[LFC_SL]

interesting about OGG effect on batt.....esp compared to lossless

Anyway, I'm sure in 5 years OGG will be the dominant compression format, and tech will improve for it

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LFC_SL Anyway, I'm sure in 5 years OGG will be the dominant compression format, and tech will improve for it

That makes one of us.

 

[proximal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx There's a LAME tag and another method I can't recall at the moment, but both are experimental (I believe the LAME tag isn't even developed anymore), not part of the MP3 spec, and I highly doubt read by the Karma.

It is.

Also, nobody has mentioned the RCA RD2850 yet. It does gapless MP3.

 

[pata2001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Febs As someone noted above, the iriver H120/H140 with Rockbox does gapless MP3 playback.

The H1xx series have been discontinued loooooong time ago. The Karma is gapless out of the box.

Unfortunately, the Karma is EOL also. So technically, for now, there's no DAPs that can do MP3 gapless.

 

[pata2001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by proximal Also, nobody has mentioned the RCA RD2850 yet. It does gapless MP3.

You know, I've read about that player here and there being gapless, but nobody actually confirms it. Most of them just say "oh, it's gapless." No further descriptions or testing were done. On the other hand, you'll find much more testimonial on the Karma.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by proximal It is.

Wow. I'm surprised. I stand corrected.

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pata2001 The H1xx series have been discontinued loooooong time ago. The Karma is gapless out of the box. Unfortunately, the Karma is EOL also. So technically, for now, there's no DAPs that can do MP3 gapless.

Well, the H1xx series has been discontinued for just under a year, but I guess that is a relatively long time in the DAP world. But they're still available through ebay, so for people for whom gapless is important, it is a legitimate option.

Work is underway to port Rockbox to both the iriver H300 series and the iAudio X5. The H300 is still available new, although it's becoming harder and harder to find.

 

[PFRfan]

BTW - FLAC on the Karma is great unless you like to back up in a song you're listening to. It has to spin up the drive since the buffer can't hold the whole song, and if you have to shuttle back and forth it's murder. That's why I switched to APS MP3s. It all sounds equally gapless to me...

 

[jmb]

Quote:

Originally Posted by notnormal jmb, ignore the technical details. For your purposes, lame encoded mp3s will do what you want on the Karma and appear to playback gaplessly .

Perfect and to the point

I have a feeling as C38368 pointed out, that there will be some instances of audible gaps, but I am just excited to finally get gapless playback.

I will miss my JB3. Creative broke my heart when the ended that line. They could have turned it into a high-end live recording unit for band tapers and imporved the headphone amps, line/optical output and given us audio geeks something to drool over and sing the praises of.

It had so much potential, as long as they didn't compromise sound quality and recording features for style and size.

 

[Beethovenian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmb I have a feeling as C38368 pointed out, that there will be some instances of audible gaps, but I am just excited to finally get gapless playback.

As a former Karma user, I can say that will probably be the case. I had more than a few instances of audible clicks during Lame MP3 transitions, and tried many different encodings (with EAC, CDex and RMM) to see if it was just a case of bad ripping. It will likely depend on the type of music you listen to. With classical, some little gaps become pretty evident even with the efficient Karma playback.

 

[jmb]

Well I got my Karma yesterday and transfered all my old EAC/LAME APS files to the player and so far so good.

You will hear very very short gaps b/t tracks if you fast forward through a song to the end just before the transition to the next. A buffer issue probably, but listening to an album straight through I haven't heard a single gap...yet anyway.

The crossfading feature (set to 1 sec.), used when shuffling and listening to all of the tracks on the player is an excellent feature and works very nicely. Very smooth and relaxing. Even transitions between Miles Davis and Nirvana aren't jarring.

*I still need to take it through some more stringent tests, as I never bothered putting my live CD's on my JB3, because the annoying clicks/pauses during transitional jams. Use on a portable CD player only. So I will have to check that out. Breaks/Pauses are generally more audibley apparent on those albums, than say a Beastie Boys or Digiable Planet Album. I don't listen to techno or DJ mixs, so that I cannot really test that genre.

**I need to test the shuffle all tracks playback without the crossfader on, to see how it performs in that respect. Just turned it off, so I will have to wait for the right songs to come together consecutively a few times when listening carefully to be sure.

***I also need to get a better pair of cans so I will here more detail than the KSC75's I am currently using.

Will do more testing are try to come up with a comprehensive review of the Karma gapless playback abilities when playing LAME encoded 192kbps VBR stereo Mp3's after a new pair of headphones becomes afforable and I have had time to thoroughly test different types of playback extensively.

Overall though, I am extatic. My listening pleasure with the Karma is great so far. The player is a litle thick, but still pocket friendly. The ergonomics for one-handed (right) is very nice. The way you hold it while navigating feels very secure and less prone to drop (knock on wood), because you actually grasp the entire player instead of "finger tip it". The rubber side panel helps too. Great first impressions.

 

[mr.karmalicious]

Quote:

*I still need to take it through some more stringent tests, as I never bothered putting my live CD's on my JB3, because the annoying clicks/pauses during transitional jams. Use on a portable CD player only. So I will have to check that out. Breaks/Pauses are generally more audibley apparent on those albums, than say a Beastie Boys or Digiable Planet Album. I don't listen to techno or DJ mixs, so that I cannot really test that genre.

I hope you find as much gapless enjoyment with your Karma as I do with mine. I have a live Outkast CD, and it's AWESOME. Poor Rio

...

 

[jmb]

Update:

Extracted (EAC) a live show off a CD-R created from .wav file (which were decompressed from downloaded SHN's), used LAME to create APS Mp3's, transfered to Karma..... and there were audible gaps.

Will see how it goes with commercially released live show CD's.

 

[Aliacha]

How about MD-Players? Mine has an Optical In, and as long as you record first and add tracks later, it'll be gapless. Though it is a pretty time consuming thing as you have to listen to the cd while waiting for the track to 'end' at the right point.

 

[jmb]

I've had three MD's from the old school to the modern players, and I love ATRAC and the native gapless, but I prefer HD DAP's.