Zen Micro FM Recept

I bought the Zen Micro for the sole purpose of recording my favorite morning show while i was getting ready, but it turns out, the FM recpetion stinks. Even my Emmerson 996 tape player gets better reception than this thing. So i was wondering if there was ANYTHING i could do to get some better sound out of the FM tuner, maybe put some aluminum foil around it, or will a firmware update do the trick, please help me out. Creative, you got a good product, but come on, fix that FM Tuner!

I had a lot of problems with FM Reception with my first Micro too. Turns out I also had a problem with the headphone jack. When I would insert the headphones, if they weren't in a certain way or moved around, sound only came out of the right ear. My brother's didn't do this. I returned the unit to Wal-Mart, purchased another one, and the headphone jack works great. My FM Reception is also ALOT better. Places in my house I couldn't get any reception, I now get full stereo. Check your headphone jack.

Similar Messages

Remote Zen Micro, FM recept

Hi,
I am wondering if the remote for the Zen Micro will help receiving FM radio channels. Where i li've almost all radio channels are just noise.
FM reception becomes a lot better if I use a pair of Sennheiser HD 455 compared to the original headphones. (Problem with the Sennheiser is the size)
Thanks,
Jacob (Denmark)

I could be wrong but, I believe that only whatever is plugged into the headphone jack serves as a reception enhancer.

Zen micro radio reception & headpho

Quick question for anyone. I currently have the Zen micro & I am looking to get a new pair of headphones. The one that came with it don't really fit my ears! I had heard at one time (I thought) that the headphones that came with it have the antenna built into for the radio reception. Is this true or false? If it's true do all of Creative's headphones have the antenna built into it's If not, will any headphones due?
Thanks for any help!!

any headphones will do...the wires of the headphones act as the antenna..

Zen Micro Radio Recept

I have a zen micro, and I have to say I love it. I get almost 4 hours out of the batteries. I have had no problems whatsoever. My only thing is the radio reception. I know that it generally sucks, but I made a discovery last night. With any headphones I used, the reception was bad. When I plugged a Bose headphones extender into it the receptio jumped to almost perfect. It would seem that the reception is directly related to the length of the headphone cord. Has anyone else expireinced this?
Blade

I love in vancouver Canada, and im using the stock creative headphones and i so far have had no problem with the radio what so ever. although the sound does become fuzzy if i go into lower levels of the mall but that is just a minor thing to me.

Zen Micro FM Improvemen

Hi
I have just recently got my Micro (updated with the latest firmware)
and its great!!!
The only feature I have a few small problems with is the FM radio,
I am in the UK, and the reception is not brilliant.
In all the portable radio devices I hav owned in the past, manually switching
the reception mode to Mono on Stereo stations, improved reception.
The Zen Micro radio, automatically sets the reception mode for a station, and you cant manually switch a stereo station to mono reception (at least, I don't seem to be able to)
Do you think a possible firmware upgrade would make it possible to do that, and save the desired setting with the preset? Something like choosing the mode between MONO/STEREO/AUTO
Apart from that, everything is excellent!
well done creative!
Dave

i have the same problem the reception of the FM its very fuzzy a MONO/STEREO switcher could be a good solution..

Zen Micro: how many are working proper

I bought a Zen Micro for my daughter for Christmas and finally sent it back because it was having the docking problems. I have reguarly read the messages in this forum since then, waiting for an indication that the problem has been fixed. I have read many ideas of what is causing it, from USB ., USB 2.0, usb cables, full battery charge, etc., but no consistent solution. I have also read many posts in which people say most are not having any problem.
So, my request is, if you have a Zen Micro, and you have had no problems at all, please post a message with when you bought yours, and the firmware and software you are using. Thanks a lot for your help. I'm just trying to figure out if it is worth it to take a chance again. I don't want an Ipod with $00 non-user replaceable batteries.

Bought my dark blue Limited Edition in mid-December from Amazon.com. I first charged the unit before doing anything else and it hung up upon completion of that first charge. Removed and replaced the battery and have had no further hangs of any sort. I upgraded to .0.03 right away and am still there. I mostly load music by syncing with WMP 0 and even without the MTP support it works fine for me. I also use Notmad Explorer occassionally to manipulate playlists. It works fine too.
My only problem is I cannot reliably use the touch pad. I'm always selecting the wrong thing or skipping over what I want. Since I love everything else about the ZM, I'm living with the touch pad. I have tried both low and high sensitivity settings and it seems to work slightly better at the high setting.
I haven't actually timed my battery life, but I'm guessing I'm getting somewhere around 8-0 hours playing WMA at 96kbps with Smart Volume off and only occassional use of EQ. I usually disconnect the headphones when the unit is turned off, but I don't know if that changes anything. I try to run the battery quite low (no bars or low battery warning) before a full charge, but I do let it charge for a while sometimes while its connected to the USB port on the PC.
Unlike some, I have been very pleased with the FM radio. I get good reception even at work in my ground floor office of a mostly metal building. That's with the stock earphones.
I started out using USB ., but added USB 2.0 to my computer (Windows XP SP2) and had no trouble with either. I have not seen the problem some have reported about problems when the battery is fully charged.
One last thing... I have 697 songs on my ZM, with about 2.8 GB of free space.
Randy
Message Edited by RMoore on 0-28-2005 04:33 PM
Message Edited by RMoore on 0-28-2005 04:34 PM

Zen Micro FM Tuner --

Just bought a Zen Micro. Was glad that Creative has maintained their impeccable audio quality in this new player but things are way different with the built-in FM tuner. The reception was horrible, no matter how I position it and how I move the earphone cables around, I just cannot get a good reception - there's always static/white noise in the background. The other FM tuners I have receives just fine. Is there going to be a fix (firmware or otherwise) for this otherwise great player?

RockinRox
Do you li've next to a radio tower by any chance?
I knew trhe FM tuner wouldn't be amazing but it get's the job done. Stations with good reception will generally come in clear through the Micro. It's not something that should totally surprise you, every review mentioned the fact that the Micro got moderate to poor reception.

Big ploblems in zen micro

I just got my zen last week. it seems good in every aspect, but the bad signal quality of FM Radio annoyed me a lot, the speed of loading is slower than expected(i've used ipod before and it's quick), and the battery life can't compare with my former MD player(not more than 5 hours playback, maybe it's because i played WAV files all the time, is it more power consuming?)

Zericho
Yes, the Zen micro seems a pretty good mini-hardri've based mp3 player. has a lot of features.
The radio, the zen micro doesn't have the best or/and the worst radio reception. It is alright. I'm not sure how i can explain to you to fix that problem.
The Speed of loading is slower, i had that problem before, sometimes, (in my own experience) when the ZM just started up, it is still just starting up, so it takes time for it to be fully aware and fully capable of fast speed loading. I'm sorry, i prob don't know how to anser that question for you either.
There are the faqs to answer that question for you also. First of all, the higher the volume, the more power will be used. If you use the backlit LCD blue light, that will take some battery life away, i try to limit myself from using that. Try not to navigate through songs in library because the hardri've based mp3 player has to think and will take some battery power away also because you're searching constantly for a song to listen. i would suggest you to make playlists, or select play mode to SHUFFLE. So limit yourself for song navigation and that means both navigating through songs by the vertical scroll and the rewind/fast foward button to click back from one song to another. Also, there is a thread about the Bitrates/Kpbs and how much power that will be used.
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=dap&message.id=7599&view=by_date_ ascending&page=3
and SSR's battery study for kbps for songs
http://forums.americas.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=dap&message.id=60755&query.id=0#M 60755
I hope that helps you to increase your battery power. Well, from doing most of those steps, i increased my battery power from 7-8 hours to 0- hours, somtimes 2 full hours. maybe you'll be able to increase your battery power too.
here is also the faq, hope it is useful for you.
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=dap&message.id=2475

Zen micro pr

Bought a zen Micro a while ago and have recently encountered a couple of problems:
. The radio transmitter is really poor-just crackles and cant hear anything despite being on a national station (R). Thought maybe it was because I was in the centre of Manchester surrounded by tall buildings but even when I moved to the outskirts the quality doesnt improve. Is it because Im on the bus? Anyone else encountered this problem?
2. My headphone jack is also very erratic. Think I might have a loose wire or something as constantly have to unplug it and plug it back in to get quality sound. Cant put it in my pocket/bag etc ever as constantly having to fiddle with the wire. Its like i've only got it half plugged in but I know this isnt the case. Its really bugging me!!
If anyone has any suggestions or has had a similiar problem please let me know!!

. Radio reception varies a lot it seems. The headphone cord is the aerial, so using a short wire and/or well shielded wire will make things worse (although no-one is expected to be carrying around 00m of headphone cord ).
2. Sounds like your headphone socket has failed unfortunately. This has happened to quite a few people, but all you can do is get it repaired by contact Creative Support.

Zen micro radio without wi

I read that radio in Zen micro needs to use headphone wire to catch waves!

And my question:
What if I buy wireless headphones like ?Logitech Wireless Headphones for MP3. which connects by Bluetooth? Will the radio work? :smileyvery-happy:


If it'ss useful: I living in Poland. But all radio in Micro are the same-I think:smileyvery-happy:

Message Edited by tomasm on 08--2005 09:08 PM

I just tried with some headphones I have that have an extension wire. I removed the wire so the headphones themselves only have abour 30cm of cable. I actually got a reasonable reception, but I am in the middle of a large city. With the bluetooth headset I guess it's going to depend on exactly how much cable there is, not much presumably, and the strength of local stations.

Zen Micro Audio Recording Opt

I'm shopping around for a digital music player. I noticed that the Zen Micro has an audio recording option, which will supposedly record up to 0 hours, is that correct? I was wondering if this recording would save as a file I could transfer to my computer or if I must listen to it on the device. Also, I think I read that the largest (data?) file size that can be held on the player is 2GB. Would this apply to a maximum-length recording? How big of a file would that be? Also, do audiobooks fit on the Micro? And the same questions apply to recordings taken from the radio.
Thank you!
Amber

I concur with college boy, additionally the voice recorder is surprisingly good quality, but the FM reciever gets, like all of the small portables I've owned, inconsistant to poor reception. This may be due to my location as I have seen posts on this forum claiming excellent reception. Either way, I doubt the recordings are anywhere near the quality you would get from downloading from your computer.
I have transfered several audio books from cd>computer>micro, and because the files from audio discs is usually encoded at a very low bit-rate 64kb or even less, they take up very little space on the micro.
One caution about audio books is that the tagging is usually very simple ie. "track 0, 02, etc so that with multi-disc books, which most are, you will either have to load one disc at a time and delete it when you are finished, or rename the tracks on discs subsequent to disc one or the new disc will replace the old one. When renaming tracks on second and third etc discs use two letters and three numbers.
For example: For John Grisham's--King of Torts, I named the tracks KT00, KT002 etc.
Audio discs are a nice complement to the music by the way. I get tired of tunes after a couple of hours and enjoy listening to a story for awhile. I listen to "Car Talk" and "A Prarrie Home Companion" on NPR on weekends.

Zen Micro Rev

I just got my Zen Micro yesterday. Bought it on eBay because I specifically wanted the Dark Blue color with the extra battery. Cost was $260 shipped and it arri'ved in three days.
I had researched getting a new MP3 player ever since my Zen Xtra fell victim to the dreaded headphone jack problem. I've sent it back to Creative for repair and will probably give it to my gf now that I have my Zen Micro.
Prior to purchasing, I looked at several MP3 players. The most important factors for me are size, sound quality, price, and features. I like the Zen Xtra but barely used 4gb of space and it was fairly bulky and heavy. I considered the iPod as a friend of mine loves his and recommended it to me. Although the controls are intuiti've and the sound is decent, I balked at the price. With the iPod Mini starting at $300 for only 4gb of space lack of additional features, I really didn't even consider it. I checked out and even bought the Sandisk G model with the FM tuner. Extremely tiny, good sound quality, and priced at only $59 after rebates. Still, the space was extremely limiting even more my needs and I returned it.
As it turned out, the Zen Micro was the perfect fit for me. It had the features I wanted and was fairly priced in my opinion. Here's my thoughts on the different aspects of the player:
Cosmetic
Quite simply, it's the best looking player I've ever seen. Small but not tiny, it fits perfectly in the palm of your hand. The case that comes with it so you can attach the stand or belt clip does make it a little thicker but not that much. The most impressi've looking thing is how the player pulsates a soft, blue light when it is charging. A little ominous but it gives it a real hi-tech feel.
Sound Quality
I'm not an audiophile but I can appreciate good sound. For such a small player, the Micro deli'vers excellent sound quality. I think the max volume is 25 but for me 2 is more than enough. The headphones are pretty good considering they are stock. I've played around with a few of the EX settings and found Pop to sound the best. Haven't tried the custom setting so I can't report on that yet. Overall, very impressed with the sound quality.
Functionality
Having had a Creative player in the past, the interface was fairly easy to pick up. Still, this is probably the weakest part of the Micro. The touchpad takes some getting used to. I'm getting better at it but even at the least sensiti've setting I've had problems. However, I think that this will actually help the Micro become more user friendly. Once you get used to the touchpad, it is a very easy method for maneuvering through the various menus. The one thing I would have liked to have is a dedicated volume control. You can use the touchpad to adjust the volume while your listening to the player but there is no specific volume button like on the Zen Xtra or other MP3 players I've tried. I guess it's a matter of preference though.
Features
The FM tuner was one of the selling points. The reception isn't too bad where I'm at. I can get all the stations that I like to listen too although the sound quality isn't as great as a dedicated FM tuner. Still, it's a handy little feature for me. I still have to test the Outlook organizer feature but that's not something I plan on really using. The ability for the Micro to become a USB storage device is an outstanding feature. You basically have a portable storage device and can dedicate up to 2gb of space to store files. I've tested the feature on several computers and it works like a charm. Although most users probably won't use their Micro as a portable dri've on a regular basis, it's nice to to have this feature and it's one that I plan on using on a regular basis.
Conclusion
Everything considered, the Zen Micro is the perfect MP3 player for me. It's combination of good lucks, oustanding sound quality, features, and price is hard to beat. I don't know of any other MP3 player that combines everything that I'm looking for. I haven't run into any problems so far but I'm confident that Creative got it right with the Micro. Highly recommend it to anyone looking into a quality MP3 player. I don't think it's an iPod killer like some people have said because frankly, the iPod isn't in the same class.

ERROR IWTH REVIEW:
You mentioned that you cannot tune the radio for youself. You can do so however. Just go to the FM Radio and press the play/pause button. The 'Preset
?' thing will dissappear and then you can just tap the |<< and >>| buttons until you reach the disired frequency

Zen Micro FM ha

Zen Micro can be switched between the Japan and US band.
Is there anyway to extend the reception from 88 down to 72 Mhz?
72-76 is the hearing assitance band. This would allow the Zen Micro to record li've presentations.
Tom

No, I am pretty sure this cannot be done unless there is a new firmware in your country. Check under (Support>Downloads).

Zen Micro - transfer lock ups with latest firmwa

I've been trying to transfer mp3 files to my firmware upgraded Zen Micro and find that the transfer slows down and then locks the player after 30-40 files have successfully copied. This happens with ..0 and 2.2.02 firmwares.
The player will then remain in a 'acti've' docked state (black arrows) until the battery is removed. After this lock up tags on the mp3 files are messed up and display Chinese looking characters in the Details View.
This happens on two different computers with USB2.0, one Intel based and the other AMD.
Two questions - anyone know if this is a known issue being worked on for an imminent firmware update? And secondly - is the problem aggravated (or even created) because I am trying to copy files over from a directory tree (mp3's sorted into artist/album/ folders) rather than one flat folder with all mp3s in it (ie. in one single folder).

nzOdy wrote:
I've been trying to transfer mp3 files to my firmware upgraded Zen Micro and find that the transfer slows down and then locks the player after 30-40 files have successfully copied. This happens with ..0 and 2.2.02 firmwares.
The player will then remain in a 'acti've' docked state (black arrows) until the battery is removed. After this lock up tags on the mp3 files are messed up and display Chinese looking characters in the Details View.
This happens on two different computers with USB2.0, one Intel based and the other AMD.
Two questions - anyone know if this is a known issue being worked on for an imminent firmware update? And secondly - is the problem aggravated (or even created) because I am trying to copy files over from a directory tree (mp3's sorted into artist/album/ folders) rather than one flat folder with all mp3s in it (ie. in one single folder).
I'd try transferring fewer files at a time and see if that works.
You might be on to something with copying from a directory tree too. See if transferring the files in smaller groups from one folder helps out.
You can always organize the artists/albums later in Zen Micro Media Explorer or Creative MediaSource.

New Zen Micro will NOT connect!

Hello all,
I just bought a Creative Zen Micro player. I installed the software, charged the battery to full and guess what.....the Creative software does not recognize my player as being connected. And yes, I've checked device manager to see if it appears. It does, with the correct name and everything. So what is the problem? I've read other messages on this forum about this problem but it usually seems to be a problem after installing a new version of firmware. But this hasn't been done in my case because I haven't been able to get the stupid thing connected in the first place.
I'm confused as to what to do next. I've tried resetting it by removing the battery and then holding the power button but this hasn't worked either. I first was using a usb hub to connect but after reading that you should avoid this, I tried plugging directly into a usb port on my machine. That also didn't make a difference. I've unistalled the player from the device manager about 5 times and reinstalled it. I've tried reinstalling the creative software/drivers about 5 times and no resolution. I've followed instructions from the Creative website step by step as the proper way to install the software but nothing works. I'm extremely disappointed to bring home a product that does not work out of the box. Oh, and yes I have Windows XP Pro so the OS isn't the issue here. I guess I will just return this useless product unless someone else has another idea that I could try. I'm really at my wits end.
Thanks for listening to this short novel,
Drawn-a-Blank

The software that will not recognize the player is the Zen Media Explorer and Media Source. I'm not sure what firmware I have and I can't check since I'm not at home. But, I can't install new firmware even if I wanted too since it won't connect. However, I have downloaded the lastest drivers but I don't think I've installed the lasted version of Zen Media Explorer, so I guess that is one other option.
Message Edited by drawn-a-blank on 07-23-2005 09:30 PM

Zen Micro FM Recept

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for