[jamvanman]

Hello all. I am looking to upgrade from my old Sony mzr50 and would greatly appreciate any advice. I have some sense from recent posts but am finding it hard to weigh up all that I have read.

I am after decent storeage capacity, say 20GB but am open-minded about hi-md. I would put roughly a 40 % weight on sound quality, 30 % on battery life, 20 % on portability and 10 % on ease of use. I am using ety ER-4Ps and have a Xin SD on order. What do you reckon ?

 

[austonia]

My primary portable rig is a Rio Karma > Xin SD > Ety ER4P (custom Xin cable) in a nice bodyglove case that just fits eveything

Look no further. this is best combo.

 

[appar111]

Which body glove case are you using? I'm using an Ambico camera bag to carry my Mini, dock, ac adaptor, Headsave Transit, JMT mini-mini and MX400's.

I'm thinking of getting one of the Lowepro camera bags when I get a full-size set of cans.

 

[jmb]

Since you rated portability low on your priorities, I highly recommend the Nomad Jukebox 3.

20GB-40GB (can be upgraded to 80GB)
Considered one of the best sounding portables available
Battery life w/ 2 batteries is 18-20hs
If you ever plan on recording live concerts, it is the only choice.
Also, it is an older model, so it can be got for a lot cheaper than other units.

Its major drawback is it size. It about as big as a CD player from a few years ago and a bit heavier.

It also doesn't support OGG and FLAC files, but that may change in the future. At least I hope.

 

[jamvanman]

thxs. Both the Rio Karma and the JB3 sound well suited to my needs. ATM I lean towards the JB3 given what you say, although i probably wouldnt go wrong with either. Out of interest, is there any general feeling as to which is the next best sounding DAP ?

 

[Bigwill]

How can you feel so secure about the Karma? I wanted to get one, but virtually every post about it is on it's hard drive failures. I feel unsafe buying the player that everybody is ranting and raving about its reliability.

 

[Luke]

As I've said in thirty six other threads, I would recommend the JB3. I've had mine 25 months, no major problems, thrilled with its features, and hope to keep it another 25 months.

 

[austonia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigwill How can you feel so secure about the Karma? I wanted to get one, but virtually every post about it is on it's hard drive failures. I feel unsafe buying the player that everybody is ranting and raving about its reliability.

i've heard this, but none of the people I know with Karmas have had any problems. i'm sure there is a percentage of bum players with any model. but take comfort in basic economics: if it was a common problem then it wouldn't be profitable to sell them. last i heard rio was the #2 bestselling brand behind apple.

 

[Luke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by austonia i've heard this, but none of the people I know with Karmas have had any problems. i'm sure there is a percentage of bum players with any model. but take comfort in basic economics: if it was a common problem then it wouldn't be profitable to sell them.

Yeah, it may be a similar situation with the Zen Xtra. You hear about the fragile headphone jacks, but who knows what the percentage is of the ones that DON'T go bad. The people with good headphone jacks don't complain.

 

[GSTom1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luke Yeah, it may be a similar situation with the Zen Xtra. You hear about the fragile headphone jacks, but who knows what the percentage is of the ones that DON'T go bad. The people with good headphone jacks don't complain.

But Creative Labs has listened to customer complaints and have fixed the problem through extra reinforcement of the headphone jack. They have also changed the case to include a window for the screen and have upped the warranty on all new Zen Xtras to one year.

What is Rio doing about the hard drive problem? Maybe they can’t do anything as the problem could lie with the manufacturer of the hard drives (Hitachi I think).

 

[Edvard_Grieg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GSTom1 But Creative Labs has listened to customer complaints and have fixed the problem through extra reinforcement of the headphone jack. They have also changed the case to include a window for the screen and have upped the warranty on all new Zen Xtras to one year. What is Rio doing about the hard drive problem? Maybe they can’t do anything as the problem could lie with the manufacturer of the hard drives (Hitachi I think).

?? The Karma is the first HD player Rio has made, they don't release a new version every 3 months like creative. However, I would imagine that things will be improved with the Karma2 (due out for the holidays). IIRC there is a strong sentiment that it is the Hitatchi hard drives, however, I believe Apple has bought up most of all the other brands of hard drives, thus making it very difficult.

For the OP, NJB3 I believe is still considered the best for output sound quality. However, the Karma supports gapless, OGG, and FLAC, and as such playing FLAC gaplessly through the included 5-band parametric EQ (first one that I know of for a DAP) is fairly unrivaled in the SQ department.

 

[austonia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edvard_Grieg ?? The Karma is the first HD player Rio has made, they don't release a new version every 3 months like creative.

Rio Riot was the first one.. a big, lumpy thing

 

[jamvanman]

Well i just got the NJB3. And it sounds even better than i had expected and its not that big. I catch a pretty noisy ferry to work - the Ety's and the NJB3 soon had me off in my own world.

 

[boodi]

keep us updated soundwise with the SD addendum when it arrives

 

[leftbldg]

Anyone know what's up with XinTech? (Homepage says ceasing operations in October and no new orders being taken as of July 8 2004: http://www.xintechs.com/ ) If there's a thread on this that I missed, I apologize.