Nice rankings. I guess I agree with pretty much all of them except the "value" category. "Value" is a function of price and needs/wants -- which are more what each of the other categories (weighted or not) are important to any given buyer. Perhaps a better title for that column is simply "Price."

For example, for someone who needs voice recording, a cheaper player without it immediately becomes a value of "0" while a more expensive model with such a feature jumps in value.

--Chris

Hey thanks for link austonia. For some reason I must have skipped over that line when I last looked at it, or maybe I was looking at the wrong one.

I feel that the way most people would rank them would depend on what they feel is important. Some think that long battery life is key, while others think it must look good, and so on. That being said I would rank them like this overall

1. Iriver
2. Creative
3. Rio
4. Ipod

Note that I haven't heard or had a chance to play with all of them. From what I have seen and things I have heard from others these are my feelings on them. The top three for me are almost a tie and it depends on what features you want for the price. If the Ipod had similar battery life as the other three then I may be tempted to put it on top. The price tag on it can not be justified through my eyes when it only has half the battery life (probably less with real life usage).

Well, the iRiver didn't seem to do so hot, yet it's above the iPod that *did* place well in many areas. So, like some others I don't get that. Also, for durability, the iPod gets dead last even though they are known for taking severe abuse. Sure, they get scratched, but I wouldn't hold that against it as far as durability goes since there are many 1st gen units still running around while the others had not even been developed yet. Also, the other units have switches and moving parts (plus the all-plastic, or crap-tacular injection molded nylon, has both a moving wheel and plastic nipple) that can be broken and allow for dirt/debris to enter. Odd ranking in that area.

No one is disputing the iRiver as last place in sound quality? I'm definitely not getting it then.

I dispute it. Of all my portable players I own(ed) it sounds best, even without using the eq. settings. I never had the chance to compare it with a Zen or an iPod.

Yesterday I tested about 8 different headphones with the iHP-120, the PX100/200 is hardly ant better then the MX400/500. I tested it with the Sennheiser HD25, too much bass got tired of it after 5 minutes listening, HD560, too thin but amazingly accurate. They didn't have the Koss porta pro to test! So I finally decided for the Sony mdr-v600, very nice ballanced sound, good bass, criso high. Matches perfectly with the iHP series.

LOL clutch is in defense mode (gotta defend the iPod).

don't have the opportunity to listen ipod or karma.
but i owned CNJB3 witch is IMO near zen.

if iriver doesn't sound as good as NJB3 (in my memory) it's far to be crap however.
it's a very cool unit.

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That's very funny.

Why is that funny? That is simply how I would rank them overall.

Well...you've never held any of these players and actually used them...which is a big part of the whole experience. Speaking from experience, everyone I've let play with my iPod has loved it, while, when I had my zen...a lot of people found it clunky and didn't like the navigation.

Hello,

Have listened & owned the following:

NJB 3
iPod
Zen (original)
Karma

In my humble opinion the Karma has the best sound of the lot. I originally thought nothing could beat either the creative units for sheer sound quality. Well, after I got the karma I still thought this. However after listening only to the karma for about a week without using any of the other units, I retried the creative units & I found them to be harsh & a bit jarring. They certaily have volume but it was making me wince a bit whilst listening to them, it was kind of uncomfortable & after the smooth yet clear sound of the Karma I just do not want to use the creative units. I still use the JB3 for the out port on my work stereo & got rid of the Zen. I am not a zealot for the latest & greatest & was willing to return the Karma if the sound quality did not meet my particular needs, but it did & then some. The EQ is very good, but takes a bit of time to get the sound one really wants. The iPod I kept for a day or two as I really did not like the sound quality at all, believe me I really wanted to keep it but it just did not cut it for me. At the time I had the iPod I also had the JB3 & it seemed to me like night & day between the two sound wise, I then got the Zen & to be perfectly honest was really happy with the sound of that unit, alas, the Karma spoiled me & this is where I am now.

I love all these new units. Would love to try out the new iRiver HD unit as well.

take care

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I never said I didn't use any of them, I said I have not used all of them.

I don't live in an area that has a Best Buy or a Circuit City or an Audio store that would carry them. Most of my information comes from friends, family and the internet. Before I buy an audio product, because of my situation, I have to form and educated opinion about it and other products competing with it. If I was not allowed this opinion about products unless I have tried each and everyone I would never purchase anything.

I spend a lot of weekends during the summer at a cabin in the mountains. I barrowed a friend’s ipod for one of those trips this summer and to my surprise it died out after the first day. That is unacceptable to my needs as I can not run the generator every 6 hours or so to recharge the player.

Recently when I went to visit my brother I used his iRiver iHP-100 for a little less than a week and enjoyed it. I therefore assumed that iHP-120 would give me a similar experience. At the time I did not have a chance to test out a full battery charge, but I have seen nothing in their forums to suggest that the 16 hour claim is not truthful.

I will admit that I have not heard the other two, and that is why I stated as such. I was never trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. From what I can recall about the ipod I didn't really notice a huge difference in sound quality between it and the iRiver. The iRiver ranked first for me, because it offers me more features that I would use. The ipod ranked last because of its poor battery life. I liked the ipod better than the iRiver when I used it, but its ease of use and file management system are no good to me if it has no power. That is why I added the bit about it moving up if it had better battery usage.

The Karma has a lot of nice features going for it, like the network sharing. I know I would use this if I owned it. My main problem with buying the unit is that there is no remote but my guess would be that at some point Rio will release one for it. Most people and reviewers seem happy with the sound quality and battery life. I know it is having some problems but it seems like Rio is trying hard to address those issues with firmware upgrades. Based on this information, it seems to be my second choice overall.

Sound quality on these players does matter to me but we are talking about formats that have less overall sound quality to begin with. The way that the music is encoded seems to be of more importance when considering overall sound quality. Because battery life is a concern of mine, I can not use ultra high bit rates on these machines. So the playing field for these players as far as sound quality goes is much more even for me. After I considered this and the fact it has less features I would enjoy when compared to the iRiver and karma, I took an educated guess and placed the Zen third. I probably should have placed the Karma and the Zen together to be fair, but what fun would that be.

I said before I posted my original ranking that it seems opinions would differ based on what peoples needs and likes are. Austonia had a good list of features in the original post but those features do not have the same importance for everyone. In my situation I have to make educated guesses on most equipment I buy. Sometimes I am right and sometimes I am wrong, but Austonia asked us how we would rank them. Based on what I have used and what I have heard and read about the others, I made my ranking with consideration to my own needs.

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As another person who's owned each of these for a while, here's my take. I have decided to keep both the Karma and Ihp-120.
As always, everyones mileage varies.

Features :
1) Karma, iHP-120
2) Xtra
3) iPod

Sound quality :
1)Karma/Xtra/Ihp-120 together but they all sound different.
2)Ipod

Ouput Power :
1) Xtra
2) Karma, iPod
3) iHP-100

Design :
1) iPod
2) Karma
3) iHP-120
4) Xtra

Value :
1) iHP-120 (comes with everything at one price)
2) Xtra (great value for $$)
3) Karma (comes with Dock, price of accessories?)
4) ipod (dock and everything else expensive)

Storage Capacity :
1) Xtra
2) iPOd
3) Karma, iHP-120

Ease of use :

I like the finger pad, but not the way the menus work on ipod.

1) Karma
2) Ipod
3) Ihp-120
4) Xtra

Portability (size, weight) :
1) Ipod, Ihp-120 basically equal
f not IHP slightly better due to more functionality per space.
2) iHP-100
3) Karma (way too fat for womans pockets)
4) Xtra far behind

Accessories : (you are talking available)
1) ipod (lots of stuff for big $$$)
2) ihp (everything included)
3) Xtra
4)Karma

Playtime :
1) Karma; iHP-120
2) Xtra
3) iPod

Continued firmware development (dittp:not sure how you judge this)
1) iHP-120
2) Karma
3) Xtra, iPod

Long-term durability : (ditto'd as I don't know how to judge this)
1) Extra
2) Karma, iHP-120
3) iPod

OVERALL
Gold - Karma and Ihp in dead heat, I'm keeping both
Silver -Ipod close behind, longer battery, want more flexibility
Bronze - Xtra not a consideration

intersting how all people has different opinions

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So, if someone counters a poor opinion of an iRiver product, it's OK but if someone counters a poor opinion of the iPod it's being "defensive," correct? Wow, what a delightfully narrow-minded opinion. Must be nice in your world...