[SteeleBlayde]

Search is down unfortunately.

Cutting to the chase:
I'm going on a three month wilderness backpacking trip so I'm going to need music. I need suggestions on a hard drive player.
Price is not a concern.

In terms of priority:
1. Sound quality right out of the headphone jack.
2. Relatively well built. Wont break if my pack drops for some reason.
3. Battery life.

Whatever brand you recommend, I will go for the model with most capacity. I'm also assuming that all the well known HDD players out there are relatively portable.

If theres a DAP out there that accepts AA/AAA battery types or something easily available from a department store, that would be awesome too as I could just stock up and not have to worry about finding an outlet in the wilderness to charge the sucker.

So yeah, suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Watchdog]

Hi Doug.

As for your priorities, I'm a little confused as to why battery life isn't #1 on a wilderness backpacking trip. Won't you be away from AC power for long periods of time?

You should PM Austonia about sound quality out of the headphone jack, but I don't think there are significant differences b/t the leading contenders which would be the iPod, IHP-120, Karma, Zen Xtra and Dell DJ.

As for being built like a tank, I believe the Zen wins there by quite a significant margin.

Battery life, well I can tell you the iPod sucks and is easily the worst. I suppose you could buy the Belkin battery pack.

If it were me, on a trip like that I'd likely get one of the new HI-MD units from Sony. You can carry a bundle of AA batteries with you, which can't be used with the DAP's listed above, save the iPod with the Belkin battery pack. Plus with the new HI-MD you can have 1GB of music per disc and save it in PCM format if sound quality is really important. Then again the amp on an MD unit is going to be wimpy compared to a DAP and if you're using demanding phones, then I suppose a HD DAP is the way to go.

The old Creative Labs NJB2 took AA batteries if memory serves me correctly. It's huge compared to those other players, and I'm guessing it weighs quite a bit more. I so happened to notice that a local store was blowing out an old NJB2 10GB for $200 Cdn. If you're interested in it, send me a PM and I could pick it up for you, if you want it. I could meet you in Bellingham one weekend to do the exchange if you decide you want it.

PS - I just noticed high capacity is a priority. I believe the NJB2 uses a standard laptop drive so you can swap out the 10GB drive and install an 80 GB drive and have a ton of music with you.

 

[austonia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Watchdog You can carry a bundle of AA batteries with you, which can't be used with the DAP's listed above, save the iPod with the Belkin battery pack.

actually you make an external battery pack for any DAP that uses AA batteries. In fact, I'm going to be selling some home-made ones through DAPreview.com soon for anyone who doesn't care to build thier own.

 

[austonia]

stellyblade... since you're going to wearing a pack most of the time you might consider the iHP because it has a remote with hi-res LCD that can control all the player's functions. It's certainly not my favorite player but for your purpose it might be the best. you could keep the main unit packed securely in your backpack and just use the in-line remote. it has good battery life and you can take an external battery pack with your for extra juice.

 

[MagusG]

Austonia, since you seem to be the local guru, what would your favorite player be?
-Mag

 

[austonia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MagusG Austonia, since you seem to be the local guru, what would your favorite player be? -Mag

Rio Karma... best all around player, small, good battery life, great GUI, unique design, efficient controls, unmatched EQ (5-band parametric), gapless playback, crossfading, support for OGG and FLAC, etc.. you can't go wrong

 

[Watchdog]

Austin I've too been thinking about picking up a Karma as well. Like you I love DAP.

But I've heard reports about the drive locking up etc.... do you know if the Karma is any more or less reliable than the others i.e. iRiver, iPod, Zen, Dell

I would love to be able to play wma and flac files, which my iPod won't do.

 

[appar111]

Has Rio worked out most of the hard drive problems with the Karma? I really wish the Karma would have been Mac compatible (true, I can interface with it through ethernet if I needed to, but I would still need a pc to do firmware updates). If the Karma was directly Mac/iTunes compatible, then I would have stayed that route. but I'm happy with my Mini. For the use you're talking about, the iRiver IHP does sound like the best bet. If you didn't need the remote, then I'd vote Karma..

 

[SteeleBlayde]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

As for the battery life issue. It is a problem, but its not the biggest concern since I think I'll be doing most of my listening probably around bedtime in my tent or under the stars. I doubt I'll be doing much listening while I'm out and about since I'll be trekking with buddies. Thats the main reason my priorities are arranged as they are.

So how about this sound quality issue?

 

[austonia]

about the Karma's supposed hard-drive issue, well I can tell you, I'm having a hard time finding any broken Karmas for sale. I've been trying to locate one with a broken drive for 2 weeks. There's one on Ebay now but I think I found another guy with one. Anyway, there not common as you would think if the drive was failing everywhere. None of the people I know, who have one, have had a failure.

SQ on Karma is as good as they come.

BTW i'm looking for busted ones so I can do stupid things like make a flash-based Karma and a 40gb version. heh.

 

[PodMan]

how does the sound quality of the karma compare to the ipod? no eq used for both. how similar is the amp in the karma to the ipod?

 

[SteeleBlayde]

Nobody seems to care about sound quality, just features.

 

[sygyzy]

When is the next model Karma coming out?

 

[crunchyfrog]

No definitive word yet, but the general consensus says probably in the fall, before the holiday shopping rush begins.

 

[Blork]

I would look into investing in an older archos jukebox. I've seen ones that take AA batteries, the SQ with rockbox firmware is pretty good, bettery life is great, a 20gb one can be had for about 100 dollars, the size isn't that bad, and they are fairly durable.