[matrixxhw]

I recently dug up my old rio pmp600, and i gave it a listen, and it sounded surprisingly not too bad. I'm also in the process of looking for a new hdp, and above all sound quality, and eq options are most important. I have tried only the ipod/ipod mini, and the creative zen xtra, and i have to say the eq's on those really disappoint. but this rio pmp 600 had more eq options, so this brings the karma into the options for me. Does the karma have as much, or more options for eq adjustments? i was sorely disappointed with eq on the other hdp's i tried, altho i have yet to try the ihp-120. any input into the karma's overall sound would be appreciated.

 

[Ch0mp]

karma. check it out here http://forums-riovolution.com/

 

[jet_fighter00]

It does indeed have the ebst eq, it has a 5 band parametric eq, if that means anything to you

....

What it does is it ahs 5 sliders, which you can move, to change the sound, you can also change the width and center that this sliders are on, thus creating an even broader sound. I'm sure someone can explain it much better than me, if you need help. Look at some screens at the www.dapreview.com gallary on the GUI to check out some screens of the eq's for many players, including the Karma.

 

[Edvard_Grieg]

On top of that, the format options on the Karma are the best (MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, WAV) Both ogg and flac are open-source which means you don't have to worry about anyone's DRM bs, and also, the Karma supports all compression settings of FLAC which is a lossless codec. Finally, all the formats on the Karma play back gapless**

**MP3 provided it is encoded as VBR with one of the more recent LAME encoders, and WMA is done to the best of the abilities to which M$ has allowed (M$ 'blackboxes' their codec so it cannot be edited)

 

[matrixxhw]

i was ready to go karma, but ive read an alarming amount of reviews proclaiming hard drives failures, crashes, and knobs breaking off. If this is the case, i definately can't get this...ahh dilemma

 

[hiro11]

Quote:

Originally Posted by matrixxhw i was ready to go karma, but ive read an alarming amount of reviews proclaiming hard drives failures, crashes, and knobs breaking off. If this is the case, i definately can't get this...ahh dilemma

It depends. I've had my Karma for about three months now with no freezes, no HD problems and flawless playback every time. I haven't dropped the thing, but the build quality seems fine (although not up the the standards of the 4G iPod or the new Sony).

Anecdotally (judging by what I've seen on Riovolution), I think there was a higher-than-normal rate of HD failures earlier this year in the Karma and much fewer more recently. Maybe Rio identified the cause of the error and implemented something (without telling us) in firmware v 1.68 to compensate for the HD firmware error, I don't know.

From what I've seen, HD-based players are all still very cutting edge for consumer electronics and all have their issues. Mistic River has tons of posts with people having trouble with the IRiver, iPodlounge has a huge number of posts on iPod problems.

To solve the problem, I would buy and extended warrentee with ANY HD-based DAP. Thirty bucks for 2-3 years of peace-of-mind seems like a bargain to me. Factor in the very low price that the Karma is going for these days and it's hard to beat. For less than 275 bucks (with an extended warranttee), you'll have a 20gig player with multi year no-questions-asked replacement and (still) a very competitive feature set.

 

[matrixxhw]

ahh thank you x3000, im set on the karma now...just gotta get to best buy this weekend. thanks to all who posted

 

[Edvard_Grieg]

yeah to help that more, I'm one of the Mods at Riovolution and yes there is obviously a bias, duh, statistically true HD failures have been polled around 5 percent, which when you consider a support forum is going to be skewed to the negative isn't too bad. As far as anecdotal support, I've had mine for almost a year now, I've had to 'soft-reset' it a total of 3 times I believe, I take it snowboarding, and I am far from 'careful' with it, and I haven't had any problems.

 

[mxs1030]

If you're still worried by the HD failures, buy yours from newegg w/ the warranty. It's a bit pricier than the cheapest online retailer, but newegg customer support has not let me down once..

 

[Max Minimum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mxs1030 If you're still worried by the HD failures, buy yours from newegg w/ the warranty. It's a bit pricier than the cheapest online retailer, but newegg customer support has not let me down once..

Gotta agree about newegg. I bought my MX-500's and my 60g Xtra there. They were really fast! I got both of these in less than a week. Actually I think both were ordered on Sundays and arrived the following Friday. And every time someone mentions their customer service, it seems to be a positive comment.