[swmtnbiker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dskywalker I don't know how good the iriver sounds, but I don't like the karma straight from its headphone out. Sounds too congested.

Same here. I stacked the Karma up against my Zen Micro and the Creative player sounds better to me both amped and straight out of the headphone jack.

 

[Sweet Spot]

This would be a no brainer for me. It was actually a no brainer when I purchased my IHP 120 a couple years ago, opposed to the Karma, which was my first choice actually, until I did more research and decided that the barage of complaints about HD deaths was too much of a risk for me.

I usually hear the same reply for this, which is "yeah, you visit a forum, and of course you're going to see more negative posts, because it's a support forum. That's very natural". Yeeah, whatever

Funny how over the past couple years of owning the iRiver, and being that I'm an admin on Mistic, home of iRiver stuff, I've seen virtually no similarly related problems on the IHP series DAP. I'll just confirm, I'm damned glad I chose the IHP. Especially now, for more than one reason:

Yes, ROCKbox kicks so much damned ass, it's not even funny. I won't even get into that though, because there's just too much ground to cover.

Stability. Hell yes, in spades.

Tweakable/Moddable ? Sheeet yeah. At the moment, the 20 gig ones are able to accept Toshiba 30 gig drives, which have been available for a while now. The replacement is extremely easy. I'm awaiting the Toshiba single platter 40 gig though...Should be soon.

The stock battery, which lasts an average of 15-16 hours, is also easily replaceable, with an available battery which boosts the life to approximately 26 hours. Hellz yeah.

So, as long as one keeps the body and electronics in good shape, I don't see a problem with having the thing for years and years to come.

Sound quality: IMO, it's fantastic. I don't use much EQ tweaking except for a 4 notch increase in bass when using my Sony V6's. With Optical IN and OUT ports, hooking it up to a nice pre amp, is dreamy.

What's more, is that not only is there database software available for it, but it shows up as an ordinary drive, for true drag and drop action. Something I personally couldn't live without.

 

[no1likesme]

i vote for karma

 

[aice]

Thanks for the replies.

THe iRiver seems in pictures ot be a bit big and clunky. I've never seen/held one in my life, so can those who have tell me the size is when in hand?

 

[proximal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aice THe iRiver seems in pictures ot be a bit big and clunky. I've never seen/held one in my life, so can those who have tell me the size is when in hand?

The iRiver is a more manageable shape than Karma because it's thinner and narrower.





That's a 20 gig 4G iPod, btw.

 

[Veggie_Musician]

Buy them both - sell one you dont want - both highly sort after players! You may loss £20-30 but you will have peace of mind knowing you got right player for you.

 

[aice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veggie_Musician Buy them both - sell one you dont want - both highly sort after players! You may loss £20-30 but you will have peace of mind knowing you got right player for you.

LOL - sorry, but that's not quite an option...

 

[digitalcat]

Karma could have been my choice of the audiophile player. Unfortunately when I was searching for a DAP and googled Karma, I ended up reading a thread on riovolution saying that the effective way to unfreeze the Karma is to bang it hard, real hard. then I was like,

,yeah right, good luck with that....

 

[proximal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by digitalcat I ended up reading a thread on riovolution saying that the effective way to unfreeze the Karma is to bang it hard, real hard

That's the last resort for a hard drive with the head stuck to the platter. A frozen Karma should always be reset first; if that doesn't work then the diagnostic mode should be accessed, which will tell you if the hard drive is bad. If it isn't, then reflash the firmware or format the drive.

I haven't had any big problems with my Karma in two years. It's frozen a handful of times, but that was solved with a simple reset.

 

[Sweet Spot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aice Thanks for the replies. THe iRiver seems in pictures ot be a bit big and clunky. I've never seen/held one in my life, so can those who have tell me the size is when in hand?

It fits quite nicely in my hand, and navigates very easily with my left or right. Add to the fact, that when I'm on the go, I use the LCD remote, and don't need to even touch the main unit. LCD remote, yeah.

As far as the karma freezing goes, my IHP has NEVER frozen in the almost 3 years I've had it now. Not a hiccup, not a glitch. There are of course a few people who've experienced freezing, but the majority (few in total really) of those are related to the file which was being played. Moreover, iRiver customer service is pretty damned good, so should something ever go wrong, you get service.

P.S. If you live in or near N.Y.C. you're more than welcome to check mine out.

 

[Daryn Alexander]

Quote:

Originally Posted by digitalcat Karma could have been my choice of the audiophile player. Unfortunately when I was searching for a DAP and googled Karma, I ended up reading a thread on riovolution saying that the effective way to unfreeze the Karma is to bang it hard, real hard. then I was like, ,yeah right, good luck with that....

Reformat the drive and upload the firmware first after a hard reset. Then bang it if it's desperate. To prevent it freezing up, poster tape the battery to the side of the inside so it doesn't overheat and freeze the drive.

That said, it froze once in the car and about an hour later it was fine. I love the RCA on the base and the SQ is incredible with the equalizer feature. Totally worth it.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfen68 Good luck getting a firm answer on that. There have been many disagreeing opinions.

I'm gonna have to say that my H140 with rockbox beats out my karma, but not by much because it really comes down to a matter of preference.

What it comes down to is synergy and the karma does seem to behave better with a wide range of headphones thanks to its eq setup.

However, once i installed rockbox things seem more even and i do find the H140 to have more synergy with my shures and especially (surprisingly) with my 7506's...i can actually hear a soundstage and fantastic imaging with my 7506's...very airy highs and punchy bass response. Naturally, this is with the eq on (treble: 6, bass: 12). In other words, it appears that a veil has been lifted from the iriver with rockbox installed, with iriver's firmware i always had this nagging feeling that its sound reproduction was veiled or glossed over, hiding the little details of a recording.

My vote goes to a H120 with rockbox. The unit is solid, well built, not likely to fail on you and you have a large support base on misticriver.

 

[Borat]

iRiver H120 question:

Why is it that the volume controls work when you use the line out? Isn't that in essence, not a true line out?

 

[davidd]

yeah. but putting the volume on max and turning off the eq perform the same as a true line-out.

 

[wolfen68]

On Xin's site he has a forum post where he dismantled an H120 and confirmed that it is a true lineout. The volume changes, but it is a digital volume control.