Rio Karma crossfade function?

[appar111]

For those of you who have the Karma, how does the crossfade function work? Is it similar to the crossfade on iTunes? Is the length of the crossfade adjustable? I still think that the Karma would be a good alternative to the iPod, which I never really cared for-- always sounded a little sterile to me, no matter what headphones I used.

I may have to do more searching on the Karma to see what the headphone out sounds like....


appar111

 

[moi]

Cross fade can be 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds or off. It works very well & it makes music listenting a much nicer experience. Transitioning even from Rock to Classical is not jarring.

 

[mdmania]

Does the crossfade work with shuffle mode?
Also, does the audio leveling (normalizer) works consistently.
No artifacts from the original sound?

 

[moi]

yes,
audio leveling is crap
sorry, don't know

 

[mdmania]

Will you be more specific about the audio leveling being crappy?

thanks!

BTW: Is this even comparable to EAX's SVM (Smart Volume Management)?

 

[moi]

Ok I should have said that IMHO I think it is crap. It may have its uses, but it does make the sound kinda funny, ( for the 10 seconds I used it). I did own a Zen & never used SVM, I think they are both the same sort of thing, though as to how each performs in said area would have to be commented on by someone who has used both.

 

[mdmania]

Thanks moi for the quick reply. I have use the SVM and in fact
it's always on. This feature is one of the reason I went with the Zen Xtra and it always has been a dream feature of mine to have this embedded onto a mp3 player device. My second dream was the crossfade feature which is unfortunate that Rio only has it. I'm thinking whether exchanging my zen xtra for the rio karma just for that reason and this is why I wanted a clarification on how good the Audio Leveling that Karma offer....thanks again.

 

[ian]

I don't think I'd call it crap, but it's more of a personal preference and it could have its uses. It works fine and is probably very similar to the feature on the Zen.

I haven't used it much but I just turned it on now. It sounds a bit strange, since it makes all part of the music sound approximately the same volume (so you don't blow your ears off). Is this what you expect of it?

 

[ian]

Forgot to note, you can set it to off, low, medium, or high.

 

[mdmania]

So do they mean anything? Please explain....