[Mr Do]

I use flac level 5. Before I purchased my vibez i was told by a fellow headfier to have it fully charged before doing anything otherwise i would experience some issues. This may be stated in the manual. Not sure though. Apparently it has been discussed over at riovolution.org. . I fully charged it with a mini usb wall charger before i plugged it into my pc and it's been working flawlessly. I wonder if these issues are related to improper first setup. After browsing through riovoution.org i discovered others had sound gap issues with certain kinds of tags. Most issues I believe have been resolved.

Enjoy!
D

 

[Mr Do]

Here is a Vibez FAQ for anyone interested.
http://www.riovolution.org/thread/523

Lots of useful info for Vibez owners or people considering the Vbez.

Enjoy.
Do!

 

[DobsOnly]

Quote:

BANGRAMAN The Vibez deserves credit for bringing back the Karma in a slightly more modernised form... but I think it’s taken a step back in several areas.

Thanks for more detailed thoughts on these players.

But this has not been my experience with the VibeZ and I loved my Karma. The VibeZ to this point has been a more solid performer in terms of build and reliability, no crashes etc. to date. It has a much quieter background than the Karma. It is faster to execute in almost all areas. Probably because of the quieter presentation it seems slightly more detailed or refined than the Karma.

It does not have the power and punch of the Karma but it is close. As for the lack of on the fly play list building, I can see where this might be an issue for some but the DJ feature has so many options it was never a problem for me. Using Lame encoded MP3's I haven't experianced the skipping you talk about.

IMHO the VibeZ, while not perfect, is an improvement over the Karma in the area's that plagued it. Which in my mind were reliability, questionable build quality and tendency to have a higher noise level than the VibeZ. I babied my Karma for a couple years to keep it going. If I walked around the yard with it in my pocket it would skip and sometimes freeze. I haven't found a need to be that careful or baby the VibeZ. It just keeps banging out the tunes.

Sound Quality, amped or unamped, functionality, and reliability still keep the VibeZ in a position of Top 2 or 3 players available at this time. Maybe the best in the ~$200 price range. YMMV

 

[RubenNYC]

For those not that familiar with the Karma/Vibez style on the fly playlisting, the ultra robust control over the Now Playing list is absolutely still there in the Vibez:

Quote:

13.2) Playback list Use the "Now Playing" option to receive information about the tracks from the current playlist. You can also classify new tracks here, insert them at the end of the playback list or after the current track, reorganize tracks or remove tracks from the current list. You can also save the current playlist under a name that you select. To select the desired function: • Press the MENU button to activate the main menu. • Select the menu item "Now Playing". Note: Always confirm your selection by pressing the OK button. • The current playlist is displayed. • Select a track from this playlist by moving the scroll wheel and confirm your selection. • The following functions are available: Play Select "Play" to play the selected track. Information Select "About" to display information about the selected track. Besides the information of the ID3 tag, this includes the duration of the selected track, the compression format, the bit rate, the PCM format, the file size, the dates of creation and modification, the date of most recent playback, the number of playbacks, and the memory path of the track. Note: Some information can only be displayed if it has previously been added to the track. Insert Select "Insert" to add a track to the current playlist. The selected track is transferred to the playlist after the marked track. In shuffle mode, the selected track is inserted at the end of the current playback list. Append Select "Append" to add a track at the end of the current playlist. Enqueue Select "Enqueue" to add a track to the current playlist. The selected track is added after the track currently being played. Reorder Select "Reorder" to change the position of the selected track in the current playlist, meaning relocating the track forward or backward. Remove Select "Remove" to remove a track from the current playlist. You can choose whether you would like to remove a certain track, all tracks of the artist performing the current track, all tracks of the artist’s album, all tracks of a genre, all tracks of a year, all tracks below or above the selected track in the playlist or the entire tracks of the current playlist from the playlist. Make Playlist If you select "Make Playlist" you have the option to save the current playlist under any name.

The piece that's missing is the ability to create or modify saved Playlists independent of the Now Playing list. I'm optimistic this feature may actually be added "back" in to the Vibez firmware.

 

[budx3385]

I use only WAV files. They play flawlessly on my Vibez with no gaps.

I loaded 15 albums on my Vibez in just half an hour on the night before I left on this trip overseas. It's still running on the original battery charge.

... and the SQ is still enjoyable.

happy listening

 

[ricthaman]

I own an NW-A805. It's a great little player, and in terms of SQ imho unbeatable.

I've had a Cowon F2 but sold it after a moth or so because the sound wasn't all that good. It had pretty decent output but the SQ just wasn't as smooth as the Sony. I have to agree that it's in some way sharper than other DAP's but all in all the sound is really good. Especially the bass. It's very smooth and natural. It gives a pleasantly warm sound signature.

I'm getting V-moda vibes tomorrow and I'll test the NW-A805 with those.. look how that combo will sound.

greetz

 

[cn11]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ricthaman /img/forum/go_quote.gif I own an NW-A805. It's a great little player, and in terms of SQ imho unbeatable. I've had a Cowon F2 but sold it after a moth or so because the sound wasn't all that good. It had pretty decent output but the SQ just wasn't as smooth as the Sony. I have to agree that it's in some way sharper than other DAP's but all in all the sound is really good. Especially the bass. It's very smooth and natural. It gives a pleasantly warm sound signature. I'm getting V-moda vibes tomorrow and I'll test the NW-A805 with those.. look how that combo will sound. greetz

Excellent! Thanks for the impressions. How customizable is the equalizer? Can you tune the bass frequencies down to below 40 hz? That's one thing I like the Trekstor Vibez (yes I bought one)- the tuning of the 20 hz range- that's really nice.

Cheers, chris.

 

[bangraman]

Well - been doing some more listening and recording (of the headphone-out) tests... and the Vibez does suffer from exactly the same problem as the Karma after all, although to a slightly lesser extent in one way, but a more discernible way in another. With all material, even those which plays without a human-perceptible gap while buffer refresh is happening, the HDD noise does bleed into the headphone socket. This is something that I've not noticed to the same degree with any player bar the Karma / Vibez.


I'm still having specific FLAC problems, but leaving those aside going to high-bitrate MP3's, the spinup does introduce a blip (slightly less noticeable than the Karma), and while the HDD is spinning it does distort the music (more noticeable than the Karma). When there's a fundamental issue like this, even though the Vibez and the Karma before it are very competent players, the fact that you can get better nowadays and that it has defects like this hamstrings me from giving out any recommendations for it based on SQ.


Given my Karmic experiences, I refuse to believe this is a coincident at this moment, although I have requested an exchange from the vendor.


The better and/or more isolating your phones are (and the better your hearing is of course), the more you'll notice this. Whether it's an issue for you is something you'll have to decide for yourself. It is an issue for me. The rocker wheel is also fast becoming a minor annoyance, especially the ill-thought-out centre button.


It's a generally respectable player but the more I look at it based on it's actual performance, the more my response to the hype building up around it on Head-Fi would be "... yes? And?".

 

[cn11]

I'm growing more and more frustrated with the Vibez. I'm finding that making a playlist not only makes the customized list, but duplicates each music file in the music library. This would make you quickly lose storage space. Is there any way to make the list only, and it points to each music file? ...like the Ipods do? I am hating this about any of the dap's other than Ipod.

 

[RubenNYC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cn11 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm growing more and more frustrated with the Vibez. I'm finding that making a playlist not only makes the customized list, but duplicates each music file in the music library. This would make you quickly lose storage space. Is there any way to make the list only, and it points to each music file? ...like the Ipods do? I am hating this about any of the dap's other than Ipod.

Quick question: Are you using MTP or UMS mode? I'll have to mess around with this myself.

My instinct is to say that any standard m3u playlist should work fine as long as it uses relative paths to reference each track and it has the same relative location on the vibez as it does on your 'puter.

Again, I haven't played with externally created playlists much yet, so I'll have to try it out later and report back.

 

[RubenNYC]

Quick update: I created an m3u playlist using Foobar, copied it over to the Vibez in UMS mode, and was able to play it no problem on the vibez, with no duplication of content.

On my 'puter I have all my tunes in a "My Music" folder below "My Documents", i.e. C:\Documents and Settings\Rubennyc\My Documents\My Music\...

On my Vibez, I also keep all my music in a "My Music" folder at the root, i.e. K:\My Music.

I created a new playlist in Foobar, dragged and dropped a bunch of semi-random folder from C:\Documents and Settings\Rubennyc\My Documents\My Music\ and saved it as an m3u playlist as C:\Documents and Settings\Rubennyc\My Documents\FoobarList.m3u.

I manually copied that m3u file to the root folder on the Vibez. After disconnecting the Vibez and watching it rebuild the database, I was able to call up the "FoobarList" from the Playlist menu, and all my tracks were there.

Hope this helps.

 

[cn11]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RubenNYC /img/forum/go_quote.gif Quick update: I created an m3u playlist using Foobar, copied it over to the Vibez in UMS mode, and was able to play it no problem on the vibez, with no duplication of content. On my 'puter I have all my tunes in a "My Music" folder below "My Documents", i.e. C:\Documents and Settings\Rubennyc\My Documents\My Music\... On my Vibez, I also keep all my music in a "My Music" folder at the root, i.e. K:\My Music. I created a new playlist in Foobar, dragged and dropped a bunch of semi-random folder from C:\Documents and Settings\Rubennyc\My Documents\My Music\ and saved it as an m3u playlist as C:\Documents and Settings\Rubennyc\My Documents\FoobarList.m3u. I manually copied that m3u file to the root folder on the Vibez. After disconnecting the Vibez and watching it rebuild the database, I was able to call up the "FoobarList" from the Playlist menu, and all my tracks were there. Hope this helps.

Thanks, I think this will help. I'll have to try it when I have some more time to play around with it. Oh, and I'm connecting in MTP mode apparently.

 

[RubenNYC]

FYI, here's some more interesting thoughts on Playlisting on the Vibez:

Quote:

Originally Posted by peter Quote: Originally Posted by RubenNYC I like grouping certain genres together nested by artist and album. And the way I was building them in jEmplode, some artists/albums appear in multiple playlists, depending on the search criteria. For example, artists that I have listed as "Alt Rock" would show up in both my "AltProgIndie" and "AllRock" playlists. With folders, well you can't be in two folder trees at the same time without eating up precious disk space. You can, if at the "leaf" level of the folder tree you use playlists pointing to centralised copies of the tracks (instead of multiple copies of the track). Now admittedly you'd need PC-side, Jemplode-like software to keep track of all that, but then you need PC-side software for the Karma and car-player anyway: Code: [left]Artists/ Rush/ Roll The Bones/ Roll The Bones.flac [...] Stone Roses/ Turns Into Stone/ Fools Gold.flac [...] Genres/ AltProgIndie/ Rush/ Roll The Bones.m3u AllRock/ Rush/ Roll The Bones.m3u Stone Roses/ Turns Into Stone.m3u[/left] Peter

Side note: jEmplode is a Java based app that was written for managing music on the empeg/Rio Car, but was also adapted to work with the Karma. It shares something like 85% of its code with Rio Music Manager Lite (RMML). The Karma was never explicitly coded to support nested playlists, but it kinda worked by accident since it inherited its code from the Empeg/Rio Car.

 

[Mr Do]

RubenNYC,
I just want to thank you for all your useful info regarding the Trekstor Vibez. I'm sure others have gotten a lot out as well.

Cheers!
Do.

 

[RubenNYC]

My pleasure. As with the playlisting question, I get to learn new things, too.