Kenwood HD20GA7 Review - Page 3

I tried fixing the pics. No idea whether they will show to everyone, but I can see them alright lol

Bittergourd, thanks When you say scammed, you mean you got ripped off? That's terrible - it would've been nice to have more people using this player, and you don't want people taken advantage of over it. Hopefully you've picked up your spirits and are waiting for the new HD30GA9 to be released!

Strings, yeah I think HD20GA7 is a bit too much to be a second player. ihp-140 is a great player anyway

hoob, I used to have Gigabeat F21 before X5L and Kenwood, and I did quite like it - nice clear sound, and the F21 I had was black and it was the sleekest, the most handsome player in the market.
But the highs tended to distort to worrisome levels, and the GUI drove me crazy.. Although for the price you can get Gigabeat F-series now, they're great deals I reckon.

MartinJ, HD30GA9 has just come out in Japan, so I think it would be at least a while before you can see one in Europe. I'm hoping to get one shipped here in Korea soon, so I'll give you feedback on how much an improvement it is to HD20GA7. As far as HD20GA7 in Europe is concerned, there's a Dutch guy in DAPreview who bought one from the site mentioned by fjf, so that might be a place you can try.

Lsportline43, thanks! I think certainly in North America the price won't be so prohibitive. Also, there was a report in DAPreview which said that Kenwood was indeed planning to release HD20GA7 in Europe officially, so you never know - it probably won't be as insanely priced as in Japan Apart from the UK, of course lol

Hey Holleboomer, thanks! Those sites are very cool. Didn't realize that HD20GA7 had built up a sizeable community in Japan. It's a bummer I can't read Japanese though lol But that review of HD30GA9 was great too. Nice to see some pics, and am now wondering how Supreme sounds. Can't wait to get my clammy hands on one of those!

FenderP, I don't know why but I get the feeling that the JVC player will be even more low-key than the Kenwood effort. Is JVC the same company as Victor? If so, Victor has released some interesting players over the past couple of years but they were Japan-only. So hopefully this new one will be more widely distributed

I've had a trawl through the HD20GA7 community that Holleboomer listed (running a translation machine lol), and I've found that HD20GA7 is gapless playing WAV files, but NOT gapless with MP3 and WMA files. A slight surprise - not to mention a disappointment - as the transition between MP3 songs sounded smooth enough for me. Just goes to show what a novice I am

holleboomer, yes I checked out the review there as well Makes me pine for HD30GA9 even more! In the other review you mentioned earlier in the post, it was slightly disconcerting to find that the white noise hasn't disappeared. Wasn't too big a problem with HD20GA7, but I did expect Kenwood to clear it up. Guess not.

FenderP, seems the JVC player has something similar to HD30GA9 in that CC thingy - making up for lossy files and improving sound quality. Sounds very interesting, and if there is a 30GB+ version I would be extremely intrigued
But hopefully these won't be too pricey and they might just be nice sub players to go with my soon-to-be-acquired HD30GA9 (one can only dream..).