Archos 7 160GB MP3 Player Review - Performance

Frequency Response    (9.70)  

Frequency response refers to how well the media player can play back any given frequency. Unlike the headphones you use to listen to your music, the media player shouldn't take any creative license with the original sound file. The graph at right shows how well the left and right channel stick to the game plan. The left channel is red, the right channel is green, and both lines would ideally be on top of each other and totally flat.

While the lines at right don't overlap 100%, they are remarkably close, so much so that you wouldn't perceive any difference. They're also remarkably flat. Although there's some bumps towards the right side, they're so tiny that they won't make any difference. Overall, the Archos 7 has excellent frequency response.


Distortion    (4.37)  

Distortion refers to any difference between the original sound file and what the device actually outputs. On the graph to the right, the left channel is once again red and right is green. The numbers on the left represent the percentage of distortion. Anything close to 3% distortion is noticeable and bad. Distortion can be caused by over-worked amplifiers or some sort of digital-to-analog problem among other things.

The Archos 7 didn't have the lowest distortion, but it did perform a lot better than the Archos 5 did.


Crosstalk    (8.10)  

Crosstalk refers to one channel's tendency to bleed over into the other. For the Archos 7, there really isn't much crosstalk at all. If there were, you'd see the red and green lines at right acting far more independently of each other. There were some issues towards the middle of the frequency spectrum, but nothing noticeable.

We measured the crosstalk at about -65.2 decibels, which is more than, say, the iPod Classic's -104dB, but still isnt' a bad result. The vast majority of listeners won't notice any crosstalk.  


Output Power    (1.16)  
Media players all output power that's used both to drive the headphones and boost the volume. Since many higher-end headphones have big impedence, the more output power, the better. If the player has less output power than the headphones need, you're out of luck with that headphone-player combination and stuck using different headphones. 

The Archos 7 had disappointing output power, which is likely due to the EU's volume limit laws. We were only able to squeeze a paltry 4.6 milliwatts out of this thing. This is just too bad, because other devices manufacturered outside of this law are capable of far more. The US version of the iPod Classic mustered 29.5 milliwatts and the tiny little Shuffle  managed 18.6 milliwatts. Our recommendation is you either hack the thing silly (Google gives good hints on how) or get an amp for your headphones. 

Noise    (9.66)  
Noise refers to any sound added to  your music that shouldn't be there. This could be caused by the internal circuitry buzzing, a bad connection, or one of many problems. While all media players add at least some noise, we really didn't have a problem with the Archos 7 in this regard. We measured the Archos 7's noise at a very low 85.1 decibels. This is quiet enough to be totally overshadowed by any music you put on. 

Included Headphones    (3.31)  
The Archos 7 might be a fancy, expensive media player with a grotesquely large screen, its headphones are just plain bad. The things had a bad frequency response, huge problems with distortion of the low end, and didn't isolate well. In an interesting twist, they could output quite a good deal of volume, but since the Archos 7 won't ever be able to output those levels, this one redeeming quality is rendered moot. Overall, you should really be buying better headphones; just make sure they have a low impedence so this thing can actually power them.