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Rio Karma 20GB Reviewed
asv108 writes "The Rio Karma has been out on the market for over a month now with very little mainstream press. Slashdot covered the product announcement back in August for one of the first mainstream devices that supports OGG and FLAC playback. I've posted a little review of the 20 GB Rio Karma, which, besides OGG/FLAC/MP3/WMA playback, has a great little dock that syncs the player via ethernet. One little known gem is that this player comes with java-based software that allows users to download the software directly from the player via any browser and sync the Karma with Linux, Mac OS X, and any other OS that Java runs on."
is there some reason that players are not supporting the New MPEG audio format?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
But can't they make it less ugly?
I know everyone is trying to make these as small and unobtrusive as possible, but this little guy is a little too small and too oddly-shaped (a square???) to be comfortably used.
What would be nice would be a set of bluetooth headphones so that a wire from my pocket to my ear wasn't necessary.
What will we complain about now?
It plays ogg.
It sync via ethernet.
We're going to have to find a new gold standard, and fast!
====
Crudely Drawn Games
It's nice to see that some mainstream players are finally starting to add OGG support to their products. It's about time for a change.
A cheaper place to find this item is www.newegg.com. Last I checked it was 295 w/ free shipping. They are a fairly reputable dealer.
Though it dosn't support .ogg, Rio made a similar 20 gig player a year or two ago that is really cheap now. You can get one on ebay for around $120.
Isn't there some law against using the words Java and runs in the same sentence?
I mean c'mon... the news submitter is clearly trying to please Slashdot.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
You can't go wrong with them. Plays Mp3's oggs's. Works with linux. Supports the community what more do you need. http://www.neurosaudio.com/
Before someone say's that this player is too big, its Dimensions are 5 1/2" x 3 3/4" x 1 1/4" (the iPod's dimensions are 4.2" x 2.43" x 0.78"). There isn't that much of a difference.
It's weight is 8.8oz while the ipod is 5.6 oz.
times a thousand avid link-clickers equals no review.
I hope its favorable though, looks like a nice little player, little bigger than an iPod but it actually has more features (absent iPhoto dock, etc). If this gets popular enough to get the price on this and the iPod to drop a hundred then I could afford to get myself one for Xmas.
Green-voting, republican-registered, socialist-libertarian.
And what do you call a music fan prostitute reading Slashdot, uuh ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
How can I use this Rio Karma device to get a +1 bonus for my slashdot posts?
i'll stick with my ipod thanks. just cause something is "more free" doesn't make it inherently better. just my CAN $0.02.
My review of the Karma : Excellent.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't FLAC fall inside the Ogg container? I know that most people think of Vorbis as just "Ogg," but it's just one of the parts of Ogg, another of which, if this page says what I think it does, is FLAC.
Regardless, it doesn't hurt to be accurate. It's great that it plays Ogg Vorbis and Ogg FLAC files, and has lots of other cool features; however, I'll not give up my iPod till you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
won't buy one until it supports...
um... I mean until it syncs via...
until it runs... YEAH! Still doesn't run linux. Therefore I won't buy one.
Phew. For a minute there I thought I was going to have to buy it.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Look at the site and click on the system requirements and you'll see RIO states it needs Windows.
The least they could do is say GNU/Linux can be used but there will be no telephone tech support.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
this player comes with java-based software
...
Great, I bet you can put a casserole on it and boil eggs while you listen to music
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I have read the reviews of the Rio Karma, The iRivaer ihp-120, and even the ipod, and I dont know which one to go with. These three players have a lot going for it; the iPod with its firewire and powerful hardware, the karma with the ogg and flac support, and the iriver with the ogg and FM support. It's just when you think something comes out that you think would be perfect for your needs, there is always some flaw stopping you from purchasing it, such as the ipod only being able to play mp3 and aac, iriver being expensive, and the karma that can't be read as a system volume. At one time, i was going to go for the ipod when I learned about the ipod linux project, as i thought that with some time, they will be able to successfully port linux to the ipod so that it will be able to play many types of files. There hasn't been any work on linux on the ipod, so I am once again leaning towards the karma or the ihp 120, but cant shake off the lack of hard drive recognition and past support of the rio karma, and the price of the ihp-120. Hopefully something nice will happen soon to further narrow down my decision...
Why do I fear a sudden wave of ....
Karma:
jokes?
A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
This Rio Karma, on the other hand, is small. Its longets dimension is only 3" and it weighs 5.5 oz.
___
Cognitive Overflow
more than yo
Have had mine for three days now. Loving it.
Only problem is you have to use USB to upgrade the firmware and it's proprietary driver is Windows only. Once you've upgraded the firmware though, the java client works great. Be sure to dl the latest version though. The developer himself has a site, check out www.riovolution.com's forums for details.
I have mine hooked to my stereo in my living room with a wireless bridge connecting to my network. Files sync faster than USB2 over 100mb ethernet, slower over my 11b link.
Plays ogg like a charm. The UI is slick and the quickest and most responsive I've seen on an mp3 player (including ipod).
Well worth the ~$300 I paid. Pick one up today!
And yell at them to make the firmware upgradable under Linux.
- Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
It's obviously 'designed' for right-handed people. Interestingly, the iPod doesn't appear to favour one hand over the other.
:) Granted, that's the larger majority of the population...
Just a thought. -- and I'm not even left-handed.
Unfortunately the embedded market is run by proprietary monopolizing OSs.
The RIO unfortunatly comes with proprietary firmware. I strongly reccomend the birth of GNU/Karma.
(You thought we couldn't find anything to complain about!!)
FLAC is a lossless compression algorithm, Ogg is not. Other than that, they're identical. Well, except for the fact that Ogg offers streaming and 'bitrate peeling' functionality, where a server can prune out data and preserve (some semblance of) the original tune.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I've already ripped 30GB of MP3s off my CD collection; best estimate is that the whole collection will take ~50GB. Good thing I'm putting it on a Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 60GB, instead of one of those wimpy Rios! (The Archos looks like it might be a good alternative to the Rio too, once they add a larger drive.)
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Argh...just avoid parent...you know what it is...
I saw it shortly after it was posted and still got the order cancelled.
About a month ago this player came up on Dell.com for 70 dollars PLUS a 20 dollar rebate. I bought it and 3 days later got an email saying it was a mistake. I figured it was but I took a chance. Apparently it happened to lots of other people too...
is the Li Ion internal battery replaceable?
cmon folks the iRiver iHP-120 is one of the best players out there and is constantly invloved in the best HD-DAP debate against the iPod and the Karma. search the internet, check out head-fi.org, check for reviews on the internet and you'll find that the iHP-120 is no little player... all iRiver needs is more publicity... shame shame
In, your post s/Ogg/Vorbis/
Ogg is a container. Vorbis is the audio codec.
Now if their webserver could only get a little karma. Wait, maybe the problem is that it is a Karma.
Obviously designed for righties, and only works on Windows.
You'll never go broke playing to the lowest common denominator, but your product will never become an icon in its category, either.
Now, moving on from usability issues and looks, it has some other features that I just couldn't pass up. First, it has an internal mic that can make voice recordings. Secondly, it also has line in and line out ports, that work as optical OR analog. For recording via the input, you can choose to record via an external mic, line in, or optical in. The external mic is a hell of alot hotter than line in, by the way. For all this recording, you can record to wav (optical does 48khz while the rest do 44), or to mp3 that is encoded on the fly, at bitrates ranging from 40kpbs to 320. This sold it for me, as I am an avid show taper (with a pair of clip on mic's and a sony DAT), and this will be fun to play with - I plan to do a double recording sometime to do a comparison of quality between the DAT and iHP-120, but I've already done a test recording at a show and it didnt sound bad at all. My only gripe would have to be that there doesn't appear to be a way to control the level of the line-in, but you CAN adjust the level of the external mic, just not while you are recording. Also, it doesnt show levels so you won't know if it's redlining until you actually listen to it. I'm hoping they might fix this in a firmware update but I'm not very hopeful, although from what my test showed, it might not even be needed.
Anyways, just wanted to chime in, I too think the karma is rather ugly, and the slightly bigger size of the iHP-120 is not a deterrant at all. I guess the only one would be the price - it's around $355 or so, a bit more than the karma but with the extra features, I think it's worth it. It does play OGG's, by the way, and transferring files is painless with USB as the unit shows up as another hard drive connected to your system - you can easily use it as a portable hard drive if you want. There's more reviews around the net if you look, for more indepth information.
it doesn't include PIM features and touchscreen features like the Palm Tungsten T! Yeah! Or even better, the Sharp Zaurus!
(ok, seriously, I *am* waiting for the HD MP3/OGG players and PDAs to merge - call it a personal data store... but this still looks like a sweet little device).
Does the Karma support dynamic playlist building? That is, can you program a playlist on the device while it is playing music?
Does the Karma support gapless playback? I've heard about the crossfade feature, but I'm much more interested in gapless transitions between tracks.
Does it display non-western charsets in the song titles? Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. Even accented ISO-8859-1 European characters would be a good start.
Finally, does it play vorbis files at all bitrates? libvorbis 1.0 can encode 48kbps up to about 320 kbps. I was quite disappointed that my neuros was unable to play anything below 64kbps. Some of Garf's demo files contain entire songs encoded in vorbis at as low as 4kbps. I have not heard of anyone who has tried to play these back on a portable.
Note that I am very close to getting a Karma anyway, even if the answers are all no... but if you could tell me that some of them are yes, then that would really seal the deal.
Sounds like a good 80's compilation album...but I suppose that would be based on the definition of "good"
I set up a mirror since the last time /. linked to my site it died within 10mins due to my host provider putting a ridiculous amount of sites on one ancient sparc machine.
Umm, something that fits in my pocket?
So you don't mind paying for unwanted functionality that will be used by 5% of purchasers?
What would be nice would be a set of bluetooth idiot detectors so that a wire from the car battery to your testicles wasn't necessary.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
I can't seem to find any useful system specs on the site/forum: Does it work over Samba/FTP/SSH, or is it all via Windows software or some crappy Java applet? Does it appear as a USB hard drive with a FAT32 filesystem or similar? Does it run ethernet at 100BaseT? Are there any hacking efforts to put these features in?
#include <sig.h>
Believe me there are headphones where you can tell the difference. The $300 Etymotic ER-4P headphones are more than portable enough for a portable player and produce better sound than all but maybe a half dozen (no exaggeration) full size headphone models. In fact for regular stereo audio (i.e. not surround sound), a good pair of headphones is almost guaranteed to sound better than the same amount of money spent on speakers, because speakers have to contend with reflection noise off your walls.
So I'd say you have it backwards -- computer listening doesn't really benefit much from lossless audio, but headphone listening sure can.
Even if you don't feel like spending $300 on headphones, there are still many lesser headphones for which FLAC is worthwhile. Don't judge headphone quality based on the cheap headphones included with the player.
After bouncing around their site for a bit, i don't really agree with you. They seem to be pretty alive and well, and there is recently released software. *shrug*
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
Since it has a joystick and a decently sized display, who wants to take a stab at porting MAME to it?
I want to play Space Invaders while I rock out to 70's supergroup Foreigner.
So, what happens when the batterys in these things crap out? As far as I've seen you cant buy replacement batteries for any of the large (10gig+) portable players like the iPod or even the Dell clone. Thats one of the main concerns I have when they want me to drop $200-300+ for a decent portable mp3 player. When I buy one of these players I want to know that if the battery craps out I can swap it out with a new one instead of having to buy another $200-300 player or swap in a fresh battery if I'm on the road instead of having to find a place to recharge it.
Bluetooth can get up to 1Mibps.
The previous sig has been removed due to
Compatibility with OpenVMS and OS/2. Now that Linux is mainstream, we must needs move to more obscure operating systems. Join me, free your mind!
We will not rest until every operating system has drivers for every USB device in existence!
Ron Paul 2012
Can somebody explain why this such a difficult concept?
Ogg. Ogg. Ogg. Not so hard.
Incidentally, I'll bet it doesn't play every kind of Ogg. I'll bet it plays only Ogg/Vorbis and (probably) Ogg/FLAC, but probably not Ogg/Speex, yet. In principle it could play Ogg/Theora, but the display's probably not up to the job -- Theora is a video compression format.
Then I guess that's what he's running the site on. Ba-dump-bum. Thank you, I'll be here all week.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
After spending weeks deciding in the back of my mind, these are the features that sold me on the Karma:
Small size (although I decided the thickness made a huge difference)
Ogg support. This was a big factor in my decision.
Cool dock with ethernet
Nice display, 'analog' level dials were cool
And I found the following to be critical flaws:
Bugs! Too many inconveniences made it feel like it was rushed to market without sufficient QA. Songs would start over around 90 seconds into a track, or skip to another track altogether.
The management software (a java version is available to run on any platform) is crappy. No progress meters, lame compared to itunes or musicmatch or even windows explorer. This is the only way to transfer music or files.
Ethernet doesn't run at full duplex. WTF!?
Nothing esepcially useful about ethernet connectivity like a web server, ftp server, or smb. You might as well just hook it up over usb2 to avoid shitty transfer rates.
The physical controls on the device suck. It's awkward to use with one hand, especially if you wish to look at the screen and not your thumb/fingers. Some buttons are redundant, and it's not especiially clear at first how the scroll wheel will fuck up whatever you're listing to. It has separate volume buttons, but they're not exactly convenient.
It's physical presence is very... present. It's thicker in real life than I wanted to believe. It's also a little heavy. Ipod rules this comparison.
So, I just got an ipod instead. Same price and features, less annoyances, better support/accessories, iTunes isn't too bad. I like the 1394 better than usb2 for recharging it with the data cable. I'm sure there are a few other reasons to go with an ipod. I just figure it's no comparison with the karma, except that current lack of ogg support is kind of weak. I wish apple would pull their head out of their asses on this issue.
Short version. The Karma is crap unless it can get some major annoyances resolved.
Haven't read the article. Just guessing.
Yay me!
What would be nice would be a set of bluetooth headphones so that a wire from my pocket to my ear wasn't necessary. yeah, I would really like to be the first to own those tiny droplet headphones, except WIRELESS! that would OWN sooo much.
Heh.. if I had mod points, you'd get them for the ATHF reference.
I have one -- and boy I wish I held on to my money.
The firmware is very, very buggy. Go to riovolution.com and check out the karma board. People are having problems galore. In fact, having a unit that works reliably is incredible luck. The firmware problems are:
1. Karma spontaneously reboots during various tasks, usually song upload via the network. Anything you've uploaded in that session goes poof. I've had to do one album at a time, though the java client has a "upload this directory" feature. Going back and hunting which uploaded and which didn't kinda sucks.
2. When it doesn't reboot, it also likes to randomly hang during song upload. Only hardware reset convinces it to go out of that state. Any song you've been uploaded when it hung gets lost, but the client doesn't know this, so you end up missing random songs from your collection.
3. Sometimes, during song playback, it will randomly stop and go back to the beginning of the track.
4. Higher-bitrate MP3s sometimes started skipping and pausing for me, like it was having trouble filling up the playback buffer. Then it would freeze, requiring an on/off or a reset.
5. No gapless playback for non-mp3 tracks. Sucks to be you if you like oakenfold and ripped all your stuff to oggs. You'll have nice 2-second pauses between each track.
6. Flac will quickly drain your battery, as Karma doesn't have a very large flash buffer, and it ends up constantly spinning up and spinning down the hard drive.
I've had all of these problems, and I'm not alone, as the message boards show. And, to top it off, 3 weeks into usage, after I've finally sort of gotten used to all of its quirks, it completely died -- from the sound of it, the hdd went South. Rio's support is horrible: I've had a ticket open for over a week and a half, and though the customer service drone took down my serial number, order number, etc, I've not heard from anyone since, and I've sent repeated emails. I'll be calling tomorrow, and boy, am I going to be unhappy.
So, there you have it. If I were you, I'd wait at least half a year before I would buy a Rio Karma, otherwise invest in a nice toupee -- you'll be tearing out your hair in handfuls.
Yes, I'm a little bitter, as I've been really waiting on an ogg-compatible, linux-friendly player for a loooong time now, and ended up paying $400 for a lemon instead (there is a reason prices on it dropped so dramatically after it's been first released).
Sigh.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Bluetooth can get up to 1Mibps.
Yup, that's true. But... at the application level pulling out all the a stops (5 slice packets and no error bits) and with a quality radio signal you'll get 723 kbps (that's bits). Uncompressed CD quality stereo is 16 bits * 44100 samples per second * 2 channels or 1400 kbps. You can not transmit uncompressed cd-quality audio over Bluetooth.
If you want to transmit compressed audio you can, however since compression schemes are vulnerable to noise you have to turn on the Error Detection bits and that drops your throughput to around 500 kbps. Less if you're not willing to take all of the BT bandwidth.
Assuming you're happy with transcoded/compressed audio from your $300 player lets look at the ramification:
* you have compressed audio
* you have added transcoding HW or SW to the player
* you have added decoding hardware to the headphones
* you have added 2 bluetooth radios (player and headphones)
* you can not replace your headphones with 3rd party headphones
* you have battery management issues with your headphones.
* you have interference issues with microwaves, 802.11b and 802.11g APs and other BT devices
* the extra hardware will cost $20 to manufacture, so your player now costs an extra $60 to $80
I repeat my original statement, Bluetooth is not an appropriate technology for stereo headphones.
The product page says "*1 GB equals 1,000,000,000 bytes". The last I checked, you multiply by 1000's when you're dealing with bits, and by 1024's when dealing with bytes.
So... typo, non-geeky documentation for a product geared toward geeks, or sneaky marketing ploy? You decide!
Although you may have had a bad experience or you may just be trolling, I've not had any of the experiences you've had so far after 2 weeks of heavy use. The management software (a java version is available to run on any platform) is crappy
The windows software seems to be refreshing to me because it doesn't take a swiss army approach, instead it focuses on sync and organization. The nice thing about rio management software is the ability to have multiple sources without any bs. The java version works but it is certainly not full featured by any means and is not designed to be, remember they don't even advertise non-windows capabilities.
Nothing esepcially useful about ethernet connectivity The whole point of the Ethernet sync is to be able to have your player hooked up to the dock in your home theater area and being able to sync it from a computer located somewhere else.
like a web server, ftp server, or smb.
I can transfer music or non-music files to my Karma from anywhere, why the fuck would I need ftp or smb?
The physical controls on the device suck. I've found them to rival the ipod, I've owned both generations of Apple's player, they may not be to your liking but they certainly don't "suck."
It's also a little heavy. Ipod rules this comparison.
The rio karma actually weighs less.
So, I just got an ipod instead. Same price and features
The 20GB karma cost $100 less than the 20GB ipod and has support for OGG, FLAC, WMA, along with ethernet sync, and better accessories.
Does the Rio let you copy non music files to the hard drive? I was looking on the site and I couldn't find any mention. It sounded like the music manager only supported music files. Isn't that the same problem with the iPod?
I think I would probably go with the neuros or the iriver if I had to choose one right now since they both let you copy any type of file and I like the idea of it doubling as a portable hard drive.
I have a Neuros 20GB. Plays Ogg Vorbis, WAV, WMV, MP3, syncs with Java on anything that can see a USB hard drive and cost me under $200. It has an FM tuner, broadcasts your songs on FM with its built in transmitter, has a built in microphone to record MP3s, has line in for recording that way, too. And if you hear a song on the radio and you want to know the title, hit a button, record a sample and the sync software will tell you the artist and the song title. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but it's a hell of a deal.
> I want to play Space Invaders while I rock out to
> 70's supergroup Foreigner.
No no no...don't you mean listen to your all-Rush mix tape?
I mean, I can almost understand people getting bent out of shape about the difference between MAC and Mac, because they mean different things, but you are just being silly.
mod up! too true!
And I'm quite happy with it. Where to start?
:) While some of the UI is not immediately obvious, it becomes real intuitive real fast.
UI: It's grand. I dunno, some people claim they can't use it one handed, but that doesn't make sense to me. On the iPod, the distance your thumb has to stretch to reach all the buttons is much greater than for the Karma (which is barely at all), and it sits very well in my right hand (which is quite small). The wheel is a very nice way to navigate long lists, as you can just flick it at the appropriate speed to go any distance at all (the cursor "accelerates"). Weight? Err... the iPod 20 is 5.6 oz, while the Karma 20 is 5.5 oz... It certainly feels fine, and is much smaller than it looks in most pictures. Check riovolution.com for a good set of pics.
The menu system looks very pretty.
Sound: Many people say it's good. I really wouldn't know better, but the numbers (SNR, power, all that jazz) suggest it. Not quite powerful enough for my Senn 580s, but certainly has the bass (assuming you mess with the 5-band para eq appropriately). A number of improvements have been made -- the Karma supports --nogap mp3s, and now supports playing vorbis gaplessly (something the iRiver doesn't), as well as gapless FLAC and, well, as much as WMA supports it, any way.
Features: I don't think this has been touted enough: the Karma's "on-the-go" playlist support ROCKS. You can append an item (song/album/artist/etc.) to and insert an item into the currently playing list of tracks. You can remove tracks (or albums, etc.) from the list. You can reorder the list (a track at a time, any way). You can save the list as a playlist (and name it) for permanent storage. The RioDJ feature is not quite to the level of "smartlists" in iPod, but the devs have said that all that's missing is the UI -- the backend code is all there.
Configurability: It's not a PC or anything, but compared to other DAPs I've seen it's quite configurable. I believe IGN has a menu breakout?
Service: Well, the unofficial service is great. The developers visit a number of boards (empeg, rioworld, riovolution) and actually listen to ideas and take suggestions (they added one of mine!) when they're not troubleshooting, etc. This is all, of course, unofficial, but it's still really cool.
Cons: Until, well, the firmware just released yesterday, there were problems with crashing for a number of people. The plastic case isn't "sealed" like the iPod. When building up a playlist on the player, you have to go back through the menu each time after you add an item (be it a track or an entire album, artist, genre, etc.). No real case or remote. Well, pretty much *insert feature request here*.
I know you were joking, but I want my Karma, so I'm going to reiterate your post in a serious tone.
the informative comment is scored 2. with any luck, your important info about the product, which a consumer might want to know, will disappear as irrelevant comments about whether ogg is flac get modded up.
It's a bit hidden on the product page (click "box contents") but the earbuds that come with it are from Sennheiser. Rawk. That'd mean I could still have non-shitty sound when I don't feel like taking my full-sized headphones with me.
I'd prefer a 40 gig variety though... I don't have the extra money to buy one at the moment anyway, so I'll just wait and see.
Rio became /. moderators?
The following is culled from this forum and other sites, with some of the more detailed information provided by UK Rio Engineer's posts.
Q: What kind of battery does Karma have?
A: Karma has a non-replaceable Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery, identical to the ones found in most other MP3 players, cell phones and a wide range of electronic products.
Q: How long does a full battery charge last?
A: Rio advertises the battery lasting 15 hours per full charge, using the following criteria: 128 MP3, Volume: 15, EQ: Off. The reality is that this battery has tested at about 16 hours with these criteria.
Q: How should I care for my battery when I first get my Karma?
A: When you first get your Karma, it will be at slightly less than a half charge. As per the included intructions, charge it for five hours before use. Then, fully charge and discharge your battery the first few times to properly calibrate it, helping to maximize your potential battery cycle length. After that, you may do partial charges without any adverse impact. Therefore, you won't need to fully charge/discharge each time.
Q: If I won't be using my Karma for an extended period, how should I leave the battery?
A: For long term storage, leave your battery about 40% charge, which reduces long-term battery degradation substantially.
Q: If my Karma is connected to AC, will it still drain the battery?
A: No. When AC is connected, Karma is powered directly from the power supply unit (charger).
Q: Can I overcharge my battery by leaving it plugged in to AC too long?
A: No. You have nothing to worry about if you forget to unplug your AC after the player is fully charged.
Q: How long does it take to charge my battery?
A: From empty, it takes about 2 hours to get to ~80-90% full. It will then trickle charge the last 10% or so, which can take another hour or so.
Q: What is the battery life of Karma?
A: Like other Li-Ion products, a good rule of thumb is about 500 cycles at 100% (don't worry, partial charges count as partial cycles). After 500 cycles, it will reduce to about an 80% charge. Based on your average daily use, do the math. This battery should last you many, many years.
(a) iRiver iHP-120 and Rio Karma both support Ogg
(b) Rio Karma supports ethernet LAN charger with RCA plugs for home theatre
(c) Samsung YP-910 has FM encoder and antenna for FM broadcast
(d) iRiver iHP-120 allows realtime recording from and of its inputs
(e) Almost all new players match iPod footprint
Most players typically have:
MP3/WAV playback
2" backlit monochrome LCD display
In-line remote
USB 2.0 support
Built-in Li-Ion rechargable battery
(Prices are estimates from pricegrabber.com)
iPod ($388)
IEEE 1394a (USB 2.0 extra)
AAC/AIFF
Dimensions: 4.1" x 2.4" x 0.62" (5.6 oz)
Dell Digital Jukebox 20 ($325)
Front mounted 3-way scroll-barrel
WMA (7,8,9 DRM)
Built-in Voice Recorder Mic (WAV IMA ADPCM 8kHz Mono)
Dimensions: 4.1" x 2.7" x 0.86" (7.61 oz)
iRiver iHP-120 ($358)
FM Tuner and digital input & output
Backlit inline remote w/ 4-line LCD
Realtime MP3 recording from voice, FM, optical or analog inputs
Supports Ogg/ASF/WMA
Dimensions: 4.1" x 2.4" x 0.7" (5.3 oz)
Samsung YP-910GS ($315)
FM encoder (tx) and antenna (broadcasts to FM freq)
Built-in FM tuner
Dimensions: 4.19" x 2.54" x 0.78" (6.0 oz)
Rio Karma ($277)
Ogg/FLAC support
Base-station supports ethernet LAN with RCA jacks
Greyscale LCD with visualizations
Dimensions: 2.7" x 3.0" x 0.9" (5.5 oz)
Archos Gmini 120 ($306)
Supports CompactFlash
Upgradable Voice Recorder/FM/PhotoWallet modules ($$)
Dimensions: 4.45" x 3.07" x 1.02" (8.61 oz)
Nomad Jukebox Zen ($220)
Dimensions: 4.43" x 2.99" x 0.95" (9.5 oz)
Nomad Jukebox Zen NX ($250)
Dimensions: 4.4" x 3.0" x 0.86" (7.9 oz)
Philips HDD100 15GB MP3 Player ($269)
Dimensions: 4.19" x 2.54" x 0.78" (5.92 oz)
RCA Lyra 20 GB Jukebox MP3 ($240)
CompactFlash
mp3PRO/WMA
Dimensions: 5.2" x 3.14" x 1.0"
Archos Jukebox Multimedia ($229)
MPEG4
Dimensions: 4.45" x 3.11" x 1.18 in (10.23 oz)
RCA Lyra 40GB Jukebox RD2840 ($260)
mp3PRO/WMA
Dimensions: 4.5" x 3.2" x 0.9" (9.6 oz)
RCA Lyra Audio/Video Jukebox RD2780 20GB ($389)
3.5" color LCD QVGA 320 X 240
MPEG1/MPEG4 video
mp3PRO/WMA
Dimensions: 5.37" x 3.13" x 0.95"
Archos AV320 MP3/Video Player ($450)
Dimensions: 2.3" x 2.1" x 1.2"
I got a Neuros from the Neuros online store and I am very happy with my purchase. They are running a sale right now and you can get a Neuros in a bundle that includes 2 backpacks: 128 Flash and 20 Gb HD (read the website if you don't know about the Neuros backpack concept) and some accesories for less than 250$ shipped. I don't wanna marketing for them, I just think it's a great deal! Down side: it uses USB 1.1 so transfers can take a long time especially when you sync the 20 Gb HD for the first time (~10 hours). This device supports OGG, WAV, WMA and MP3. There're 2 sync managers and one of them is open-source and on SF.net. Digital Illusions, the manufacturer, is planning to release the device firmware source and the sync software source so that the community will be able to modify the way the player is programmed and add supports for more formats. There're also talks about getting a programming language (or scripting language) for the device so that people could write some basic applications and games for it. Anyway, check out the website! The forum is also very active.
quit trolling. dare to compare:
http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/listen.html
- Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
It has been Google's #1 hit for the query legal music downloads for three months, and has had 14872 hits so far this month.It has a Creative Commons license. You are encouraged to copy it.
A Romanian translation will be posted soon, kindly provided by Ciprian Mihet. I am actively seeking translations to other languages.
Here's the introduction:
Request your free CD of my piano music.
$350 for a fragile device used to listen to compressed music? Aren't plain old CD/MD players good enough anymore? After all, how many CDs do you listen to during the day? Two? Three?
You know, I envy the French. They can make some weird useless things, publish enough ads about them and women will sell their kidneys to get the latest fashions, no matter how useless, stupid and uncomfortable to wear/use they are.
I observe the same kind of trend here. Apple told them it's "cool", so peer pressure hit really hard. Lickable enclosure, you know (drool). Like, 40GB, dude (drool). And ads make gullible people believe they'll look like dorks if they don't have the latest HD jukebox attached to their belt. And there we have it. $100 HDD coupled with $50 enclosure and electronics go for $350 like hot cakes. "Because you're worth it" (TM).
I ran across these nifty devices a few weeks back but the UK release timescale was horrific -- mid 2004, I think I read. Does anyone have any firm information on when it might be, and why they aren't available right now?
You win again, gravity!
A little known factoid....
Uses same processor as iPod(ARM DM7) except that the Karma actually has two running as SMP which allows for the dynamic/on-the-fly updating of playlists, EQ settings etc.
"One little known gem is that this player comes with java-based software that allows users to download the software directly from the player via any browser and sync the Karma with Linux, Mac OS X, and any other OS that Java runs on"
Consumers (read: me) don't want to install yet more software, especially java software that takes 45 million instructions to print "Hello World!" on the screen.... They want to drag their MP3s into a folder.. SonicBlue never did understand this with the Rios, which is why they skim so close to the surface of the water and risk either going bankrupt or being acquired.
I hated my Rio and I'll never own another one... The software was HORRIBLE, and I can't emphasize that enough. I don't know what they were smoking, but that software utility they had for the 600/800 series really ruined it. It took all the mp3's on your entire system and lumped them into one gigantic list. Talk about a pain in the ass!
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
The best [and flawless] approach to this is two-fold:
- Use an encoder that stores two important variables, encoder delay and encoder padding, such as LAME 3.90.3 (recommended version.)
- Play back MP3s that knows how to use these values to achieve perfectly gapless playback - I only know of foobar2000 that does this at present.
This has been tested to work successfully - a long-awaited dream come trueI also recommend you use --alt-preset standard as the encoding parameter for MP3s virtually indistinguishable from the original.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Hi ckimyt,
FWIW I've detailed how to get true gapless MP3 playback on your PC earlier.
The iRiver folks plan to include gapless MP3 playback in a future firmware update; however I hope they don't use any hacks [such as trimming silence off the files' extremities.] The best way to do it would be as detailed in my previous post.
Cheers,
CD
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
I also can't seem to find anywhere how well it handles files and if files can be streamed directly off the unit from ethernet or USB 2.0? In other words, can it go directly from the unit to say a laptop to show a DIVX movie and vice versa?
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Ok. I have to choose between the iriver, the karma or the archos whatever. The archos does video playback and stuff but is it really worth it. I am siding towards the karma but what does everyone think.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Can you mount it as a filesystem (as you can a USB Mass Storage device like the Archos Jukebox) and copy files to it, or are you at the mercy of proprietary software?
This is not a minor nit-picking point; if the only way I have of accessing a device is to click through menus on a piece of software that comes with it, I won't buy it. For one, it makes automating things with scripts more difficult.
Secondly, software written specifically to accompany hardware tends to often be shoddy, poorly-designed and bug-ridden. I once had a 640x480 camera which didn't follow any standards and required special software (consisting of a jury-rigged TWAIN driver which treated the serial interface on the camera as a dial-up modem to a TCP/IP network running a proprietary protocol of some sort). The software was awkward to use and badly designed, the dialogs were in broken English (think "All Your Base"), and the software didn't run on anything other than Windows 9.x and MacOS 8/9 (no NT, no OSX, and don't even think about Linux, even with WINE or VMWare). As you can imagine, downloading photos from the damned thing was a headache.
If the only way of getting MP3s onto (or off) the Karma is using the Java applet, then that is an unacceptable single point of failure. OTOH, if it has a SMB/NFS server, it would be very nice indeed. (If it has only a FTP server onboard, it would be usable, though somewhat awkward.)
Put OGG support in your MP3 player, and you'll instantly appear on Slashdot!
"Derp de derp."
I originally bought a 20GB G3 iPod but changed my mind and went with the RIO Karma instead. The Karma was buggy initially, but is quite stable with the recent firmware (anyone having problems should update to firware v1.25). The gapless playback, bookmarks, long battery life, and sound quality (G3 iPod suffers from bass distortion) are ultimtely why I chose it.
/ www.iriver.com/communityc om/forums
h tml
http://gear.ign.com/objects/552/552410.html: //reviews.cnet.com/Apple_iPod__20GB_/4505-649 0_7-20155133.html_ iHP_120/4505-6490_7 -30571493.html_ _20GB_/4505-6490 _7-30474134.html
But none of these playeres are perfect... if possible, you should try them all before you choose one.
Here's a list I compiled while choosing between these three hdd players:
20GB iPod 3G: $369
- superb button/controls layout... that scroll wheel is pure genius
- pocket-friendly device dimensions and ergonomics, comfortable to hold and use one-handed
- exellent menuing system
- replaygain
- aesthetically pleasing
- firewire connection
- syncs with iTunes
- 4 to 6 hour real-world battery life (Karma and iHP120 more than double this)
- very fast start-up (2-3 seconds)
- AAC support
- smartlists offer cool playlist customization
- can charge through 6-pin firewire port (Karma and iHP120 need AC)
- remote has only a few functions
- bass distortion during playback (especially when using equalizer)
- MAC support
iHP-120: $359
- mediocre button layout... no scroll wheel
- edges not as curved as other players; not as comfortable to hold or pocket
- mediocre menuing system
- USB hdd-mounting possible without drivers
- can organize by DB or by directories
- long startup time if using DB
- limited shuffling abilites (especially if organizing by directories)
- fully functional, backlit remote
- voice recording
- FM receiver
- line-in and line-out
- OGG support
RIO Karma: $264
- great ergonomics... especially for one handed operation
- excellent controls layout; thumb wheel works well (though iPod's wheel is better for scrolling long lists)
- small foot print, but thick profile (not comfy in tight pants; fine in loose ones)
- excellent menuing system
- impressive number of shuffle/track selection options
- gapless playback (works with OGG and MP3... I haven't tried with FLAC yet)
- bookmarks
- USB and ethernet connection (ethernet is through cradle)
- can manage, backup, and stream through network (from Linux, MAC, or Windows box)
- fast start-up (5-6 seconds)
- OGG and FLAC support
- line out (through cradle)
- responsive development community (RIO is not the crappy company they used to be)
- no remote
- included "case" is just a bag with drawstrings
- short warranty (I used my AMEX card, so not an as much of an issue for me)
I recommend that anyone buying a hdd-player try all of them before choosing one.
Some forums:
http://www.ipodlounge.com/forums
http:/
http://www.riovolution.
Some reviews:
http://gear.ign.com/objects/611/611801.
http://gear.ign.com/objects/611/611888.html
http
http://reviews.cnet.com/iRiver
http://reviews.cnet.com/Rio_Karma
Additional Karma ethernet JAVA utilities:
http://www.inzyme.com/rio
Seriously. I've heard people say that live show traders use FLAC, but every show I've ever downloaded, and every show I've ever seen available, has been in SHN.
Except for one that was in some obscure format that I searched around to find an extractor, and then put into SHN. Even that wasn't FLAC, it was "mkw" or "mwk" or something, I don't remember exactly.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Sounds good, i have an old rio 500 and it seems good but ive had problems with it corrupting the firmware and needing a recovery and also some files just wont go through usb - it disconnects, i have no idea why, its always the same files and its nothing to do with them being corrupt (it takes any file) and no firmware has fixed it, maybe its just my comp. All in all the rest of the 500 has no problems.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
*click* *click* *typing* *page loading*
:-o
*fighting with credit card as it leaps out of my wallet*
go! save yourself! warn the others!
-psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
I would like to mention that the current acceptence of OGG by hw manufacturers is due almost entirely to the work of Emmitt Plant, who the Xiph people fired.
Although you may have had a bad experience or you may just be trolling, I've not had any of the experiences you've had so far after 2 weeks of heavy use.
He's not trolling. The Karma is an interesting product, but spend a little time poking through the unofficial support forums on riovolution.com, and it becomes very obvious that their development/QA process still needs some work. There are a lot of crippling bugs in the currently available firmware revisions.
Some people, to be sure, don't seem to have any problems at all, but power users who don't feel like playing the early-adopter/public-beta game might want to give the Karma a few months for the software to mature.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
I'm glad that a few product managers here and there are figuring out how to leverage Java's cross-platform capability. More Java apps equals less Windows dependence.
I owned one of these when they first came out. Within a few hours of owning it, I dropped it about 10" onto my shoe, and it broke the little scroll wheel. I got a replacement unit, and the hard drive crapped out. Several of my friends got these as well, and two of them have experienced the scroll wheel breakage (it is very fragile). Also, the firmware seems to be a little unstable (random reboots, pauses, etc) but the Rio guys are totally cool and seem to be active about fixing those bugs. I really liked the player when it worked, but I've reluctantly bought an ipod now....
Drive implies to me that it has a small HD inside ala iPOD. But in the detailed specs it says:
So is it solid state or not? If it's solid state I'm WAY excited but if it's a HD I'm less excited. The iPOD is pretty sweet and at $349 (did you find it cheaper?) this is fairly close to the iPOD's price. A HD inside would put the iPOD ahead of this one simply because it's a known quantity and there's nothing too innovative other than OGG. Since every piece of music I've got, well over 130GIG(!), is in MP3 I don't see myself switching anytime soon. OGG buys me nothing right now even if it might be argued that it's better....
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Interresting nobody mentioned it. Supports OGG, supports recording, and is completely plug-and-play with Windows XP/2K/ME. No weird software required.
Look for fatboy.wav on the LAME test samples page.
Oh Man. FlAC support Rocks. How freakin hard would it be to add it to the iPod??? My one gripe about digital music would be smashed. Lossless compression is KING. Now my Phish live downloads don't have to be re-compressed. So do I sell my iPod now?
It's nice to see other manufacturers step up to the plate and make a good product that can compete with the iPod. Now hopefully this will force Apple to quit holding back and put some real innovations into their player instead of bigger hard drives.
The Ipod has a one year warranty.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
but you listen to your portable MP3 player with headphones. You're probably not going to notice the difference
Why why why why do people keep saying that headphones don't show defects in reproduction????
Most headphones don't have a frequency response that reaches as low as some speakers, but the artifacts of lossy CODECs pushed too far (too low a bitrate for too challenging material) are mostly in the higher octaves. Swirl, warble and pre-echo don't need bass response to be obvious.
The distortion of cheap headphones (when not overdriven) isn't even that obvious. The sound isn't as "good" as with better headphones, but it doesn't jump out like lossy artifacts. It's subtle stuff (besides lack of bass mind you) like a lack of "air" or "harshness" or "flatness."
Now, earbuds in a Manhattan subway station aren't a good critical listening environment, but speakers wouldn't work there either. If the room is reasonably quiet, you're going to hear artifacts better in $2 earbuds than speakers and if the room has AC and computer fans going, fully enclosed headphones will beat speakers to death with a titanium pipe.
While I worked on pro audio equipment (I'm a firmware engineer) for four years & watched Dave Rossum test H-chips with Sennheiser elements inside over-ear hearing protectors (the "dave clark specials"), my own experience backs up the theory. Try it yourself sometime. A/B a marginal mp3 with phones & with speakers & see which shows defects better.
Flac will quickly drain your battery, as Karma doesn't have a very large flash buffer, and it ends up constantly spinning up and spinning down the hard drive.
All the hard drive players have this problem when playing large files that demand continuous, prolonged disk access. The iPod does a good job of conserving its tiny battery when playing MP3s due to its 32MB buffer and 2-3 song read-ahead. But when it plays AIFF, this quickly drains its battery. There is no easy solution to this problem for small form factor devices with limited battery capacity.
Da Blog
Players like this do not allow you to replace the battery? It seems as if they want you to buy another player when the battery dies or pay them to replace it for you.
Besides the way it is degsign and the above theory, I don't see a good reason for not allowing one to replace the battery.
Even if it came from her? [NSFW]
;)
-T
I have no hands, you insensitive clod!
It took me fourty-five minutes to type this!
Neuros HD 20GB MP3 Digital Audio Computer ($199)
USB2.0 support not yet available
Five programmable preset buttons on case
Beta WMA/OGG support (linux also)
FM tuner
FM broadcast for play on FM radio
Can also carry other files as portable HD
Record to MP3 from mic, line-in, FM tuner
Dimensions: 5.3" x 3.1" x 1.3" (9.4 oz)