center software (for PC users--Mac users employ a special version of SoundJam) scans your machine for MP3s and adds them to its library. Sending songs to the Jukebox quickly over USB is merely a matter of highlighting tunes in the program's left pane and pressing an arrow button that sends them to the right pane (which represents the Jukebox). The software rips and encodes CDs for free at any bit rate you could ask for, and can even rip and encode directly to the Jukebox.

The Whole World in Your Hand
OK, so the Nomad Jukebox isn't as small as some other MP3 players--you won't want to jog with this thing. But once we got past that hurdle, using the Jukebox was a pleasure. And the unit sounds great, with a hiss-free signal-to-noise ratio of 90 dB. The controls make sense, and the screen is large enough to accommodate searching and playlist viewing. That said, there are a few key things that could have been improved. For instance, you cannot fast-forward within a song, bookmark a spot in a long MP3 audiobook, or shuffle through your collection. But Creative added some killer extras to make up for these oversights. Audio playback can be sped up or slowed down, without changing the pitch--perfect for learning Van Halen guitar solos. There are two stereo outputs, so that the unit can be used with a four-channel surround sound system (two front speakers and two rear speakers). Physical extras include two sets of rechargeable batteries and an adapter that recharges them when connected to the player, wraparound headphones, and a leather carrying case. Sound extras include excellent EQ settings (bass, treble, midrange), Spatialization (creating wider stereo), and Environmental Settings (simulating a location, such as a concert hall).

Big News for Recording Enthusiasts
Finally, there's our favorite extra: the line-in jack. With a powered microphone plugged into that jack, you can record live audio to WAV files at a very wide range of attributes, varying from telephone quality to DAT quality (48 kHz), as well as the stereo 44.1 kHz files that can be burned onto CDs without any alteration. You can transfer these WAV files directly onto your computer for editing in digital form, via fast USB. Mimicking this process with a MiniDisc recorder (step one and step two) not only takes longer, but forces the audio through two more digital-to-analog conversions, degrading sound quality.

The Nomad Jukebox (available in blue and silver) is no bargain. Nonetheless, we highly recommend it to anyone who has tons of MP3s that they want to be able to hear wherever they go. And for people who like to record live audio, the Nomad Jukebox is a godsend.