Customer Reviews

Archos Jukebox 20 GB Digital Audio Player/Recorder/Hard Drive 500277

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(45)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

This is the best hard drive based MP3 player on the market right now, for the following reasons:

- Excellent sound quality. Those complaining about the audio quality and volume levels of this player are either judging it using the included headphones, playing poor quality mp3s, or one of those smug audiophile types who do not like the sound of anything unless it's played on hardware made by an some obscure Swedish company. The Archos sounds excellent.

- Standard batteries. The battery in the iPod is proprietary, so you have to buy replacements from Apple, that is, if you can figure out how to change the battery yourself. If not, you have to send the unit back to Apple. The Archos uses four standard "AA" NiMh rechargeable batteries you can buy ... and replace anytime.

- Recording ability. You cannot walk into a room, press record on your iPod and capture an 8-hour meeting in MP3 format. You can with the Archos. The player includes a digital in, line in, and a built in microphone. You can record as long as you have drive space and battery power (10+ hours).

- USB 2.0. I was able to transfer 10 gigabytes of music to the player in less than 9 minutes. My testing against a similar "Firewire" interface showed the USB 2.0 faster, but the results are very hardware dependent. Your mileage may vary. "Firewire" may be, on average, faster, but only by a few minutes. The difference in speed, if it exists at all, is certainly not worth the additional $300 you'll pay to get an IPod.

- Standard laptop hard drive. The unit uses a standard laptop hard drive you can replace three years from now when 120 GB drives are selling for a $100. ... Replacing the drive will violate the warranty. So wait a year or two.

- Excellent menu system/navigation. It's a hard drive... files, folders, forward, backward, up, down. I find I can get to the song I want in less clicks (or twirls) than the IPod.

- Windows XP: plug it in, it works. No software to load. (You will need to load drivers on Win95 systems.)

- Excellent mobile drive. Not just an MP3 player. You can copy any type of file to the unit.

- Four times the fun at less than half the price of the same size IPod. ...The Archos is a durable metal object reminiscent of the detonator panel on one of those stolen nuclear weapons you always see in James Bond films. The IPod is thin, white and easily mistaken for a ladies electric razor or one of those IGIA ab-stimulators sold on late night television.

Some advice:

- Throw away the supplied headphones.

- Get a NiMH quick charger. They usually included a extra set of batteries you can charge in 4 hours.

- Be careful removing the battery covers. The chassis of the unit is metal, but the covers are plastic. Stick the head of a small screwdriver into the little slots and gently pry the covers outward until the cover tabs are clear, then lift the covers straight up. The covers do not rotate completely outward.

- The "resume" feature of the player is off by default. If you listen to audio books, turning it on is helpful.

- Just like any portable hard drive you can mistakenly disconnect during a disk write, the FAT can get corrupted. If the unit fails to boot completely running a full Scandisk on the drive will more than likely cure the problem.

- Do not use the player as a battery charger. Charging NiMh batteries generates heat. The batteries literally rest on top of the hard drive and trickle charging in the unit takes 8 hours. Although I have not experienced any problems charging the batteries in the player, the quick charger method mentioned above is much more convenient, and probably safer.

- If you don't have USB 2.0 ports buy a USB 2.0 expansion card. I ordered the IO Gear 5-port card with mine (Money). Like the player, under Windows XP it installed without requiring me to load any drivers.

- If you're offended by foreign languages and expect electronic device manuals to be written by Tolstoy and illustrated by Monet, do not order this player. The manual included adequately covers the basic functions of the player.

The Archos Jukeboxes have a unique combination of features and quality which leaves the competition behind.

Pros:
1 Extremely durable steel casing
2 Standard AA sized batteries, which are easily accessable
3 REAL 10 hour play life before recharging
4 Excellent sound: bass, vocals, and treble
5 Works with Mac OS 8-9 and OSX, as well as Windows
6 Many installations can use the generic USB storage driver built into the OS
7 Only unit currently utilizing USB 2.0 for maximum transfer rates EXCEEDING FireWire
8 Easy to learn menu system
9 Doubles as a standard USB hard drive - for Windows or Macs
10 SPID digital in/out (use it with your digital amp or Sound-Blaster card), line-in, and earphone jacks, and a built-in microphone
11 No Copy Protection schemes - freely copy your music and data files
12 Supports Variable Bit Rate as well as the other common encoding standards
13 Uses standard 2.5" drive - easy later expansion (currently 60+ Gb), MUCH less expensive than Ipod 1.8" drives (current max 20 Gb)
14 Fairly small form factor - not as small as an Ipod, but you can change the batteries and hard drive easily: a trade-off I can live with.
15 Encodes to MP3 as it records!
16 1 YEAR warranty vs. 90 days for most competitors.

Cons:

1 User's guide totally inadequate
2 Supplied headphones are awful - but most are. Smaller and lighter Panasonic RP-HS15 ... or HS35 are MUCH better - even better than Sony's offerings.
3 Larger and heavier than Ipod
4 Recording and playlists severely under-documented, need to check user forums
5 From others' comments, Archos tech support seems to be minimal
6 Plays only MP3 format, but firmware is upgradable

Having owned or borrowed MP3 players ranging from Audiovox, Neo (SSI), Nomad, and Rio, the Archos 20Gb Jukebox/Recorder is a great performer which provides excellent value.

I was the first person in Northern Ireland to have one of these i mail ordered it. I have to tell you that i was not on the best terms with Archos after 4 other players died (3 jukebox 6000 and 1 jukebox 20 studio) although i was not happy with them i gave them the benifit of the dubt and i am happy to report this one still works (so far) The Jukebox 20 recorder is incredibly impressive by anyones standards and i wish that it was all good news but technology is only as flawless as the people who build and create it and that was humans and we ain't perfect by a long stretch of the imagination so i will put all the good points and BAD points in a list:

Good Points

20 Gigs of storage (WOOOOOO)
Built in mic (More info in bad points)
Light (unless you enjoy carrying 500 cds with you)
Drag and Drop interface (soooooo easy)
Small (the size of a walkman)
Doesn't skip (unless you try to prove them wrong and beat it up/good for fitness finatics)
Can Record from other musical devices (go to your mates house and record thier stuff ha ha)
Easy to find songs
Headphones are stylish and foldable(is that a word) anyway they also have a volume control
Carrying case supplied (Blue what a 'shock')
It looks cool
The screen lights up for all you people who can't sleep
You get a charger (you can use any multi charger despite what it says in the book)
2x 4 rechargeable batteries (they are meant to last 10 hours, they do)
Best of all it doubles as a hard drive so you can store all the stuff you don't want anyone to see (Wink Wink)

Thats a lot of good points and i'm sure i left some out but now what you really want to know what are the bad points:

Bad Points

The mic does record your voice but the machines built in fan to cool it down mutes most things out
The batteries are to ... difficult to change without bending the side of the machine
It can brake down a lot
The headphones quality is ok but not great for digital music (buy a good set yourself you will have to admit that it was worth it)
The build quality is not great but as i say human error
The program that comes with it sucks (thats all i'll say)
Even though you have 10 hours of battery they take 6 hours to charge
The time and date reset everytime you run out of battery or change them, this means there is no built in battery for the clock
The manuel is an insult to anyone who has a brain and it doesn't even tell you about some of the functions (i will tell you later)
They only supply you with the lead that can connect to another machine with two ports (if your like me your getto blater only has one Aux port so flash the cash and get a one to one. A fiver will get you a good sony one)
It has a usb 2.0 cable (but most people don't have usb 2.0)
The tech help is useless

Ok that was the bad points but again i left some out (i didn't include the problems with the other players as that wouldn't be fair to Archos)

Now for those of you that do buy one and do cause it is worth it, here are some of the things it don't tell you in that ... manuel

The resume option puts you straight back to where you left off not in the middle of a song like people think but just to that song (this also is reset after you change batteries)

The queue option only lets you queue one or two can't remember but don't pick a load of songs cause it will skip the middle ones
The mic is accually at the top of the machine above where it says archos (it don't make much odds)

The diagnostic always says ok cause it wouldn't work at all if the machine had a problem

If you want to find your songs fast stuff those playlists and put your songs into folders like eg. A's, B's, C's Etc....

Remember your songs length has nothing to do with how much is left on it, its the size of the song that matters (size DOES matter AAAAAAhhhhhh) The difference in size is to do with the quality of the song.

Ok thats it i'm tired and i want to go to bed any questions irritate the tech support (PLEASE)

All in all this is a great machine buy it (don't forget you can trust everyone online ha ha ha) only joking have fun with it and impress all your friends and family with a toy thats out of Star Trek.

P.S. I know i put this down as 5 stars but then you didin't see the old ones

The negative reviews on this site almost caused me to look for an alternative player/recorder. Thankfully I went to Circuit City and played a bit. Most of the concerns raised by previous negative reviews were resolved by this trip. The unit is a 20gig Hard drive but it is reasonably sized and I don't find the wt all that unappealing. The sound was great even with the Circuit City background noise(I bought a pair of Sony ear buds) and I did't find the volume controll to be that difficult. The unit was plugged in 24/7 at Circuit City and I experienced no problems operating it. I shook the unit for 2 minutes straight and never got a skip out of it. Overall the test drive was quite positive. After using for a few days I am not surprised that the manual is so small. The unit it extremely intuitive. The fact that people have issues with the manual says more about the users than it does about the unit. In XP the unit shows up as another hard drive so files are loaded by drag and drop (very easy). I have a USB 1 and I have not found the speed of the transfer to be discouraging, don't let people pursuede you otherwise. I spent an afternoon compiling files of mp3's on my computer which I then uploaded to the jukebox. After 3 hours of total work (including cleaning up my data) I had 4 gig of music (800 songs) in the unit. Would have been much faster if my files were in better order/condition (thats my problem not the units). As far as the software,it is OK but I didn't buy the unit for it's mp3 software, so I am not sweating it. I have not used the playlist function yet but by all indications this looks really easy (Archos website has a PC Support FAQ that simplifies activity to a few paragraphs). The playlist is simply a list of shortcuts to the songs already on the jukebox. Once started the playlist simply plays the songs in order listed. Overall I would highly reccommend. Price of Ipod is [$$] and it can't communicate via USB (keep this in mind as you might have to purchase additional hardware to get the ipod to work for you). hope this helps.

This is a great mp3 player, it loses 1 star for worst documentation ever. A few of the previous reviewers complained
about features that are lacking, the features are there, it is
the manual that is lacking. So, below are some responses to
those reviews. I hope this helps.

1.For those of you who want to use random play for the whole payload:
Use rockbox firmware, it lets you have a 10,000 song playlist, just drag and drop all of your folders into the playlist editor of winamp, save the .m3u file in the root directory of
the jukebox, set the player to random play, then you load the playlist and play--PRESTO!!
(rockbox does not seem to support record mode currently, but it is not that big of a deal to go back and forth between Archos firmware and rockbox's firmware, just drag and drop the firmware file)

2.The unit does have volume control - press the up/down buttons

3.Unit does not need to use special batteries- it can use regular "AA" or other rechargeable batteries (yes I have tried).

4. Someone mentioned that they returned theirs because of a "Grinding" noise -this is normal, all hard drives make grinding noises, you just don't usually notice because you are not holding them in your hand!!

5.You can create playlists with winamp (free download) -winamp 3 allows you to sort by track to preserve album sequence, just save the .m3u file in the corresponding directory on the jukebox.

6.The unit DOES have a hold feature -hold down "on" for a few seconds - do this again to turn hold off.

7.The built in microphone is useless since it picks up the hard drive grinding, Archos sells an external pre-amplified mic on their webpage, which connects to the line in jack. for better microphones try minidisco dot com or soundprofessionals dot com.
So it is possible to record live music directly to mp3 format, giving you hours and hours of recording . Pressing the "F2" button splits the mp3 into a new mp3 (while recording). Or you could just let it record 1 huge mp3 which you could later split using an mp3 editor.

My Jukebox Recorder 20 is a wonderful product! I received it as a birthday gift, and it's become indispensable after just one day.

Here's a list of pros, in no particular order:
1) Works equally well with Windows 2000 (work) and Mac OSX (home).
*Note: this used to be the case, but now it only works with Windows and OS 9...not X. Don't know what happened, but Archos' tech support was not the slightest bit helpful.
2) The sound quality is great, and changing the sound settings adds a lot to the unit.
3) The drag-and-drop method is simple for anyone to use, which means...
4) Updating the firmware is a breeze.
5) Ability to record directly to the unit is a huge plus.
6) The buttons do exactly what you think they will do.
7) The storage capability: 20 gigs of music/files is great!
8) Definitely small enough to carry in a purse; I'll take mine everywhere.
9) The bundled MusicMatch software isn't a necessity for folks who'd rather use another program to create MP3s, but it is a very nice program.

The only reason I don't give the product 5 stars is because of little things:
1) The interface is not as elegant as the interface I've seen on the Apple iPod.
2) The manual is inadequate. However, the Archos website has a lot of helpful support information.
3) The headphones are not great quality, but they fold up pretty compactly (which is convenient) and you can always purchase your choice of headphones separately.

Overall, I would recommend this product to any music fan or anyone who needs to swap files from one computer to another.

While drooling over Apple's iPod, I'm glad I saw alternatives. The Archos unit has the incredibly useful ability to record. This feature is huge! Newer units have a 20 GB disc and USB 2.0 which only makes things better. Consider this. Remember all those times you needed to record something? Tape recorder, right? 120 minutes at best. Special long-play units degrade quality. Remember scrambling to flip the tape? 10 GB means 10,000 minutes at standard MP3 settings. Use an external plug-in mic for a cleaner recording. Can we say college lectures? Piano recitals? You name it. No software needed to have an MP3 version. The J'box does it for you. Just hook it up to the computer and drag it over. Burn a CD, save on the 'puter. Whatever. If you don't like MusicMatch, sheeeesh, use something else. I do. Don't have a computer? Plug into your CD player and record/encode that way. Record radio too! Got a concert DVD? You can record that too! I kinda wish mine had an FM tuner (Archos makes one with that too), it'd be a nice addition, but after a couple of those stupid commercials I don't miss it so much. One glaring feature that isn't present in the firmware is sleep mode. It can be a minor hassle starting up all the time. Adjusting the "stay on" time helps, but also eats power. The headphones aren't the best, but not that bad either, especially out in the world where they can get smooshed. I get along fine with USB 1.1 since I'm not swapping 1000 tunes every 3 days. Just drop the files, go do something else, come back in a few min. and it's done. The manual? So-so. Remember to charge the unit for several hours the first time before first use, and any time you replace the batteries. Frustrating, but necessary. I also use a cassette adapter in the car. It still amazes me that all my stuff is in that little box. No backseat-full of tape and CD cases, and the big black music briefcase...anybody remember slamming on brakes with a carload of tapes? INCOMING!!! Speaking of tapes. If you have a lifetime of taped stuff, you can plug in and record onto the J'box and have a digital copy of all that stuff. Burn it all onto a CD or two and finally ditch those boxes of old tapes (which are degrading as you read this). Like I said, I'm havin' a blast with this thing!

3/29/08 update: I gotta say this thing has been awesome. Yeah, it's still working! It continues to amaze. In 2005 it was subjected to flood waters from Hurricane Katrina. It was totally under water for about an hour. A day later, I recovered it, popped the batteries, and let it dry for 3 days. Popped the batteries back in, they were still hot, so, moment of truth, hit the power button and it started up so normally, it was if it was saying, "What's all the fuss about?" The power adapter also survives, and it recharges normally. I even still use the original NiMH batteries. Unbelievable!!! I sent a note to Archos a while back, but they never replied...probably mad I haven't needed a new one. This thing is something like 7 years old now. Maybe it'd have died by now if I used it every day, but so far, it still powers up on command and delivers as always. I doubt the iPod I was given 2 years ago would've fared so well....nothing against them, but the old Jukebox is still awesome.

ARCHOS JUKEBOX RECORDER 20GB

This Mp3 player is very suitable for anyone wishing to carry all music where ever you go.

Many people have pounded the Jukebox for a few reasons.
1) The instructions are inadequate, but with a bit of commonsense, the Jukebox is under control within an hour or so.

2) Being dead on arrival, be paitent

3) Some have moaned over the sound quality. If used with the supplied headphpnes, the sound quality is minimal. A new set will solve this.

4) The playlist problem is easily overcome. If you want to make a playlist, just hold the 'play' button for 3 seconds next to the song/folder you want, move to where you want to save the playlist, go to menu, playlist, save playlist, enter your name, done.

A few incidents have occured while I've owned it, about 3 weeks. At one stage, it refused to turn on. After many attempts, it still stubbornly refused to work. But, later that night, it was fine.

A few times my computer crashed. I guess this is expected as the specs say Win 98 SE, mine is only Win 98.

The Jukebox really looks bulky, this is misleading. It was supprisingly small, a little on the heavy side. This is as expected as it holds 20gb.

The Jukebox was chosen over the Nomad as its size is smaller, price cheaper, easier functioning ie drag and drop, and more functions.

I am very pleased with this product.

TIP: While waiting for your Jukebox in the mail, download Musicmatch, Realone whatever and download all your CDs at your leisure onto the computer before arrival. Saves a lot of time!

TIP: Buy new headphones

TIP: Organise your Jukebox by MUSIC;GENRE;ARTIST;ALBUM;SONG

A VERY GOOD PRODUCT. HAVE SOME PAITENCE AND IT IS A VERY ECONOMICAL AND SUITABLE PRODUCT

Other reviews posted here mention such features as the size, capacity, and flexibility, as well as such oversights as the flimsy build and the faulty playback; a few reviews mention the restricted playlist length and nonstandard USB cable, neither of which bother me. This review is intended to supplement others available online; it does not exhaustively address all aspects of the Archos Jukebox but only those which other reviewers ignore, and is offered in thanks to the other reviewers and as a service to prospective buyers who hope for more detailed information than offered by the manufacturer. NOTE: While it is not the purpose of this review to persuade or deter purchase of the unit, be sure to read the final paragraph of my report.

In response to the previous claims: the unit does offer compact size, capacious storage, and flexible use; it is also less than robust-though not shabby-and playback using the internal MP3 player does encounter such errors as skipping and locking up, though not consistently enough to troubleshoot.* On the other hand, the USB functionality seems flawless, allowing troublefree use as a battery operated hard drive with hot-swap functionality and reasonable speed. The documentation I received was unsatisfactory, but not as bad as other reviewers say,** and indeed, with a little experimentation, the features of the unit reveal themselves, since most of them follow the conventions established for portable gadgets with multi-function buttons.

Batteries & Power

The unit I bought received from Amazon in early July did not include extra batteries, and those installed in the unit could not hold a charge; the jukebox, then, could not operate without the AC adapter for more than five minutes. To my relief, replacements are available at the mall and work perfectly.

Contrary to the other reviewers, I completed the replacement within minutes, with only a jeweler's screwdriver, and any without damage to the unit; as a test, I also opened the battery compartment without any tools. The procedure is, in fact, simple: press either cylindrical cover down in the middle and especially under the two crescent-shaped protrusions, under which the plastic clasps reside; once the clasps are a few millimeters clear of the unit, slide the cover up and off of the unit.

Until the power problem was resolved, I figured I had just fallen victim to bad design and had bought only a nice portable hard drive, albeit one that required cables, an adaptor, and seemingly superstitious handling to function. Once the batteries were replaced, the unit became what I intended: a battery operated USB hard drive with, as a bonus, an MP3 player and recorder. (For a serious compact hard drive, buy the USB/firewire La Cie Pocket Drive; for an MP3 player with no moving parts, buy a Rio 500-if you can still find one-and download Tom's RioFXP.)

Recording

The recorder is better than I expected. To begin, the headphone jack operates during recording to allow for sound monitoring; recording level can be adjusted using a stereo 16-segment meter; and file naming is less cumbersome than expected.

While the built-in microphone is adequate for using the unit as a dictaphone, it will pick up both ambient noise and the thrashing of the hard drive; still, the recordings, unlike those of other digital voice recorders, do not need to be converted to be archived or shared with others, so I may begin to use the unit in meetings and on car drives. Another reviewer suggested using an external microphone, but the unit does not have a mic-in jack, and not even a powered condenser microphone can achieve the level necessary for adequate recording.

The line-in jack for recording is, of course, much quieter, producing very decent recordings, and indeed, I anticipate using the unit for capturing streaming audio and simply converting MIDI files to MP3s using my laptop soundcard.

Miscellaneous

The display features an 18 ' 8 character LCD screen displaying a 3-segment battery gauge and other information. Firmware updates are not flash upgrades but, rather, files resident in the root directory and read during boot-up, a process which can take about 15 seconds. The carrying case is made of wetsuit material and features a little pocket suitable for holding the USB cable.
When I received the unit, ScanDisc reported errors and corrected them, but running a "thorough" scan of the "data area" of the disc consistently crashes ScanDisc-even when the Jukebox is set to never power off automatically ... Now I have the choice of dealing with the reportedly terrible Technical Service and wait hours for an RMA, or simply ignoring the 32 k of "bad sectors" that ScanDisc can find in the "system area" of the drive.

* Some of these errors were corrected by simply replacing the MP3 file with another copy, as if the file had been corrupted during transfer to the drive, despite the fact that the file size was the same. Other errors may have been caused due to an MP3 file not having an ID3 tag, but I have yet to confirm this.
** The unit included a PDF version of the manual; this was dated November, 2001, and any complaints might be directed to "Daniel," who converted the document from Word.

I bought Archos recorder 20 with the primary intent of having a nice big HDD in a small, fast device. The MP3 side was a secondary feature (though I listen to the thing all day at work.) As a portable drive I could put in my pocket, it has saved me hours of headaches as I have to transfer hundreds of megabytes on an almost daily basis. It's very easy to use, easy to navigate and very fast. So-far it has proven to be very reliable too. The USB2 port is well worth any extra outlay for a USB2 card as the speed increase over 1.1 is amazing. I bought 2 USB2 cards, one for each (remote) machines I use so I could transfer files quickly using Windows Explorer drag and drop. Because USB2 is so much faster, your batteries last longer as the Archos sucks juice much quicker when acting as a standard USB HDD. File transfers are so quick with USB2 that it only needs to be connected for a couple of minutes.

As an MP3 player, I'm generally very happy with it. The supplied headphones are abysmal and need replacing immediately. The sound quality (when using better headphones) is very good overall. Menu navigation is easy so finding the song(s) you want to hear is a painless operation. One thing I don't like is trying to skip backwards through a song, it gets it's pants in a twist and ends up sounding like a stuck record. Going forward is fine though. There are also plenty of controls to adjust if you like tweaking, or you can just leave it as it comes. I notice little difference in sound quality between the Archos and my SB Audigy MP3 card played through my Sennheise HD580 headphones. It has copious output power and can drive even big cans very loud and clean.

I don't use playlists as I setup all my files manually in Explorer so can't say whether they work well or not. Besides, I don't really like using the supplied MusicMatch Jukebox software. I don't record mp3's straight to the Archos either so cannot comment on that function. The build quality isn't the greatest though it's perfectly functional. The casing just doesn't have that feeling of precision. I would imagine that the I-pod or whatever it's called feels much nicer... though slower and a much smaller drive for the cash. Battery life is good given the drive size and power output. Supplying two sets of batteries is a nice touch though, as is being able to using it while it's charging with the batteries in place. The USB cord is a pain as Archos opted to use an 'A-A' cord rather than the more standard 'A-B' connectors. This means that if you want a second cord, or a longer one, you'll have trouble finding one. Archos do sell cords but they are short and expensive. I still haven't tracked down anywhere that sells a 6" long A-A cord, just A-A extensions which are useless on the Archos.

In the end I wanted a big drive, good speed, good functionality and portability, the Archos Recorder 20 fitted the bill nicely. I have no regrets buying it or hesitation reccomending it as long as people are aware of the above points. I'm very happy with mine and if I had to choose over again, I think I'd still buy the recorder 20.