Creative Labs 30GB Nomad Jukebox

The Interface

Powering on the Jukebox can take upward of 30 seconds, a time which seems to increase as more files are added to the drive. It seems that the Jukebox stores file information in a database containing ID3 tag information, meaning that upon boot each and every ID3 tag must be loaded from the database. When running the unit makes a very slight noise, only audible when held to the ear, which we recognized as the sound of the hard drive turning.

Once booted, the Jukebox takes you to the Active Queue List, although no songs are initially loaded until you go to the Library and queue files for playback. Upon hitting the LIB button you will instantly notice one of the problems we encountered with the Jukebox: it is slow. Scrolling and updating the LCD display takes a big of time on the Jukebox and for us impatient computer users it becomes quite annoying. Things get even slower when a track is playing and functions are performed, causing the unit to crawl and often times produce the "Working" dialogue box.

MP3s can be marked for play by selecting them out of three different Library Categories: Albums, Artists, and Genres. Once again, these items rely on the ID3 tags for their information, so be sure that your tags are in order before attempting to play files. Hitting the Albums selection brings up a list of the different albums you have on your Jukebox, denoted by "artist name - album title". Whole albums can be queued for play or individual tracks on albums can be viewed and queued.

This brings us to another problem we encountered with the Nomad Jukebox: its screen can only displays 26 characters on one line. This prevented us from seeing much more than a track number, artist name, and album title, leaving the track name information hidden off screen. The only way to view the complete file information is by hitting the Details button, which then brings up information including length, track name, and more.

CD Information Click here to enlarge.

Details Information Click here to enlarge.

As one would suspect, going to the Artist search screen brings up a list of each artist listed on your Jukebox. This time, however, you cannot queue all the songs by one artist. Instead, you must select an artist and hit open, an action that greets you with a list of the albums by that artist. From here, albums may be queued or individual songs selected in the same manner described in the Albums section.

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Finally, the Genres search which brings up a screen of the available genres listed in your ID3 tag collection. You cannot queue all songs in an available genre but rather you have to open that genre and queue an album or individual songs in an album, just like the other search forms.

There is also a Search function that brings up a screen for text entry to search for a specific song. Letters are selected using a plus and minus form of entry which can be quite laborious. Searches are conducted through the selected tag, be it album, artist, or genre. There is an auto complete of sorts that shows you the nearest match to your selection and allows you to Go to that selection.

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Once items are added to your playlist, a process that ends up taking quite some time, you are now ready to sit back and listen. The Active Queue List screen shows information on what song is playing, what songs are in your play list, and how much time has elapsed in the song. Queue lists can be saved under an option in the system menu.

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Audio options can be set by hitting the EAX button. Here the previously discussed EAX functions controlled by the Texas Instruments TMS320VC5410-100 DSP can be set or altered. There is a Parametric Equalizer that allows for tweaking of frequencies, a Spatialization setting that allows you to set what type of device you are listening to your music on, Environmental settings that allow you to select from a wide array of reverb effects and set the strength of the effects, and Playback Speed settings that allow you to speed up or slow down your music playback.

As you can see, we were not too thrilled when it came to transferring files to our Nomad Jukebox and then getting them to play on the unit. We were extremely pleased with the audio quality of the unit, however, as it sounds as good as we have heard from portable MP3 players. The sound of the Jukebox certainly beats the vast majority of portable MP3 players on the market and even sounded better to us than a standard computer sound card. For all that is wrong with the PlayCenter software and the interface of the Jukebox, Creative sure did right when it came to sound quality.