[aice]

I'm about to make a DAP purchase, and these are pretty much my last two choices.

Suggestions?

 

[wanderman]

you would be fine with either. For the cleanest headphone out go the karma. For decent functionality go with and durablity go with the iriver.

 

[socrates63]

What features/functions are important to you? You probably already know this, but if you want optical out, the H120 is it, and with rockbox support, I like being able to play Apple Lossless files on it.

 

[aice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by socrates63 What features/functions are important to you? You probably already know this, but if you want optical out, the H120 is it, and with rockbox support, I like being able to play Apple Lossless files on it.

Most important was gapless, which is why I picked these two. Other than that, most important is sound quality. Rio DJ looks pretty cool but so does Rockbox.

 

[mr.karmalicious]

I'd go for the Karma then.

 

[wanderman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr.karmalicious I'd go for the Karma then.

why the karma. The h120 with rockbox supports more codecs, has gapless and more features.

 

[wolfen68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wanderman why the karma. The h120 with rockbox supports more codecs, has gapless and more features.

...and will likely work longer.

 

[swmtnbiker]

Not to mention the fact that Rio as a company no longer exists. If it were me I'd go for the iRiver. Solid player, highly flexible, evolving RockBox features with ongoing support. The Karma is a good player, but at this point in its life cycle it's a dead-end with too many reliability issues.

 

[Edvard_Grieg]

Haven't played with the rockbox yet, but I still love my Karma; gapless and codec choices are quite good, while it may not support ALAC it does do FLAC (yes I know Rockbox does too), and it does all the formats gaplessly, has RioDJ which really is sweet, and one of the best OTF playlisting tools around.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

I've yet to see a player I'd prefer to the H120, you'll have to pry this one from my cold dead hands to get it!

 

[aice]

Does everyone agree that the Karma sounds better than the H120? Better by how much?

 

[aice]

doublepost

 

[wolfen68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aice Does everyone agree that the Karma sounds better than the H120? Better by how much?

Good luck getting a firm answer on that. There have been many disagreeing opinions.

 

[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.

 

[proximal]

The H120 has a constant background noise with low impedence headphones at low volume. With the same phones and volume, the Karma has a hiss when the backlight is on and you can hear the hard drive spin up. Neither is a problem for most people; if it is then cranking the volume up and then lowering it with an inline attenuator works just fine.

To me, the Karma sounds better than the H120. Also keep in mind that the custom equalizer in Rockbox is much more limited at the moment than the Karma's. That should change, though.