Last march I got an iPod touch, a great nifty little device...
Until then I was using windows Zune player for my music collection. I found Zune player to be a great alternative to other player (espacially windows media player, or windows media center).
I never liked the way iTunes felt, and the scanning of all the tracks prior to start listening to anything was a real turn off.
Anyway, iPod = iTunes so here I was installing the apple software.
Having both apps installed i didn't resist comparing them,
1) both of them are pretty similar, even though iTunes offers access to a huge amount of online
music, podcast, apps...
2) file system, itunes consolidate all its classification in a dedicated folder, while zune is more intuitive and will get the file infos directly out of the folder where the music is stored.
The difference shows in two ways:
-itunes start quickly but needs to keep its own file, and adding file to the librairy requires manually adding the folder.
-zune takes 2 to 5 second to load the collection, but adding files is extremely easy.
3) the most important thing HOW DOES THE STUFF SOUNDS?
Hands down Zune player kicks iTunes booty for MP3 !
I ran the test on a rip of bjork greathest hits, at 320kbs and with iTunes i'm hearing small imperfections, so I decided to push forward on other types of file format with a simple .wav (in principio Arvo Pärt)
and surprise again iTunes is dirty especially in the high range, and zune player ... didn't not even manage to open the file!
So I pushed the test and tried the file on media center, who gave me a clear sound !
Conclusion,
iTunes is great for functionality, but is terrible at playing HiFi music.
Zune is great for mp3 but lacks on everything else.
Media center seems to be the way to listen to different format of files, but lacks the iTunes features.
