[slick]

so far, so good. its a great little portable.
i used to have a zen (20gb, the original one without the removeable battery), and a 20gb ipod.
the karma is definately the nicer one out of the bunch. it beats the creative in package content and features, and is just a step behind the ipod (i think its a better deal than the ipod at over a hundred bucks less).
i messed around with the parametric EQ a little, its gonna take a while for me to get the sound just right, but the adjustability is there.
i did a quick comparison of SQ using MP3 and FLAC, its official, MP3's suck

not really, but lets just say that i am going to convert a lot of my cd's to FLAC for exclusive use on the karma.
just thought i'd share this with you guys.

i ordered a pair of HD600's and RS2's to compare, now all i need is an amp and i'll be in audio heaven

 

[chicubs]

how is its content and features behind the ipod?....oh, yah, it doesnt have games, silly me.

 

[slick]

well it doesnt have that inline remote, or the slip case (the karma comes with that little baggy, kinda lame). the ipod has the nice touch controls to. the karma is just a tad bit behind, but i dont think that the ipod is worth its price compared to the karma.

and yes, the games are uber cool

 

[deltawalkerl]

Do you think the firmware of the Karma is very polished and virtually bug-free? Or does it suffer from the same buggy syndrome that plagues other relatively-new players like the iRiver H120? Thanks.

 

[Nexus6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chicubs how is its content and features behind the ipod?....oh, yah, it doesnt have games, silly me.

Yeah, cause audiophiles worry about whether or not their DAP comes with solitare.

 

[Apesbrain]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slick i did a quick comparison of SQ using MP3 and FLAC, its official, MP3's suck

Just curious, did you try Ogg Vorbis on the Karma and, if so, what did you think of the SQ? Supposed to sound better than MP3 and is gapless on the Karma.

Also, MP3s created with EAC/LAME -preset standard can sound great.

 

[Bolt San]

Quote:

Originally Posted by deltawalkerl Do you think the firmware of the Karma is very polished and virtually bug-free? Or does it suffer from the same buggy syndrome that plagues other relatively-new players like the iRiver H120? Thanks.

It wasn't very buggy to begin with, but many updates have been made to the firmware, and I'm happy to say it's never so much as locked up on me in the six months I've had it.

 

[slick]

i've been converting and transferring songs all day (on and off). i use the supplied rio manager software to rip, encode and transfer, its a great program.
i converted a lot of my cd's to flac, but tried ogg in a comparison again. santana's supernatural cd. in short, ogg is noticeably better than mp3 (i really dont care about the file size so i didnt look at the sizes). ogg is a very nice compressed format, you can hear the subtle differences between ogg and flac in flac's favor, but thats understanding since its lossless. i want the best sound, so i'm sticking with flac, but ogg, if it were as widespread and popular as mp3, would be my next choice. (again, there is nothing wrong with mp3, its just old compared to new stuff available, it still rules the market - home, car, portable).
btw, i have had no problems with the karma. i have the latest firmware installed. no lockups, and i've turned the karma on/off a lot of times so far. the transfer rates are good, i transfered 5gb's in less than 5 minutes (using usb 2.0), its not bad at all.

 

[crunchyfrog]

Congrats on the new Karma! I hope you two are very happy together...

 

[gorman]

I don't want to turn you away from FLAC (I'm reripping all my CDs to FLAC for archive) but what quality settings were you using with Vorbis? With MP3? What encoders?

 

[slick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gorman I don't want to turn you away from FLAC (I'm reripping all my CDs to FLAC for archive) but what quality settings were you using with Vorbis? With MP3? What encoders?

for OGG i used the rio music manager to rip and encode, i dont remember there being any specific for the quality other than "Best Quality". for MP3, i used creatives playcenter to encode all my MP3's. i did them in VBR instead of CBR, and i used the highest setting (again, it didnt have anything more than "best quality"). when i first ripped the MP3's, i did them in 320kbps CBR and the high quality VBR, the VBR sounded just slightly better overall (for some reason, it sounded better in quiet areas in songs, or when there was just vocals).
i'm not sure what encoders are used with RMM and creative playcenter.

 

[Oddball]

I've been wondering, how big is the Karma's hard drive really? I know it's a little less than 20 GB IRL but I can't seem to find the actual number.

 

[Bolt San]

18.6 is what mine says.

 

[Lil_JV]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bolt San 18.6 is what mine says.

Yup. Ditto.