[todda]

Great forum going here! I am a professional musician who enjoyed many years of iriver h120 use until it just died last week. It feels like my world has been turned upside down trying to find a replacement player. My most coveted features are drag + drop file tree nav., line in recording to wav (i use sony powered mic. to record rehearsals etc..), and at least 20gigs of space. I have little use for video or picture viewing, nor fm radio, its just an added bonus i might use if it was there.
After MANY hours of research, it looks like my options are archos 402, or cowon x5L. I know the x5L doesn't record to wav., I would live with that if there were enough reason to prefer it to the archos. It seems i can get the archos player much cheaper, but i don't want to sacrifice greatness for $50 price difference. My other choice would be a refurbished iriver 120, but I live in Canada and all these players have to be imported from the U.S., which costs a fortune, and i am worried about warantee issues (although do warantees mean anything realy?!!) Why oh why did iriver stop producing the 120!!!??? Any adive would be appreciated, i use my dap A LOT, so its important for me to get the right one. Todd

 

[whistler]

Is it hard drive dead or system dead? Hard drive dead would mean you could replace the hard drive. Which isn't that difficult and cheaper than a new DAP.

 

[scrypt]

Have you looked at the Sound Professionals page? They make a rather good stealth recording case for the Archos Gmini 402.

I've considered the Archos and even Mac-conversant Hi-MD, but would ultimately choose the Korg MR-1 or something similar. The 402 seems to me to be a well-chosen replacement for the iHP-140 if you want nothing more than what you had to begin with. I won't be buying the 402 myself, but that's because I own two iHP-140s and both are in swimming shape.

(I've also read that the 402 is more reliable than the iHP-140 as a recording device, but that was on forums like this one and so was perhaps anecdotal.)

Edit:

Welcome to Head-fi, todda -- always a pleasure to have a fellow musician on 'board. What's your instrument and what kind of music do you play professionally?

 

[Kabeer]

Buy a iriver h140 off ebay

!!!
I think there are still refurb units being sold by irivers warranty replacement company!

Plus you will already be soo used to it, there will be no adjusting.

 

[KerryKing]

As a follow up question to Kabeer, is the refurb Iriver h140 worth of the money to get on ebay?? If you compare it to the new items on the market?

For me i whant really good SQ with preferably rockbox or something similar that can take most of the codecs and that do not need any extra progs to move the files back and forth from the computer.

It seems like 200 usd + shipping is quite expensive or??

Sorry for hijacking your thread

/Erik

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by todda /img/forum/go_quote.gif I know the x5L doesn't record to wav., I would live with that if there were enough reason to prefer it to the archos.

You can record to .wav on the X5L with Rockbox.

 

[Kabeer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KerryKing /img/forum/go_quote.gif As a follow up question to Kabeer, is the refurb Iriver h140 worth of the money to get on ebay?? If you compare it to the new items on the market? For me i whant really good SQ with preferably rockbox or something similar that can take most of the codecs and that do not need any extra progs to move the files back and forth from the computer. It seems like 200 usd + shipping is quite expensive or?? Sorry for hijacking your thread /Erik

To be honest I think its a bargain price. They usually sell for very high price. And these refurb units would be the best condition youll probably find.

Itll do what you want (v.good SQ/the line out is excellent for a DAP, Stable Rockbox, lots of Codec support, drag and drop files in windows).

Someone here says there is a Cowon player thats got better output. I havent heard them, but from all the players I have, its in my opinion its probably the best commercial player out there (for having loads of features and great SQ)
The only downsides to me are: bit bulky, only 40gb....thats it.

There is really nothing out there yet released I would i would personally replace it with, the only thing would be the iMod. But that lacks the recording facilities.

 

[ath]

Go for a refurbished Iriver. Nothing like it especially with Rockbox on it. It is a shame that Iriver stopped producing these players.

 

[todda]

great responses guys, great forum. here's the answers to all your questions...i replaced my iriver hdd and it still says "check hdd connection". everything else works fine, my computer reads the hdd fine through the usb connection, but the player does not. Now i have a brand new mk3006gal 30 gig hdd, so i had considered putting it in the archos 402 to bump it up 10 gigs. i've tried everything to my ability to repair the iriver. i did my best to get advice from misticriver. i even took it to every laptop repair shop in town..no one would even look at it (seems to me that dap repair is a gaping huge empty market)

yes, i am a freelance jazz/rock guitarist who also performs and writes for some regular bands my band: myspace.com/austinjohnmusic others: myspace.com/stephanieannemartin chrishunt.ca thetjo.com

the korg and edirol type players are great, but i realy only need the live recording for rehearsals etc.. so i don't need that kind of performance/software/size/price tag.

i never used rockbox on my iriver, allways found the firmware did what i needed, and i'm not the kind of guy to customize the screen etc.. they also took a while to get the recording functions up, so i just left it. but great to know rockbox made the x5l record to wave..that changes a lot. i'd love to hear from any x5l users (on rockbox too)who like or dislike their players for particular reasons.

i was surprised to hear how many of you think i should just get a refurb iriver..they are as much $ as a new 402!! wow, they realy did get it right the first time. i listened to my wife's sony nw hd1 last night on a long walk. using sonic stage was a pain, as was converting all my mp3s to atrac 3...but man does it sound great! what a beautiful little slick player..all it's missing is a line in..too bad sony...i used their mds for a long time, why don't they get rid of them and just make a large capacity player with recording abilities??!!

well, i think that covers it. i'd still love to hear from x5l or 402 users to argue on either side. i will make my dicision soon and let you all know how it goes. keep the advice coming. todd

 

[KerryKing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kabeer /img/forum/go_quote.gif To be honest I think its a bargain price. They usually sell for very high price. And these refurb units would be the best condition youll probably find. Itll do what you want (v.good SQ/the line out is excellent for a DAP, Stable Rockbox, lots of Codec support, drag and drop files in windows). Someone here says there is a Cowon player thats got better output. I havent heard them, but from all the players I have, its in my opinion its probably the best commercial player out there (for having loads of features and great SQ) The only downsides to me are: bit bulky, only 40gb....thats it. There is really nothing out there yet released I would i would personally replace it with, the only thing would be the iMod. But that lacks the recording facilities.

You should get a provision from the ebay seller because i just bought an iRiver iHP-140

Thanx for the help
/Erik

 

[terrymx]

sound like you need more some quallity little standalone recorder rather tha a full blown dap, they go much cheapers than a dap.

with the archos you need to use that small adaptor whenever you want to line in record.

 

[MrFaust]

I'm with Kabeer. Infact I just bought an iHP-140 off ebay last night for $200. I almost bought one yesterday for $300 but decided to wait. Good thing I did and good thing someone pointed me in the right direction. I had an iHP-120 for the longest time and loved it. But I sold it as it was my only DAP at the time and 20gb just wasn't enough space for me. I then went crazy and built a very expensive H380 (H340 with 2200mah battery and 80gb hdd) But sold it due to lack of funds at the time. Now I need a new DAP to hold all my Live Audience Recordings and am tired of converting from FLAC to ALAC so they will play on my iPod. Plus I've been looking at getting together another stealth recording rig, to which the iHP-140 is fantastic at doing with Rockbox and REP.