so I got my Zen Micro today and starting playing some of the custom tracks, no problems, sound was great, then I put some albums on there too test what sounded better the normal headphones or Sony mdr-ex71sl, but i was dissapointed, the bass on the songs was very sharp and hurt my ears much like my prvious mp3 player, I was also surprised to hear the normal headphones had much crisper sound than the sonys, sonys had way too much bass , my brothers Ipod has perfect sound and I thought the Zen would be the same but no, I rip the tracks at 128kpbs on mp3 format, would WMA and 192kps help?, also I didnt charge the battery before using the mp3 maybe that would make the difference?

Try adjusting the equalizer. But keep in mind if you do you will loose a little battery life.