[elnero]

Well, now that I'm happy with home setup I'm finally thinking of diving into the portable market which would also be for use at work. I've already decided that my new phones will either be the Shure e4's or UE superfi's but I'm a bit stumped on what the right route for a player would be.

My initial thoughts were for a HD based player that I could put a good portion of my music collection on. I've done a reasonable amount of research to settle on the Rio Karma as the most viable option in this category. Gapless playback, FLAC and ogg support, cost and sound quality among other things all played major parts in that decision. The things that hold me back now are build quality/hard drive issues I've read about.

In talking with a friend the idea of a new second generation HiMD player came up so I started to do some research on those. The Sony MZ-RH910 looks to be the best overall value in the lineup but being completely new to minidisc I'm not sure of all the intricacies of the format and players.

Seeing as I'm fairly new to the portable world most of my music would have to be ripped and encoded so I haven't decided exactly which route I want to go with. I'm thinking probably high bit rate lossy although lossless might be nice for some albums.

So far I've come up with these pros and cons:

Rio Karma

Pros
- 20 Gig HD when hold a good portion of my music collection
- Sound quality is reported as one of the best in the HD player market
- Multiple file format support including FLAC
- Gapless playback
- Refurb cost with 1 year replacement warranty is fairly reasonable price for a HD based player of it's capacity.

Cons
- Many reports of hard drive failures
- Overall build quality seems a bit suspect
- Non-replacable battery
- Non-replacable hard drive
- limited to the 20 gig drive

Sony MZ-RH910

Pros
- Build quality seems to be higher
- Cost is only about 2/3 of what the Karma would be
- Gapless playback
- From what I can tell ATRAC at higher bit rates might be a reasonably good compromise between mp3 and lossless.
- Digital amp which supposedly sounds as good or better than the Karma
- Using removable media means I'm not limited to 20 gigs
- longer battery life and replacable batteries
- Tons of recording capabilities though I don't know how much use I would make of them

Cons
- Media is only 1 gig which means carrying multiple discs along with the player/access isn't as easy.
- Less format handling with only mp3 and ATRAC being the only really viable options.
- I believe data transfer is slower
- Display isn't backlit

I'm not sure what the best route is at this point so I guess I'm looking for advice, pros/cons that I haven't thought of and any other information or pointers people can provide especially in regards to HiMD. Are there any limitations to using mp3's with HiMD players? etc..

 

[Latexxx]

First of all, hi-bitrate atrac is worse than hi-bitrate mp3 but rh10 allows you to use mp3.

 

[Dragonmilenario]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Latexxx First of all, hi-bitrate atrac is worse than hi-bitrate mp3 but rh10 allows you to use mp3.

NO. Atrac Sp is better than any mp3

 

[neversummer]

Personally, I would choose the rio karma.
$150 is a very reasonable price. Enough so that it's worth risking a failure. In addition, if you get a warranty a malfunction will likely get you a rio chroma, which is expected to arrive later this year. If I didn't already have an iriver h120 this is what i would choose. You should realize that the Rio firmware is excellent, some would say the best available.
Actually, the hard drive is replaceable. People at www.riovolution.com have done it. You can even upgrade the hard drive if you are so inclined.
I think replaceable battery is overrated. By the time your battery dies there will be far superior technology and you probably won't want to throw money at your old player. Just my opinion. You can still use it to run a home/office stereo with an ac adaptor if you really want.


I've never owned a mini-disc player but I can't see the point in carrying around 20 discs. Sounds like a pain in the ass. The only reason I can think of to choose mini disc is for live recording. If you have never owned a mini disc player before I don't think it's a good time to start.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dragonmilenario NO. Atrac Sp is better than any mp3

In either statement has there ever been an ATRAC ~292 versus LAME MP3 320 test out there?

 

[mr.karmalicious]

Quote:

Cons - Many reports of hard drive failures - Overall build quality seems a bit suspect - Non-replacable battery - Non-replacable hard drive - limited to the 20 gig drive

-The Karma no longer has these problems. The failure rate is indeed the same for any other HDD player.
-It /does/ feel a bit plasticy, but it feels great in my hand and has survived many falls.
-Not true. It's a little trick, but the battery can definately be replaced. I've switched mine between Karmas before, and it's easy. Putting in a new one would be harder, but not much...
-I've replaced a hard-drive, and there's not much to it. You take aprt the Karma, and you can just pull the HDD out. We can currently upgrade to 30GB with no dremmeling, and can use 40 and 60 gig drives with a little dremmeling of the case.
-See above.

/likes Karma

 

[Michael1980]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx In either statement has there ever been an ATRAC ~292 versus LAME MP3 320 test out there?

I don't think there has been. The age difference and the fact that minidisc has not supported mp3's till now, are the probable reasons.

 

[LFC_SL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx In either statement has there ever been an ATRAC ~292 versus LAME MP3 320 test out there?

at these bit rates, will you really notice the difference in a portable enviroment?

 

[Jmmmmm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr.karmalicious -The Karma no longer has these problems. The failure rate is indeed the same for any other HDD player. -It /does/ feel a bit plasticy, but it feels great in my hand and has survived many falls. -Not true. It's a little trick, but the battery can definately be replaced. I've switched mine between Karmas before, and it's easy. Putting in a new one would be harder, but not much... -I've replaced a hard-drive, and there's not much to it. You take aprt the Karma, and you can just pull the HDD out. We can currently upgrade to 30GB with no dremmeling, and can use 40 and 60 gig drives with a little dremmeling of the case. -See above. /likes Karma

x2
I can wholeheartedly recommend the karma. It's UI is underrated as well. After using it for a while, I believe it is far (yes, far) superior to the ipod's, which is usually the standard measure for a 'great interface'.
The biggest problems are that it's pretty thick, doesn't have a portable line out (though that would only be a problem for some), and it isn't the most solid player on teh market. However, I believe that the hard drive problems are no longer a concern. Mine froze once the week I got it and has never frozen again.

 

[ilikemonkeys]

No question!

Karma all the way.

I can't stress this more.

I love my Karma so much...I'd step in front of a bus for it.

Please get a Karma!

BILL

 

[Damage]

Ugg, not the ATRAC v. MP3 again. Must I remind everyone of Head-Fi Dogma No. 7, that ATRAC sucks, therefore any and all ATRAC related product sucks as result?

Barring that bit of Sarcasm, the RH910 can play back OpenMG PCM (that is, DRM'ed non-compressed PCM files) along with ATRAC/3/plus and MP3. The file transfer is slow, USB 1.1 slow. If you're used to the old flash memory transfers, then you should be OK with the transfer speed.

 

[Zappa74]

I own both players. Bought the karma first to use as a player and bought the RH910 second to use as my recorder.

If you're going to record and you can only have one- obviously pick the 910. For everything else- the Karma wins. Much better software (I hate sonicstage), much better user interface, more space, backlit display.... the list goes on and on.

The 910 is a fine recording unit and a fair player, but if all you want is an inexpensive player- go for the Karma, no doubt.

picture of mine:

 

[elnero]

Ok, the more I think about and with the input I've received the Karma is looking like the way to go. I do have a question though, typically on my computer I have things organized by Artist then within that folder more folders of albums. At work when I'm listening I tend to listen to a whole album so my preference would be for a folder type view as opposed to id3 tags. I've browsed the manual for the Karma and my question is when you browse by say Artist does it just bring up a list of the songs or can I see the folders or albums?

Oh and I'm in Canada so the warranty I would be buying is a WACA 1 year replacable warranty, has anyone had any experience with these?

 

[Latexxx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dragonmilenario NO. Atrac Sp is better than any mp3

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...&hl=atrac3plus

That's a blind listening test.

 

[elnero]

Ok guys, I don't really care which form of compression is "better". If you have something meaningful to add to thread great, if you just want to argue about which is the better compression method start a new thread.