Help choosing a DAP?

[PsyvariarDC2]

Hey, I'm about to buy my first DAP and I don't know much about them. I have a budget around $300 and I'm looking for the best ones I could buy within that price range. Any help?

 

[blessingx]

Any criteria to judge one over another (size, battery life, storage capacity, format support, etc.)?

The iPod, Karma, iHP (and a host of others) all have advantages over each other.

 

[PsyvariarDC2]

Hmm, something I really want is a nice, long battery life, at least 20 gigs of storage, and I don't really care what size it is as long as it fits in my pocket and isn't that heavy. Sound quality isn't a really big deal, just as long as it's decent and doesnt sound like crap.

 

[blessingx]

Depends on your pockets, but if I was a Windows user (not required but support more limited elsewhere), I'd look at the Rio Karma, unless you needed a different feature set of the iPod (more third party support, etc.) or iRiver (recording, etc.). Be are though there are some that have had hard disk problems. The Karma are going for a great price though. Also the Dell DJs are going cheap. http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showt...6552&highlight

 

[PsyvariarDC2]

What are the pros/cons of each player?

 

[blessingx]

Use the search button at the top or visit Austonia's site.

 

[Ch0mp]

Has anyone tried the Zen Touch?

 

[PsyvariarDC2]

blessingx, are those 3 players the best choices I should consider?

 

[Max Minimum]

I'm very happy with the battery life, storage capacity (60 gigs) and sound of my Zen Xtra. I got it from newegg.com for a grand total of $318.

 

[PsyvariarDC2]

So it's between Zen, iHP, iPod, and Karma?

 

[CamelBackCinema]

Get the iPod for the ease of use and shape/size. It gets about 10 hours of battery life. Make this stat the deciding factor (it may or may not be enough for your needs). You can easily get the 20gig at 270.00 with the student discount price. If you're not a student it still fits your budget.

The sound quality is very nice but I dunno if you would like the "apple" product (itunes, ipod). I like ID3 tags better than the way ihp does it.

The only contender I'd recommend would be the rio karma but it is a little thicker and would bulge in your pocket a little more.

 

[Edvard_Grieg]

nothing wrong with a *bulge*, might even be a plus in some cases

Anyway, to add to that benchmark, the Karma does 15 hours easily for mp3 and wma (10 and 11 for ogg and flac respectively). The interface is arguably just as intuitive as the iPod's, and the software works quite nicely (probably the only contender to the iPod+iTunes integration). The Karma is definetely geared more towards geeks/audio enthusiasts given the open source codec support (ogg and flac) and a 5-band parametric eq. However, it does not really have any substantial accessories, it does one thing (plays music) and it does it very well. I agree with Camel that ID3 tagging is the way to go over file/folder navigation as it allows you far greater fliexibility in the way you search. Both the Karma and the iPod use this form of navigation. My biggest reservation with the iPod (trying to speak objectively), is the documented high failure rate of the 4G (higher than the anecdotal Karma information), but more importantly that you end up getting yourself locked into a format (aac). Yes, you will get plenty of people saying that AAC is a great format, and it is, unfortunately, there is one player, and one player alone that supports it. So, if a new better player comes out you are stuck with AAC. The other thing being that it won't support wma, now this is obvious sacrilege to any Mac user, but the fact remains that most other online music stores use wma and it is fairly good sound for the compression ratio (assuming you can get past the M$ B$).

So.......do some research, go to the stores, play with the players, and have a great time, that was just my $0.02 but that's what forums are, the collective yelling of idiots all trying to scream louder than each other, good luck!

 

[PsyvariarDC2]

The problem is that there is no place here where I live (Alaska) with these players in our local stores. The only way I can really choose what to buy is through thorough research. I think I'm now choosing between iHP-200 and the Karma.

 

[blessingx]

There's a couple ways of looking at this, but the market-share of players supporting AAC over Ogg is ridiculously lop-sided as is online music sales... towards AAC. This is of course because of the iPod and iTMS (add Real if you want). As for being locked in, the iPod isn't the only player supporting AAC (to prove a point, but the other players are minor ones), though it's the only HD one (well two), off the top of my head. There's no reason why (AAC is not owned or created by Apple) it won't or can't be supported by more players in the future. Remember until the Karma came out, there was only one major company supporting Ogg with HD based players, iRiver. Now there are two (unless you want to count much smaller companies).

As for WMA, if WMA Pro ever gets implemented, that would be great, but otherwise its space/sound compression is worse than decent MP3 implementations (mainly LAME). So in reality the online stores (128-160 WMA standard) are generally considered worse sounding than iTMS (128 AAC) or Real (192 AAC). There are currently no Ogg online stores.

Not trying to push the iPod or AAC, but I think those things need to be mentioned.

PsyvariarDC2, it's very difficult to recommend one player over the other without knowing for info from you on what you're looking for.

For greatest ease of use (GUI and iTunes connection) and greatest compatibility with what's on the market now (third party support), go with the iPod (BTW, it has a low "failure rate", but this is a drive spin noise issue you may want to research here- my first made noise when used with Etys and Etys only).

For most customizable sound and one of the best price/performance ratios, go with the Karma. There is that hard disk "failure rate", but do some research and the issue may not be as big as some sound. Like the iPod, it also supports lossless compression. Again if I was on a Windows machine, this would be my starting point.

If you're willing to pay a premium (same price as iPod), and want some advanced features like record and digital line-out (read up on its quality - there's some debate), want playback organization options, and also USB recognized mounting, this is your player.

Then the Dell DJ, Creative Zens and especially NJB, and a host of other players are great other options depending on your needs.

 

[PsyvariarDC2]

Hmm, I'm sure I will not be using any online music stores to get my music. I still use P2P. The format I will be most likely using is MP3, since I don't know that much about audio formats yet, but I might also try OGG since it sounds good. Also, I am willing to learn how to properly use a complicated player as long as it is a good one.