Originally published July 20 2005
Adamond ZK1 2GB Flash MP3 player
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The ZK1 is the first Flash-based music player with 2GB of storage capacity, decent sound quality and small compact design.
Push in the direction of the plus or minus icons to change the playback volume; toward the rewind or fast forward icons to track skip in the appropriate direction.
Mounted round this control cluster are four blue LEDs that light up then turn off sequentially, over and over again, while music playing.
I found the control fiddly at first, but soon realised the trick is to rock the joypad with the pad of your thumb or finger rather than try and push its side.
At the opposite end of the player you'll find the earphone socket and a small USB port, tucked away behind a sliding flap.
Adamond bundled a simple 'small USB to standard USB' adaptor to make connecting the player to a host PC or Mac a cable-less business.
You'll need to experiment with the playback devices volume to ensure distortion-free encoding - what you hear through the phones isn't necessarily what's being encoded - and pressing the Rec button at the right moment is a bit hit or miss, I found.
However, there's a feature Adamond calls AutoSync, which listens for a period of silence - you determine the duration - and uses it to break the recording into separate tracks.
The ZK1 is powered by a single AAA battery, which Adamond claims will last for up to 17 hours, depending on factors like song encoding rates and the degree of sound-enhancement applied.
What lets it down are the bundled earphones, which don't sound too sloppy when held into the ear, but quickly slide out of position, weakening the audio experience.
From Korea by way of Sweden the Adamond ZK1 is a neat little player that packs in a significant storage capacity - think 480-odd tracks, sufficient for most listeners - a good dose of audio enhancement, a crisp OLED screen and a novel control mechanism.
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