Slashdot Mirror
Rio Karma User Review
Despite living in an urban area, I had a little trouble tracking down a retailer with the Karma in stock. Best Buy was sold out, but Circuit City had them (for full price, boo hiss). I was impressed with the solid feel of the device, and promptly started setting it up. Since I currently only have Linux machines at home, the included software was useless. Fortunately, the Karma also includes Ethernet connectivity through the docking cradle. In minutes the cradle was connected to my Linksys router and a static IP assigned using the Karma's joystick interface (not fun).
Once this was done, I connected via web browser to the Karma's IP address and was greeted with a nice splash page, and a couple of links to download the Java-based transfer software and to visit Rio's Karma page. I initially had trouble with the transfer software, but eventually found the developer's site on the internet; he has improved the software greatly from the version that ships with the Karma.
The docking cradle also has stereo line-level RCA ports, which is nice for integration with a home stereo. I ended up buying a 20' CAT-5 cable to give my Karma a permanent home next to the stereo. It's pretty wonderful to select 4 hours of random music for the evening, and not have to worry about changing CDs. Later, I also bought an RF adapter for use in the car, which works by broadcasting on an FM frequency you simply tune into.
The Karma is not bad to walk around with either. It is a little bulky, and I would prefer a narrower body, but it fits ok in a loose-fitting pants or jacket pocket. As with any hard-drive based player, jogging/running/biking with it is probably not a good idea.
Lockups: the Karma has taken a lot of flak for locking up, and I can't say that it's not justified. The player has locked once when I was loading music on it, in which case I simply reset with a bent paper clip and it was good to go. However, several days ago I was walking with it, attempted to change songs midstride, and it locked hard. Since I was on my way to work with no paperclip in sight (and the unit won't turn off when it locks up), the hard drive spun and seeked for 40 minutes until I got in the office. At that point, the unit was warm to the touch and had drained half the battery. After reset, the unit would not power up properly. Going into rescue mode showed that it was having trouble reading the disk. (crap!) After reading some message boards where others have experienced similar problems, I decided that I had little to lose and smacked it flat down on the desk. The Karma made a little grinding noise and booted up! It has worked perfectly since then, but I'm somewhat concerned about my purchase. Rio only offers a three-month warranty by default, so I would recommend going with an extended warranty if you decide to purchase a Karma.
Scary lockups aside, this has been a great little player. I believe it is Rio's first HDD-based player, and I'm looking forward to seeing future revisions of the Karma.
Thanks to FuzzyBad-MoFo for the review!
After reading the review I don't know that I want one of these. The reviewer discusses the negatives: size, lockups, ect. but does not really go into the upside of owning one of these.
http://www.busyweather.com/
This is a terrible "review"! You paid full price (your own fault), and it was a pain to enter the IP address. Yeah, it has a dock. You had problems with the OS, but didn't mention any firmware upgrades that might help solve the problem. You did something stupid that could have broken it. Great.
/.'s front page.
What about the sound quality? Battery life? User interface? Build quality? Most importantly, given the audience: why would someone purchase this over an iPod? Those are the things we care about, not your anecdotal experience. This would be fine posted on a review site where more information is readily available, but it's certainly not destined for
P.S.: First on-topic post?
The belief that, at our present level of knowledge, we cannot know whether or not an OS exists. Fair enough.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
It's the same price as the 20GB iPod, it's known for its frequent lockups, and comes with a stingy three-month warranty? What a deal!
Karma: Terrible (mostly the sum of user experiences)
sulli
RTFJ.
I think I'll stick with my ipod. Easy to setup and use. Gives me all the features I need (sure there are others i want). It is reliable. These articles keep me hapopy with the choice I made.
Evolution or ID?
Move along. Nothing to see here.
Remove the spamfreak to speak.
I'd like a linux-oriented product comparison article. iRiver vs iPod vs Rio Karma etc. And yes, audio fidelity, perhaps the most important feature, shouldn't be ignored.
.nosig
But does it play my protected AAC files?
Mod point free since 2001
I bought a RIO nitrus and had it's hard drive fail within 2 weeks of purchase. I had it replaced 3 times over the next few months and none of the models lasted more than a month when all they did was ride in my back pack as I walked to class. Recently I bought one of the new Rio Forges and it also has problems. Despite being sold as a "sport" model it shuts down regularly during use and Rio refuses to admit any problem with the design despite several pages of experiences just like mine on their forums. I strongly discourage anyone from buying Rio products without an extended warrenty. Here is a good forums to read about Rio products: http://www.rioworld.org/yabbse/index.php?board=16
ooh, smack HARDER!
sulli
RTFJ.
These things are crap... Everyone I know who bought one has returned it at least once because of the 1" HD "hard locking". One friend has been through 5 units so far, with the average lifespan being 7-10 days per unit.
I haven't heard similar things about the iPod (anyone?), but I suspect it's the 1" HDs that are to blame, rather than the design of the unit housing them.
I own one of these beasts too.
The number one thing that I love about this device is the Rio DJ - Entertain me! function. What it does is looks at the most played tracks in a certain time period (15 minutes to everything on the Karma) and then plays a random mix of them. Awesome!
The second best thing is the crossfade feature under the Equalizer function. It basically makes a nice seamless mix of music that fades in and out of each track.
Battery life is great! I regularly get 10hrs of music out of it.
The only downsides I've discovered are that the little stick selector is flimsy, and the ethernet port is very flaky when it comes to working with switches. Neither my D-Link or Netgear 10/100 switches work with it, so I have resorted to loading the Windows software to load music.
-- The problem with troubleshooting is that sometimes trouble shoots back.
I was going to try the paper clip (no, I didn't have one in the woods where I was goofing off) but now I know the next step (the slam) in case the first option doesn't work. It is most certainly scary.
Going into rescue mode showed that it was having trouble reading the disk. (crap!) After reading some message boards where others have experienced similar problems, I decided that I had little to lose and smacked it flat down on the desk. The Karma made a little grinding noise and booted up!
This is probably the most telling sentence in the review. The firmware for this device is not capable of even a REBOOT when there's a hard drive error. NO recovery, NONE. The *only* recourse was a "smack it flat down on the desk," indicating that the firmware had quite obviously tried to get the hard drive to perform some physically impossible task... and banging the HD juggled the heads enough to produce either a good error or knock the firmware out of its loop and find the data it needs.
Firmware issues... yuck. Wonder if I can convince my web guys to drop their 1U server boxes on the floor when they're being slow to help jiggle those hard drives into compliance???
link to the software page? can i use the karma as a generic external hard drive for other files?
and most of all: what is the battery life like?
Hewlett-Packard (HP) is second-sourcing the iPod. So, if you buy an iPod, you get the combined support of 2 American companies: HP and Apple.
I also got a Rio Karma within the last month. I had been looking at these things for about a year but was waiting for someone to make a case for the sang things prior to buying one. Now Vaja leather has a 75$ case (nice looking) so I took the plunge. Right when I got the thing I updated the firmware, say what you will about Rio at least they keep the updates comming. The sound quality is great and the software is very nice. It supports MP3, OGG, WMA and FLAC formats (the Windows software includes rippers for all formats) somthing that no digital audio player sporting more then a gig should be without (FLAC format with 20GB storage is great). Battery life for me is around 12hours, but I've not yet fully conditioned the battery (you need to fully charge and discharge it five times says the manual). The dock is interesting, but without a way to controll playback via the net I dont see the point since USB 2.0 is faster then 100base-t for transfering songs. Have I said that the audio quality is stunning? Well it is, the five bad EQ qorks great and with +-95db range music sounds very good for a portable system (the packed ear buds suck). This feels like the audiophiles MP3 player.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I use iTunes+iPod, and the main reason i am not switching away from the ipod is other players dont work with itunes. I simply love itunes in its simplicity and usability, and its just makes very easy to manage the huge library with its clean interface. There is simply no good reason to switch from ipod yet, not even the price after they released the new 4g ipods.
I've had one of these for almost a year now. I use it exclusively for playing oggs and exclusively with Linux. It works really well. I've got about 1300 songs on it, almost all encoded at 360kpbs. Sounds fantastic.
I have had a couple of freezeups and various glitches but they all have been minor and have been resolved by either a reset (the paper clip) or powering it off and then on.
I really like that I can use it with Linux and that it uses ethernet connectivity. (BTW: It's not that bad setting a static IP address - takes about 2 minutes)
One question: Where's the "developer's site on the internet" for the java transfer software? Would it be so hard to include a link?
It's pretty wonderful to select 4 hours of random music for the evening, and not have to worry about changing CDs.
I had a 110-disc CD deck that would do random music between all 110 CD's or any group thereof that I chose... didn't require a digital music player.
repeat after me... "Chicks love apple"
fifteen jugglers, five believers
Are you kidding me? No matter how great the rest of the features, "scary lockups" are not something most people will just ignore - especially when they cause the hard drive to seek for 40 continuous minutes, draining the battery. I'll keep my iPod, thanks very much, and when I want to replace it, this Rio will not be on my list for consideration.
Definately hasn't convinced me to change the "My New iRiver" sticker on my penny jar.
I have had an Archos for about a year and have been very happy. The open source Rockbox software is great..
I don't see much point in the Karma. It is expensive.. somewhat unstable.. and like most proprietary products, will be End of Life'd soon enough.
What I would really like to have is WAV recording capability. Though the MP3 recording on the Archos has worked well and I have sourced at least one concert using it with the line-in and good mics.
Good recording capability is lacking in most products.
The Rio Riot was the first HD unit by Rio. I own one myself, and it was a terrific audio device until a mishap with a homebrew car docking cradle fried the system board. I attempted to fix it, but when it was apart, I accidently tore the thin plastic LCD connector (which had its "grain" perpendicular to the conductors, and thus tore in a way I can't repair). I really miss it for music, but the good side is that I now have a decent battery for "projects" and a 20-GB harddrive which I am trying to mate with my Sharp Zaurus SL-C860 PDA.
Sonic Blue, however, is horrible with support. They released very few software updates, and the device only worked with MusicMatch Jukebox. But the interface was awesome, and the sound quality was quite good for a portable unit.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Myself and 2 friends all have the Karma, and have all experinced the scarry lockup. But amazingly, they seem to work fine in spite of this strange phenomenon (I've had mine for almost a year now).
The sound quality is great, that's the main reason I went with the Karma. I believe the signal/noise ratio is 95 (higher than iPod). Just make sure you play Oggs and Flacs to take advantage of it. This also was the only player that supported Flacs at the time I purchased.
...Linux friendly... is OS-agnostic...
Since I currently only have Linux machines at home, the included software was useless.
So, was it or was it *not* linux friendly? Seems like linux friendly, especially with java-based software, would mean that the included OS-agnostic, linux-friendly software would both be included AND work. What's the deal, man?
Does this feature count as Karma-Whoring?
"Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is living in a state of sin." -- John von Neumann
I love my Karma. Would I trade it for an IPod? You betcha. But I am a technology whore, so discount that.
Pros:
Good sound. Nice equalizer function. Easy to use PC GUI. It fits great in my hand. The controls are very easy to use. It's cheaper than an IPod. Jog dial makes life easy. Big, easy to read screen. Long battery life.
Cons:
Can hang or crash on occasion if you put it in your pocket and you walk fast like me. Battery is non-replaceable. Faint, slight hiss in the background (regardless of format). No random per band or per album. Flaky ethernet port.
I do not regret my purchase. I can live with the cons.
-- "You can lead a yak to water, but you can't teach an old dog to make a silk purse out of a pig in a poke" - Opus
Ogg Vorbis.
It's damn ugly and resembles a £10 stopwatch.
I'm more than happy with my Cowon M3, it's just a shame they're bringing out the M5 next month, I want one!
The only reason the iPod sells is it's the least fussy option, many of the other devices are just too rough around the edges or too quirky and ecentric. Come on, has nobody ever heard of interface design or egonomics?
This poster will now be eviscerated by a small pack of rabid Chihuahua like slashdotters.
Pleas stand by..
About the equation 1Gb=1,000,000,000 bytes in their site, so their 20 Gb is not exactly what everyone thinks, well, probably they are not the only ones that do that equivalences.
So...if I lend out my Karma player to many of my friends, would I be.....Karma whoring?
*ducks
http://gear.ign.com/articles/458/458401p1.html
What do we all think of this review how do they compare?
Chris Williams clw7500nc@gmail.com
I did plenty of research into MP3 players over the summer, and arrived at a purchase of an iRiver H120 (previously IHP-120) instead of the equivalent iPod or Karma units. It has a 20GB hard drive, inline remote with full functionality, microphone for recording, fm radio reception, supports MP3 and OGG, long battery life (16 hours or so), works as a mass storage device (no iTunes or other custom software to upload music, can be used easily as a file transfer unit), and pretty decent firmware. Essentially, it's the best hardware on the market, although I'm not sure if they're being sold anymore - iRiver seems to be pimping the H300 series now instead. Comparatively, the iPod has a severe lack of functionality, and the Karma was getting a terrible reputation for hard drive failures, so my choice was pretty clear.
The firmware has a few deficiencies, like a lack of gapless playback and a true random shuffle, and the iRiver firmware developers seem to have other priorities. Rockbox has chosen the H100 series as its next toy, since the Archos boxes are no longer available, so hopefully we'll have some nice open-source firmware to play with soon enough. Rockbox has refused to touch the Rio and iPod because of the built-in DRM chips that have no published specs.
http://forums-riovolution.com/index.php?showtopic= 4109
Basically, you have to whack the unit hard enough that it turns itself off and restarts. Sure, it's unsettling and even embarassing if you have to sit there in a rush-hour subway train spanking a lump of plastic for ten minutes, but it works. And the strangest part of it all: each time you spank it into submission, it will be a significantly longer period of time before it crashes again. After the fourth and last spanking session, it hasn't locked up once in the past five months.
As for the upside, it has several nice features. The author of the review failed to mention one of the highlights of the Karma-dock's ethernet jack - that it can be used to communicate with any computer that can run Java apps. This turns out to be great, because while the management software can only be installed on windows machines, the Java applet that the Karma serves up via HTTP can be run on Linux and OSX machines. When I get into the office (which is a primarily Mac environment), I just drop it into its cradle, have it DHCP-obtain an IP address (an automatic procedure), fire up the applet from my Power Mac, and I'm free to manage it.
On the usability side, I've been extremely pleased with the Karma. I never quite understood why all of the manufacturers have banded behind Apple's design of placing the display above the main control cluster. It results in the center of gravity being above your hand, making the device much more likely to slip or be knocked out of your grasp. On the Karma, the controls are placed above the display, so that your thumb wraps around the Karma's upper edge and the entirety of its mass is cradled in the palm of your hand. It might look counterintuitive, but I think that's largely because all of the other players out there have the scheme reversed.
The firmware is nice, with three user-adjustable 3-band EQ settings slots that you can flip through to best suit the genre of music you're listening to at the time. The main "menu" button on its face can be customized to drop you at one of several menu levels. For example, if you tend to select music by genre, the main menu button can be set to take you right there instead of to the root level menu. The GUI is consistently themed throughout, and while not as minimal as the iPod's, is not aesthetically offensive. One feature I found very cute was the ability to set the play screen (which you'll be looking at 90% of the time) to be dominated by a pair of mostly useless but amusingly retro-styled VU meters. Unlike the iPod, the Karma *IS* capable of gapless playback, which is great if you listen to a lot of mixed compilations or live performances.
I have only two gripes personally with the unit:
1) The setting for "shuffle"/"normal" playback is buried several levels deep in the menu system.
2) The unit has a 4pin jack next to its headphone jack which is obviously intended for an in-line remote control, but no such item exists. Pooh.
HTH in your buying decisions.
"...is OS-agnostic"
...not hardly. It requires Windows-based drivers to access the device as a regular hard drive for non-music files (unless someone's hacked it for Linux).
Microsoft makes this a requirement for any device that is licensed to play Microsoft DRMed music.
Besides, isn't this review like, two years too late?
First, I have an ipod, so yes I am kind of locked into apple's little world. and I dont have OGG playback.
But is it better? --you had to smack it on your desk to get it to reboot-- "This will not do"
I've had only one or two problems in the year of owning my ipod and your review does not bode well for the rio. Linux useability may be high on _your_ list, but since I am locked into windows, for reasons that are of no import, nothing you give in your review tell me about what I want to know.
--How is battery life overall?
--How is the interface?
--Sound quality?
Open standards are VERY GOOD. (go OGG!!) but, FOR ME, not enough to even bother trying it without more info.
The Neuros http://www.neurosaudio.com/ 20 GB hard drive player costs $249, supports Ogg Vorbis, Linux, has open-source firmware, several open-source synch managers, has a 90-day labor and 1-year parts warranty, a built-in FM modulator, and a modular backpack architecture so if you want to go running with it, you can swap to a flash backpack.
Oh yeah, and there's an active developer community around the open-source firmware and sync managers.
While the unit does have a history of locking up, this was both a problem of between the Hitachi drive's firmware and the Karma's firmware. As of FW 1.25 (I believe) Rio believes they have completely solved problems from their end. Thus, if you have a fully updated Karma and the drive is still flaking out, it's probably Hitachi's fault (still Rio's fault for choosing Hitachi, but at least you know what's going on).
Firmware upgrades are regrettably only upgradeable through USB using Windows. However, once you update the firmware yourself, Rio Music Manager Lite (the java version mentioned) works perfectly fine through Ethernet, and is quite nice actually. The latest firmware available is v1.68, obtainable from the Karma support site. As a review though, this kinda sucked because it doesn't mention other niceties of the Karma. Battery life is rated at about 15 hours (12 if you use oggs exclusively). Gapless playback is possible with LAME-ripped MP3s and all Oggs. The karma is perfectly capable of using DHCP, not sure why the reviewer wanted to go through the hassle of a static assignment.
Riovolution is a great site for Rio owners, containing FAQs and a useful Forum. In fact, Rio employees post on the website from time to time, though obviously in an unofficial manner. That site was the originator of the "smack your karma" solution if you ran into the same problem as the user above did (short reason: sticky hard drive. Check the FAQs).
Personally, I love my Karma. I got it at Bestbuy with warranty in case it died, so I don't have to worry about that. I have yet to experience ANY hard drive issues (upgraded the firmware as the first thing I did), and it's been working great so far. I've been using it for about 5 months now with no problems. My personal rating of the product would be 6-7/10 because of the reliability issues with the product (new units don't seem to be bad, but it's hard to get accurate numbers). Without reliability problems I'd give it a 9/10.
I bought mine almost six months ago. Have not had a lockup in 4 months.
Battery life is excellent, 12 hours playing music opposed to some players that have battery duration of 12 hours starting from the moment you remove it from the charger.
The shape is great because it allows you to use it with one hand.
Plays several formats including Ogg Vorbis.
Rio DJ allows me to select predifined playlists based on:
* Entertain Me!: Generates playlist from most frequently played music. Mix can last 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8 hours.
* Play All: Play everything and automatically sort by album, artist, genre, or year.
* Top Tunes: Play the most frequently played tracks. You can choose from the top 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, or 250 songs.
* New Music: Play the most recently imported tracks. Choose from music imported in the last 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 6 months, or 1 year.
* Memory Lane: Play tracks that haven't been played in a while. Choose from music not played in the last 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 6 months, or 1 year.
* Sounds Of...: Play tracks from the 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, 1990's, or newer than 2000
* Forgotten Gems: Play old favorites that haven't been played in the last 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 6 months, or 1 year.
* Déjà Vu: Play tracks that have been played in the last 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 6 months, or 1 year.
* Random Mix: Generate a random list lasting 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8 hours.
There is very detailed review at:
http://gear.ign.com/articles/458/458401p1.html
Two months ago I bought a second Karma for my wife. I can say the karma is the best gadget I have bought in a long time.
In 1999, I bought the original 32 MB rio PMP 300. It was a great invention (despite the fact that my daily running regimen broke 4 of them).
When the 64 MB PMP 500 came out, I was one of the first in line. I currently have a solid state memory player with 384 MB of memory (apporximately 90 songs) that never locks up, skips, or breaks, mainly because there are no moving parts!
I sometimes wonder how many people even HAVE 20 Gigabytes of music, leave alone a desire to have every track on their walkman at the same time... I think the portable audio industry should stop this strange contest of who has the biggest hard drive, and focus more on portability, efficiency, and overall durability, and leave desktops for music storage!
Things I don't like about the Kharma is the software utility, it takes forever to add music to the browser.
Karma positives:
Ethernet port (with this port, the possibilities are endless....think about it)
Gapless Playback (no gaps inbetween tracks...a HUGE plus for me)
USB 2.0
OGG/FLAC support
excellent sound quality
5 band equalizer
good size for a 20 gig player
Rio DJ (a feature I cannot live without)
support forums that have Rio employees actively participating in
firmware upgradable (with regular releases)
Karma negatives:
Hard drive issues for roughly 2% of karma owners (based entirely off observations)
easily scratched screen
lack of FM tuner
is not USB MSC compatible (you need to download proprietary software to use USB 2.0 transfers which means no Linux/Mac support)
terrible customer support (from what I've read)
All in all, I'm happy that I got one of these puppies for Christmas. There have been talks (since before Christmas) that there will be USB MSC support added into a future firmware release, however we have not seen it to date (and I ran out of breathe a long time ago).
For many /.'ers, this is a deal-breaker. Not for me since maybe 5% of my music collection is ogg, the rest are all 192kbps mp3s or vbr.
From the webpage:
http://www.apple.com/ipod, it only plays mp3s and AAC.
I've got one too - and I have to say, I'm mainly very happy with it. I bought mine for the sound quality - it's vastly better than the iPod.
(The iPod has "issues" with Classical music with a large dynamic range at high bitrates which make the sound utterly excruciating - yes, this is a bug in the design, and no, Apple don't give a Monkey's).
All I'd like to see added is a way to remote-control it via ethernet (i.e. to actually make it start playing!)
Another nice feature - it's easy to disassemble. I took the back off mine so as to write my name inside it (in case of loss/theft) - and it uses *proper* screws !
Sort of off topic, but a Archos jukebox recorder can be had for a bit over a hundred bucks, 20gb, has digital in / out, mounts like a hdd under any o/s, charges off a usb cable or wall-wart and uses a standard usb cable (the mini b "camera" one). Oh yeah, it can record via a built in mic or an external.
.ogg, but why would I want to re-encode all my music?
It also has a open source firmware called rockbox.
( http://www.rockbox.org/ ) and you really can't find a battery powered portable 20 GB drive for the price.
My only bitch is that the randomize feature could use a little work. Kinda looks ugly, but to me (college student) spending $200 to get a nice white ipod is, well, better spent on food and liqour.
Can't play
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
It would accentuate my iPod very nicely.
-- forget
No, from my understanding (I own a Karma, and I spent about three months reading pretty much every post on the Karma forums) the problem is with the hard disk; sometimes (rarely, it's never happened to me) surface tension can prevent the disk spinning up after a spin down.
Banging the Karma releases the surface tension. Rio deny this (they say they can't reproduce the problem) but if it's not a problem with the hard disk then I'd like to hear the alternatives (I don't buy your ideas that it "produces a good error" or "knocks the firmware out of it's loop", sorry!)
The Karma is by no means perfect but:
* The sound is great
* OGG, FLAC
* No DRM
* Nice DJ features
* Nice interface
* Ethernet
* Great battery life
* It's not a poncy, proprietary and expensive iPod.
If they could fix the stability issues, and add:
* USB Mass Storage support (for USB2 Linux connectivity)
* Remote control over Ethernet (sit comfy and control what songs play from my laptop or PDA)
* A record function
then
* Make it smaller
* Make it cheaper
* Fit an even bigger hard disk
it would be perfect.
Is that a better review than the story? Mod me up.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
I believe it is Rio's first HDD-based player
:(
Their first HD-based MP3 player was the Rio Riot. I bought one of those a couple of years ago on eBay for about 2/3 list, and love it. However, I rarely use it any longer because of a) low battery life, b) absolutely impossible to get music onto the damned thing, and c) I now have XM.
Aside from the above-mentioned drawbacks, what I really loved about the Riot was the interface. It had the standard by song, by artist, and by genre selections. But you could also build your own playlists (we've done that on long trips, on the fly), it also can play random selections from your most-played songs, least-played songs, or even just fill X number of minutes with random music.
Unfortunately, it was only USB-1, and required a screwed-up version of iTunes or MusicMatch to get songs onto the unit. Right now I really want to remove all the music and start over, but it's just too difficult to bother with.
Even the iPod, from what I understand, doesn't do this quite "right". All I want is a fast interface (USB2 or FW), that shows up as a hard drive, and let me drag songs and playlists on/off as I like. let the box periodically re-index its database, rather than doing it as I transfer songs (as every other device seems to do).
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that this wasn't Rio's first HD unit. And that I still like their software better than the iPod's. Give me iPod-quality hardware with improved Rio software, and I'll go back to MP3s in a heartbeat.
Or spend $289 for a device that you can also watch video on (and record, and play on a tv, etc etc).m p3/5fe2/
Archos AV120 w/ DVR Attachment
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Uhm, Sonicblue has been out of business for more than a year now. Rio Audio is owned by DNNA, which also owns ReplayTV, and is in turn owned by D&M, the same company that owns Denon and Marantz.
So did you run strings on the firmware to see who makes it? No indicastion at their site.
:-)
It still seems to lack what I consider to be important features. Namely programmed recoring from line in and an alarm clock with multiple settings/playlist selections.
Have the $50 fry's sale bantam 1000 here and it too locks up. manual has whole page showing where to push the paperclip (not included) for reset.
Bantam is ARM with portalplayer.com, mostly reference code, in it.
Here's what player needs in addition to ogg, IMO.
1)AM and FM radio and a way to set it to record programs at specific times.
2)parse tracks on recordings and broadcasts. The bantam does a great job parsing, but I suspect it's that sub-audible switching tone that the geeks at my favorite station allow through (wonder why
3)line in and line out (bantam has this and
is great for plugging in at a friends for a sample of his vinyl without all the trouble of setting up the PeeCee.
4)preamp for use with external mics (for those free concerts)
5)standard playlist formatfor ease in editing. had to download a caml compiler, compile it, and then compile the m3u2plp utility. Guess i could have read and translated but that's too much like work.
6)Alarmclock with multiple settings for time and source (plalist selection). Allows alarm for wakeup, get off the shitter, get out of the shower, get your ass into the car, etc.
7)ethernet or firewire, I really don't care here.
As with any hard-drive based player, jogging/running/biking with it is probably not a good idea.
That's odd, I can do anything with my iPod - jog or whatever. Actually the small laptop HD's that most systems use can take quite a jolt, so I'm not sure why the Karma would be any different unless it's not caching much... did you try jogging with it?
I didn't want to rain on your parade by mentioning the elephant in the room, but I thought I'd mention that not every HD based player is "delicate".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Could someone who is obviously just a KARMA WHORE get listed as a "review"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The RIO's rep for lockups is justified. Why? It happened to me, that's why! :) Multiple times.
Now I've got a Neuros and couldn't be happier...
I keep it in my car, usually, connected to my in-dash unit (unfortunately, thru a tape adapter).
When I go on (plane) trips, I just slip it in my pocket as I get out of the car.
It's true, it's not quite as solid as an Ipod (either physically or the UI), but what do you want for half the price? The sound quality is excellent, it also plays ogg-vorbis and features gapless playback. Gapless is great for live albums. The battery life is also excellent. I keep it in my car for about 2 weeks without having to recharge.
The firmware has definitely improved since I bought the unit. It did occasionally crash back then, but I have not experienced a crash with the latest firmware (at least 6 months). One really aggravating thing is that the reset button is very deep and the hole is very tiny. You need something like a needle to reset the unit if it should crash. And if you don't have one with you, the HD keeps clicking until the battery dies. Not a great design, but it's been a non-issue for me with the latest firmware.
I get tired of people saying "it's not as good as an iPod." So what? It costs half as much. It has nearly all the functionality of an iPod, plus some features the iPod lacks. If you ask me, the Karma is the best deal out there, for the money.
I have one and it's not a firmware issue with the lockups near as I can tell - it's vibration! I have a riding mower, if I take my Karma on that thing for evena short mowing session it locks up. It cannot be shut off, it makes awful sounds, and you have to use the paperclip thing to shut it off. Just as the reviewer discovered - it will not boot up properly afterwards! The solution, as he discovered, is to smack it. I do this on edge in an attempt to help spin the drives as I believe the heads are somehow stuck. Sure enough this fixes it! So far I've only had to do this 2 or 3 times thankfully!
.
That said - the unit is terrific when it's not being bounced around or vibrated. I use it on travel in airplanes and hooked to my stereo in the garage in it's cradle. Battery life is excellent on plane rides and in my garage I've probably put a couple hundred hours worth of playing into it. I've not yet come close to filling it's drive up but have also not taken much time slecting music (I've got over 130Gig). I do NOT like the interface software to the device, it's not a simple drive letter that I can copy music over to thank you RIAA. If it were I'd have already put much more music on it I'm sure. The software isn't bad, it's just not that great and it insists on indexing my music first which with over 100Gigs takes FOREVER and has caused the software to fail a time or two. My solution is to point it at a folder with only the music I want to transfer over - this multi-step process is why I have so little (about 2gig) music on it
I've not looked lately for software updates or firmware upgrades but their update process isn't too bad in my experience. What I'd REALLY like, but haven't found, is a WEB interface that would allow me to remotely control the device over the network. Perhaps I'm blind but it seems to me such an interface would be a really good idea considering the silly thing is IP enabled. I've just nto spent too much time loking and havespent more time listening to it I guess (lol). If anyone has found software like this or can point out a feature I've overlooked that allows this I'm all ears!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've had a Karma for almost a year now and haven't really had any problems with it. I have had a couple of lockups, but nothing disasterous.
"Apart from a tendency to burst into flame and crash, the Hindenburg is an efficient mode of transportation with a luxurious ride..."
"The Tacoma Narrows bridge is a slim and elegant marvel of civil engineering, apart from a tendency to twist and shake in high winds..."
"But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?"
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It makes me glad that I read around a bit before purchasing my MP3 player.
I had narrowed it down to the Karma and an iPod 20GB. I was all set to go with the Rio because I have previously owned two other Rio flash based players and loved them both. I also loved the idea of an ethernet port on the dock.
After reading reviews and message boards, I found that probably 6/10 reviewers (ie customers) were having their hard drives die with months. People all over the web were saying that right after the 3 month waranty period, it just died.
So I was still fighting with the decision, and just telling myself that I would get the extended warranty, and hope I was one of the 40% that did not die...then the death blow came. Apple lowered the price of the 20GB model to the now standard $299. It was a deal breaker, at only $50 more than the Rio, and tons of positive reviews, I went and ordered an iPod that night. Incidently, I was the most avid anti-apple person in the known universe until I got my iPod...I hated the fact that all of the Apple products was so pretty...but so expensive. After owning an iPod and loving it so much, I'm not ready to switch to a Mac yet, but I don't bad mouth Mr. Jobs any more. Well done Apple!
Anyway, the moral is always do your own research before buying...it saved me $250 in my opinion.
out of an iPod just to make it work, though, which is a bit more of a deal breaker than Ogg compatibility in my book.
The iPod, by the way, support more than the two formats you list: mp3 (cbr and vbr), AAC, Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF, and Audible.com
Pros
Cons The biggest issue with the Karma right now is that Rio is rather obviously get ready to release its successor (the Chroma) but they are being incredibly secretive. The developers have dropped out of the Karma forums for the most part and no new firmware has been discussed for a while. I think most everyone expects that once the Chroma is delivered, its firmware will be backported to the Karma to add MSC support, but there is no guarantee. The developers mentioned MSC in upcoming Karma firmware, so it's pretty safe to assume it will eventually come. The Chroma will probably look much like the Carbon (good bye nipple, hello d-pad) and hopefully will have a slightly lower-profile and tougher scroll wheel like the Carbon.I like the Karma a lot and am eagerly awaiting the Chroma. But I will compare it against the iAudio M5 and iRiver products. Right now, those come up a little short on the features I use the most, but they've been getting better each generation. If Rio doesn't come out with a next-gen soon, iRiver and iAudio will pass it by. iPod/iTunes is nice, but I don't want/need FairPlay/AAC or crappy MP3. I want my Ogg/FLAC!
That worked for me with my first 486 beige box in the mid 90s. For some reason it would refuse to get on with it's POST unless I smacked it squarely on the top of the tower case. That would be followed up by an initial beep and then the POST. You know what though? Like the Millennium Falcon, that 486 is still ticking... :)
Un-news
I bought one of these things a while ago, and after a very slight bump about 3 days after I bought it, the scroll button got knocked out of alignment and hosed the entire thing.
The player itself (software) was just fine, but the physical unit itself is completely crap.
-john
I've been looking at a Karma, but today I learned of the DCube NHD-150 which looks like a better product on paper. Okay, no cradle/ethernet, but you get USB2.0 and USB Mass Storage instead.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
After reading the lockup part... was I the only one singing that stupid song by you know who... you know the one ;)
"karma karma karma chameleon... you come and gooooo...you come and gooooo..."
;)
I've had my Karma for about a year now and I've had one lockup. That was about 9 months ago. I've updated the firmware since then and haven't had so much as a hiccup. The Karma has been the most reliable player I've ever bought. I've owned a couple of Creative Labs Jukeboxes and found them to be no where near as realiable as the karma. In addition, the Karma sounds better. I can't compare reliability to an iPod since I don't own one, but I have compared the sound quality. IMHO, the karma sounds better. However, this may be due to the fact I'm using OGG for most of my music files instead of Apple's AAC format.
I've heard about these harddrive issues with the Karma before but from what I can tell it's a very small percentage of the population that experiences it. The problem seems to be overblown. Also, the guy reviewing the karma should be sure to upgrade the firmware on the device since it's been updated several times since the device was first produced.
One more thing, all my recordings are in OGG or WMA (and about 3 Flac albums). It's possible that some of the problems people experience are from using different formats that the karma may not handle as well. In any event, update the firmware. I'm very pleased with my karma. The UI isn't as sexy as the iPod but it's far more efficient. I'll take efficient over sexy any day.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And Ogg FLAC, actually.
Breakfast served all day!
The archos is the size of a paperback and weighs 60lbs.
You can't really compare it to a nice small portable karma, ipod, iriver, etc.
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
I was pretty much set on getting one of these till I read this article and comments. Sounds like they have some serious quality issues. My search for an MP3 player continues... I guess I'll look at some iRiver products or the Archos. Recommendations / experiences with either are welcome.
I received a Classic 10gb hd based player as compensation for some consulting work done.
Well, that thing blows. It had horrible battery life, it didn't always play the entire track (it would skip right out of a track sometimes, really handy when you're listening to an hour long mix), there was no "lock" feature, so the buttons would be randomly touched when in a pocket, and it skipped horribly.
Finally, the headphone jack fell off the board and floated around the case.
So now, I have an extra 10gb laptop harddrive. I am using it with an mini-itx motherboard I picked up on the cheap to make either a car-mp3 player or standalone mp3 player.
Even if I could repair the board, there's no point, because the firmware sucks. BTW - when you load new music, it can take literally hours for the firmware to catalog it all and start playing.
And the interface is USB 1.1. Ouch.
And it only plays MP3 - so you can't try shoehorning everything in with 64k Ogg's or WMA's.
Total shit.
Having owned my iRiver for a while now I can say that there really isn't a place for lossless on a 20GB portable device--there just isn't the room for it. I have over 50GB of compressed music so space on my player is at a premium. Anyway, Ogg at the bitrate I use (256k, q8) is transparent to my ears so there is no advantage to FLAC.
After reading the "review" I'm quite glad I didn't end up buying the Karma.
if ATRAC3(plus) didn't suck shit.
Typical not-invented-here closed-format Sony bullshit, and it sounds shitty too.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Even then MD was great, but I no longer have the patience to babysit an MD-deck and CD player to make compilations (I've never tried NetMD). ...and then there's the matter of comparing 20gb of storage to 660MDs. While I'm very excited about HiMD technology, I can't see myself putting it to any use until HiMD players support MP3 playback.
if th ipod had issues like that this place would be going crazy with pro and anti apple wackos
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
The iPod is expensive and it is missing some features, but at least there's a reasonable confidence that a buyer will get at least a years worth of use out of it. The Rio may do gapless playback when it's new, but it seems owners can expect an extended and very quiet gap in its playback not too long after purchase.
It's bigger, but it holds 40GB, and it's very hardy. I've dropped, tossed it into backpacks, taken it to the gym, used it on riding mowers, etc. etc. with nary a skip. Also, the remote is quite nice; underrated IMHO. It is a simple USB 2.0 mass-storage device, which is very wise.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The Neuros Audio Computers are incredibly sweet, and smartly designed. How smartly designed?
* The firmware is open source right from the developers. It's also Linux friendly as a storage device, and there's an open-source sync manager for putting on songs into the database.
* It plays the usual formats plus Ogg/Vorbis. Records in WAV and MP3 off the internal mic, or there's a line-in plug.
* It's modular. Pop the controller out and plug it in to a bigger (or just different) hard drive, or a flash memory cradle, while keeping all your settings.
* It broadcasts FM without fancy add-ons.
* The playlist manager isn't bad either. Reads ID3 tag info, sorts by title, album, genre, etc. I think it even pays attention to ReplayGain info.
* 6 different bookmarks available at the touch of a button.
* A hard-lockout switch to freeze the controls without navigating a menu.
* A decent battery replacement policy.
In fact, the only downside to this audio gem that I can find is that I bought it... for my wife.
This is combination with the story earlier about Apple comming out with a 60GB version of the IPOD makes me want to wait until geting the Kali. I use FLAC files (yea..yea...perfectionist) and 60 GB would be GREAT for a portable if you wanted BIG flac files.
If you purchased an older make or one that has been sitting on a shelf for a year, etc, your firmware will be out of date. For me updating the firmware fixed a problem I was having where the player would lock up or shutoff occasionally. So far I have been happy with the player. The battery life is nice, the quality good, size acceptably small, etc. JUST TO BE REALLY CLEAR HERE, ANYONE WHO IS UNHAPPY WITH THEIR RIO SHOULD FLASH THE FIRMWARE!
My 20GB Neuros, just over 12 months old, died on me last month. It was a horrible player so I don't mourn its passing much.
In looking for a new jukebox, gapless playback was an important issue for me. It is distressing to be listening to a screaming guitar on a Pink Floyd album and then have the music pause for half a second while the firmware figures out what to do next.
I like the size and design of the iPod and would have bought one if it had had the gapless playback feature. It didn't so I bought a Karma. The sound quality of the Karma is excellent and I haven't heard hint of gap in any of my albums.
I haven't experienced the hard drive lockup feature yet. The only problem I have had (repeatedly) is USB transfers to the player freezing. The only way I've found to solve this is to unhook the USB connection, rescan the Karma's drive, erase the partially transferred music and try it again.
USB 2.0 is much faster than the Neuros' USB 1.1 (Neuros promised me a free USB 2.0 upgrade but never delivered) and makes transferring the music a breeze. Encoding with LAME takes most of the time.
All in all, I like the Karma a lot.
was very excited about the OGG vorbis capability but was put off by the problem with the HDD that caused the head to stick to the platter (slam it to fix it problem)
in the end, I decided that a Slimp3 Squeezebox was the way to go in terms of streaming music to my receiver/home stereo system.....especially because the Karma has no remote
when I really want portability, I'll go with a solid state player that plays OGG files or with ptunes on a PDA
Some interesting features:
1) m3u support, nat, which is nice if you're using winamp or xmms to manage your collection DIRECTLY ON THE DEVICE. ^_^
2) db which lets you search on attribs on the fly... I haven't really used this but apparently it's nice
3) something I really appreciate on the iRiver-made firmwares... you retain any and all previously played songs, and you can go forward to any songs your back-pedaled over... like the forward and backwards buttons on your browser. I forget if the iPod or Karma does this.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I also have a Karma and have never noticed any lockup issues. I would suggest finding a windows box to install the software on as it does auto updating to the Karma via web updates which upgrade not only the firmware but also the java client and windows client. I do have to say I love my Karma, I got it because my new car had a jack for an aux. device and I was tired of carrying CDs. So far it has made a trip to Europe and several thousand miles in my car, with an average battery life of 10-12 hours(a little less than advertised but oh well). Again I must say I love the Karma(and I bought it before the recent price drop, big boohoo) and have recommended it to friends
I cannot imagine I am alone in throwing up my hands in frustration in my search for a portable 20GB player. I have been waiting for years.
... it is perilous enough traipsing around new york city with a spinning HD, let alone one prone to locking up. plus it's the size of a Chunky bar. and chunky bars are just that -- CHUNKY!
... but it's still 350 dollars worth of plastic toy.
Every single player has some sort of very serious issue that makes it extremely difficult to justify the purchase.
iPod: obviously way too pricey and lacks voice recording, FM, alternative formats, and a slew of other very reasonable expectations which is insists on not meeting.
iRiver iHP-120: this bastard is great, but it is at the same pricepoint as the iPod, and has a non-removeable battery with not even a third-party hack to replace it. The new version, with a color screen, is thicker and heavier, and more expensive.
Karma: see above posts
iAudio M3: slim like iPod, but no screen except on the remote, and a lousy screen at that.
Dell DJ: underfeatured garbage, embarrassingly ugly
Neuros: extremely enormous, portable only in theory.
Nomad Zen: decent prices, but traps you into using its own garbagy software.
As you go down the list, there isn't a single player that I would feel comfortable plunking down huge wads of cash for. The only interesting player right now is the Archos Gmini400 -- it's tiny, has neat Wonderswan design, plays video
That's hard to swallow.
If I could make this sig kill you, I would.
If what you want is ogg + linux support.. The Neuros is way bettre, cheaper, nicer ..
ogg, java file manager, open source firmware plus line in WAV & MP3 recording and FM transmiter included..
Can't beat it ..
I'm here to be the voice of reason and sanity in this discussion. I bought a Karma on June 5th of 2004, for many of the same reasons listed here: great battery life, ogg vorbis support, and good price (if you buy it on-line). Though I loved the unit while it worked, it did work for long. I'm finally getting a refund for mine after the first one broke, and then the replacement broke in a week, and then the next replacement broke in a week again! Since then, my experience with Rio customer support has shown me that it is the worst customer support department that I have ever dealt with! I've spent probably 25-30 hours on the phone with them (mostly on hold) in the past three months. I'm so tired of speaking to the ebonics-speaking idiots they hire. And they will never return support request messages or emails. I mean never! Is my experience unusual? NO! The Karma has a reputation for this, as the user reviews at cnet show.
While reviewers give the Karma high marks for its impressive array of features, they don't keep the unit around long enough to see things get ugly..and they do. So consider what the users have to say in the cnet user reviews section. Here are the percentages of positive and negative reviews for the top five 20GB models reviewed.
MODEL / % POSITIVE / % NEGATIVE / # OF REVIEWS
Rio Karma 63%/37%/649
20GB iPod 73%/27%/627
iAudio M3 (vorbis) 76%/24%/190
iRiver H120 (vorbis) 88%/12%/981
Creative Zen Touch 77%/23%/254
That's right folks, the Karma has the worst customer reviews of all of five leading models. Now consider some of the bright explanations some have offered.
"DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING THIS COMPANY SAYS ABOUT THEIR DEVICE. I will never buy from them again."
"Typical poor Rio product quality. Frequently hangs up. You need to always have a paper clip to reset. It died completely after 3 weeks."
"hard drive keeps dying. I've had two of these for less than 60 days and both hard drives died."
"Customer service is the worst i have ever seen from any company."
Check out http://reviews.cnet.com/Rio_Karma__20GB_/4852-6490 _7-30474134.html?tag=top&pn=1&fb=2&ob= 0 for more.
In my personal experience, my scroll wheel broke after five or six weeks. So I paid to ship the unit in. About ten days later I get a new Karma, and treat it like a delicate flower. About a week later, the hard drive completely locks up and it won't restart. So I make numerous calls to support, spending hours on the phone, and finally I get to send it in again.
After a week or so, I call to check on the status of my replacement, and I'm told they still have not received it. So I send an email to the customer support person who emailed me about where to send it in. She never replies back, which isn't surprising anymore, because Rio customer service has never returned any email, on-line support request, or voice message support request that I've ever left. So I call back five days later to check on the status of my second replacement, to learn that they still have not received it. So finally they ask where I sent the return to, and then the guy makes the observation that I was given the wrong address. I was given their old out-dated address. So he assures me that he'll check into it and get right back to me. But he never does. So then I call and call some more, until finally I convince these morons to replace my unit. What I receive a week later is a "refurbished" unit that is all scratched up and has white pasty stuff on it, like dried up milk or glue..or..well, let's not go there.
So now I have my third Karma. And what do you know--a week later it dies as I'm walking down the sidewalk holding it in my hands. So this time I'm furious. So I've spent about 15 hours in the past 10 days on the phone, and finally reached the head of R
I have a Karma. I have had it for a little more than 2 months. My first one had a bad hard drive, but my second one has been fine. I also have access to an iPod, so I will compare to that, as iPod's are very popular.
Plusses of Karma, wma, ogg, and flac support.
iPod only has mp3 and propriatary aac formats
Power on/off. Power on is slow to load the OS. iPod is instant on. Power off can be set at different intervals depending on usage. I set it at 15 minutes. Enough to run in and out of a store if in the car, or go to the can and grab a drink at work.
Battery live. Very impressive. 14 or so hours. ipod is at best 8.
Control. Good, menu button, control dial.
Bad, wheel. I haven't really found a use other than scrolling through a playlist.
Software. If you have windows, I like the Rio Music manager much better than iTunes. Better interface. Also, it does not auto synch like the iPod does.
Thats all I can think of off the top of my head.
My opinion of the Karma is this....buy an iPod.
I just had my third one die in the past 6 months. One broke falling off a chair on to a carpeted floor. It's flimsy. The damn scroll wheel tends to get pushed in, and it breaks.
My friend's OLD iPod has been dropped onto concrete dozens of times, and goes along on jogs all the time. Zero complaints on it.
Oh yeah, the Karma randomly locks up like crazy.
If you buy one, BUY THE EXTENDED WARRANTY
Comment removed based on user account deletion
apart from that: Rio does not replace the Karma battery. I also haven't seen 3rd party replacements for sale.
I returned mine for an iPod due to a couple of technical problems.
I miss the karmas gapless playback and crossfading, but with the aforementioned troubles I conider my current investment to be a bit safer. iPod is also a lot slimmer, the karma is quite thick especially when carried in a trouser pocket.
I believe the Rio Riot was the first HD-based Rio product. It clocked in at 20gb and its UI was a helluva lot more responsive than Creative's 20gb Nomad Jukebox (which was the only other 20gb on the market at the time).
way more functionality and features for the price. the iRiver is probably the best player on the market.. you can even boot to linux off of it =)
Redchair Software (www.redchairsoftware.com) makes Riorad software that greatly improves on the lousy Windows software that comes with the Karma. It offers a shell into Windows Explorer and has a streaming utility.
Hey this is /. if you want something more professional read consumer reports!
iRiver. Audio enthusiast reviews consistently put iRiver on top of the iPod. I've seen no karma vs. iriver audio quality comparisons, and not many karma vs. iPod. More investigation reveals it's really a matter of the chipset.. that being said, they all sound just fine. Most people can't tell. As is always it helps MOST to ditch the included headphones.
All three support every OS. It depends on how you want to talk to it. iPods can work like a firewire drive or USB mass-storage device and there is some open source software that can fiddle with the database. Karmas use java software to do everything. The iRiver is also a USB mass-storage device... and the database is open and there are a few open source packages to manage that too (better than the included ones!)
iPod will be the only player you'll be able to use with files you downloaded from iTunes. Interface is arguably the best. Also the smallest. But it has the shortest battery life. Supports AAC, but not FLAC or OGG.
Karma can be managed from anywhere on a home network (but unfortunately, it can't be controlled remotely). Supports FLAC and OGG, among others. Java interface used for management, supports any OS. But you can't use it like an external drive. Some reliability issues.
iRiver functions as an external drive (very useful), so it is OS-agnostic. Has optical outputs which can be useful in conjunction with a stereo, but it too lacks remote operation. Nice handheld remote, accessories. Supports OGG, not FLAC. Can encode MP3s from optical/mic input. Hardy as hell.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Comment removed based on user account deletion
well I've owned a Karma for a little bit now and here are my impressions.
:)
I have never had any lockups at all but I am really careful with the Karma and I've never dropped it or put it through any rough stuff, just have it on my desk at work and with me in the car, and when I go other places. Nothing out of the ordinary.
DOCKING STATION
the docking station is a definite selling point. USB 2.0, ethernet, and stereo inputs AND it glows a crystal blue when plugged in..... AND you can adjust the intensity of the gloe slightly OR have it pulsate with your music. The ethernet cable is obviously a bonus for the Linux users.
INTERFACE
I like the thumbstick and the wheel and using both in unison I can do most functions quickly and with one hand. I can see how some people wouldnt like the laptop like nub but you can use the wheel almost wholly in its place or use them in unison for a quicker experience.
DESIGN
it is a little bulkier than it's counterparts but all in all I prefer it to the IPod (I owned a 3rd gen). I think stylistically it's a bit better and has some indivduality.... because I don't consider a boring white rectangle to be stylish personally.
SOFTWARE
the rio software is pretty good. Lets you rip, transfer and synch your tunes like any good one should. You can creat playlists on your computer to transfer to the Karma and vice versa (the downside to this is a playlist on my puter has songs not available on my karma whihc is weird)
PLAYLIST
I dig the Rio DJ. Crossfading is built in and the user can choose from 1- 6 seconds of crossfade between songs. Playlist generation can be made by artist, song, album, or genre.... all based on ID3 tag. You can also generate from the least played, most played, of all of the above as well.... etc etc etc
OTHER FEATURES
- Rio Taxi for file xfer support. nothing exciting but function and useful.
- Web Interface. same thing basically but for Linux users I would imagine its more important.
- OGG, MP3, FLAC support. can you say ogg ?
- Equalizer. Your basic stuff here. From all accounts the Karma's audio quality surpassed my 3rd gen ipod to my ear. Without seeing technical jargon and crap it's hard to say.
- comes with earbuds.
- replacement docking stations are about $35 bucks.
- Left or Right Hand orientation setting in the menu. Haven't played much with this one but it sounds useful lol.
Fear Breeds Knowledge
I'm looking for a tiny (smaller the better), well-made mp3 player that I can access through my linux machine. any suggestions?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
and My recent purchase of same from JR for a co-worker included free the 1.3 megapixle camera accessory(your millage may vary)
it was an unexpected bonus in the box, no mention on the website, it was just there in the box, and listed on the receipt as a freebie.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Man does not BUY a 20 ft cable. Man goes into his closet and pulls 20 feet from his spool, whips out his crimper (which is in his back pocket) and makes his own cable.
I am not interested in a walkman reviewed by the eyes of a woman.
I compared both the iHP-120 and the Rio Karma myself before buying the iRiver product, and I am very very happy. Both play oggs, both are 20GB, both have great battery life, but the iRiver has more. First and foremost it uses the USB Mass Storage interface. No need for silly Java software, you just connect it to a USB-enabled computer and can transfer files natively, in Mac, Linux or Windows. That includes non-music files, too, unlike the Karma.
Secondly, no lockup issues. If a hard drive is making grinding noises and slamming it makes it work again, that sounds very much like a head crash to me. Uh. That's bad, by the way. Expect the life of that player to be low. If there really was a head crash, it probably scraped some shavings off the disk. Nevermind the fact that that part of the disk is probably ruined, you've now got little metal shavings whizzing around inside your cleanroom-environment-sealed 4200rpm+ hard disk. A head crash is eventually fatal to the drive in most cases.
Compare this to the worst complaint I've had with the iRiver, which is that the built-in microphone will record some prominent harddrive noise if you fill the in-memory buffer while recording, which makes long recordings useless for anything but personal reference. Which is generally fine. The external mic doesn't have this problem, of course.
Anyway, very happy with my iRiver. Even moreso now. Thanks!
Random and weird software I've written.
The Rio Riot was the first HD player they made. It had a fm tuner built-in, 20gb hard drive, ok, battery life, usb 1.0. It was a little bulky but a nice player, the Karma has a version of the Riot software. I have both, never had a problem with either one of them. The network connection on the Karma is a bit slow for my tastes, I use the usb connection for transfering. I also like the software the Karma came with, the Riot used a version of musicmatch that just sucked.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... but off the topic of the Karma: I sat down hard on top of my iRiver iHP-120, crushing the screen into oblivion. (Cue jokes about my weight.) However, it is still 100% functional through its complicated but quite usable in-line remote, which comes as standard.
:/
(Also on the plus side, I think having a smashed LCD makes the player less attractive to opportunist thieves should I leave it unattended.)
How long before we get MP3 players with low-power, tough, thin OLED screens?
FFS, upgrade the firmware and you won't get any more lockups.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hardly anything plays OggFLAC, even the FLAC encoder doesn't support outputting it yet. OggFLAC is different from the plain old FLAC that the Karma supports.
I suspect that the player would load it up, see the Ogg container, assume Ogg Vorbis and then crash horribly when it tried to play it.
I've had a karma for about a year. I love it. I have had ZERO lockups, even when I take it out rollerblading with me (which admittedly is probably a lot less pounding than jogging, except when I'm skating stairs I guess). Of course, the very first thing I did was upgrade the firmware, and I keep it current. I've *never* had to whack my player.
I like the iPod. It's a slick unit, and Apple does a good job of interface design. I also like the karma. It's made by the same dev team that made the Empeg (which I also have) and they *still* support the empeg with updates even though it's been EOL'd a long time ago.
The Karma is not big and bulky, nor is it "chunky" and only a moron would think so. it's more square than the iPod, a bit thicker but not as tall. It fits just fine in my pocket, fits perfectly in my hand and has a good button layout and interface design. Both the iPod and the Karma are easy to use, just in different ways.
It finally came down to one factor for me... Ogg capabilities. I already have about 30 gig of music encoded in Ogg format (which my empeg also plays just fine). I'm not about to transcode everything, or worse yet go through the hell of reripping everything.
Feature for feature, the iPod and the karma are fairly close. I think they are both good products. I prefer both of them over the iRiver and other players, based purely on aestethics and form factor. It comes down to just these 2 players for me, and since only one of them plays Ogg, the Karma is the only possible solution for me. If the iPod played Ogg format, it would be a much tougher choice but Apple seems to be stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the desire or need for this format in their product.
-- Gary F.
The new firmware introduces "Gap Delete" which is very different from gapless. Gap Delete detects silence at the end of tracks and skips forward to the next track, but there's still a small delay after one track while it loads the next.
This means that things like live recordings still have annoying periods of silence in between tracks when they should be smooth, instant transitions.
It not only as optical input but analog line in/out, optical line in/out, external microphone in (plug-power), powered mic in and internal voice microphone.
It records to 44.1kHz wav or real-time encodes to MP3 at your choice of bitrate (CBR only, I think). When using a good external microphone and recording to wav the quality meets or exceeds any minidisc or DAT recorder.
Playback capabilites are superb. It has lots of EQ presets plus user-set EQ. Excellent battery lifetime (16hrs for MP3, 9-11hrs for Ogg Vorbis). The only issue: the bundled earbuds are awful. Get a decent set of cans and your ears will thank you.
Screw the Karma--if you really care about music take a look at iRiver!
I got a Karma as a gift last Christmas, and it's a beast, let me tell you. The interface is lovely, much more intuitive than my experience with the iPod. The Rio DJ functionality is excellent, allowing me to listen to random mixes of music by year (as provided by the ID tags), length of time on player, most listened to music, or music that hasn't been listened to for a while. Creating playlists on the fly is also a nice addition, as has been mentioned before.
The phyiscal interface is decent. It lacks the reassuring metal feeling of the iPod, but it's definatly a hardy little player. The stick is intuitive, though it feels cheap and isn't as good as the wheel on the iPod Mini; however, the jogwheel is an awesome, useful little tool. Some users have reported it sinking into the unit, though I haven't had this problem myself.
The software for Windows is decent and is a nice way to manage your mp3 collection, with batch renaming of ID tags, built-in rippers for all the music supports (FLAC, mp3, Ogg Vorbis, and WAV), and a smooth interface. The Java interface is surprisingly good for being Java and works well on my Debian box.
However, it does have its drawbacks, the tendancy to freeze being a major one. A few months ago it up and stopped running on my Windows XP box with USB, a problem I never could figure out. It'd always freeze when it connected or flat-up not connect.
My volume up button has also started to sink in and just barely work, but this is probably due to my own stupidity (I dropped the unit at band districts...ouch). However, upon dropping, it didn't even skip. All that happened was the case opening a bit where it contacted the ground (near said button).
Overall, this is definatly a good little player that I'd definatly reccomend to anyone interested.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Can you say Head Crash?
I'm sorry, but to me having to do that to something you've just paid almost 3 bills for just screams INTRINSIC DESIGN FLAW and is absolutely unacceptable...even if it plays OGG and Gapless.
I'll stay w/ my 20 GB 4G iPod thanks and my iPod Mini thanks. Both have NEVER frozen up just from being jostled around (ie. Running or Walking, and yes, we do run with ours regularly with no problems in the like 1-2 years we've owned iPods, including a 3G one).
Sheesh,
DaveC
There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
- Linux support (I don't have Windows and didn't have a Mac at the time), and
- OGG support
(The OGG support is not for ideological reasons or geek street cred, but because I'd already ripped a sizable fraction of my CD collection to OGG and didn't want to have to redo it. I like OGG very well at low bitrates, too, but with a hard-drive player that's not such an issue, assuming you control the original.) The iRiver supports Linux just fine, because it appears as a USB mass-storage device -- just copy your files to it (or from it). As an added benefit, well, it's a USB mass-storage device, so you can use it to carry non-music files around. And it supports OGG. I've heard people complain about the slightly clunky directory tree navigation for selecting files, and that's true. I don't have too much trouble, because I have a directory level for genre, and then a directory level for artist, and then a directory for each album, but if you had a thousand tracks in one directory it would be incredibly tedious to select a particular track. It also doesn't do on-the-fly playlists, but you can drop playlists on it and use them. (With Linux that's slightly clunky because you need to adjust the pathnames.) I've also heard people complain about the size and boxiness, but it doesn't bother me. Fits fine in my pocket, and that's all I care about. The iRiver comes with a corded remote (with display), which I don't actually use, but if you want to pick songs without taking your music player out of your pocket or purse, that might be a win. The Ethernet support on the Rio Karma dock sounds really nifty! However, I wouldn't want to give up the ability to mount the iRiver as a mass-storage device in exchange for Ethernet support. (One mildly frustrating thing about the iRiver's USB support is that you can't continue to play while it's mounted -- it can be either a music player or a mass-storage device, but not both at once. So when you plug the USB cable in, whatever you're playing stops and the controls on the iRiver become inactive. Kind of makes sense; I'm sure it was a lot easier to implement the mass-storage support that way, since you're just giving the host access to the raw hard drive. I guess the only way to let the iRiver be mounted as a drive at the same time the user had full functionality on the iRiver as a music player would be to add an abstraction layer and serve a virtualized copy of the hard drive to the USB host.) Another nice feature of the iRiver is that it records (to MP3 or WAV) from an audio-in jack or the built-in microphone (the latter meaning you can use it as a voice recorder without carrying around a microphone). It also has an integrated FM radio, although you can't record directly from the radio. That would be a nice capability to have. (Incidentally, I was surprised to discover that the iRiver supports Unicode in Vorbis comments and track/artist names. Chinese characters display properly. There are some bugs in display of comments with non-Latin1 alphabetic characters, but Chinese at least displays properly.)Greetings! I bought a Karma last March, and within a month, it locked up. I reset with a paperclip, and all went well. That evening, I downloaded the latest and greatest firmware, and it has not locked up since. I use it walking, cycling, and basically whenever.
The random function is excellent as it actually appears to give you a new random list whenever you choose it as opposed to playing the same "random" playlist over and over.
Battery life is a bit less playing oggs than mp3s, but all in all, it's been great.
HOWEVER, the screen will scratch if you blink at it...put a protective sheet over it immediately.
Dave
See here.
Note that I actually do not swim much, if ever - and diving I don't think I would like music at all as you don't need a dsitraction and it's nice to hear the wildlife. I have an iPod skin that gives the iPod a degree of water resitsance, so I feel comfortable with it in the rain.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I am glad to see that someone posted about this. I bought a Karma maybe a year plus a couple months ago. Right after I got it, it locked up on me as described as well as other weird behavior. This actually only happened when I jogged with it. I was furious because the thing had a stop watch on it, I mean, what else is that for? So, finally, the thing just crapped out and when started in the safe mode it said like "busted drive, you poor shmuck", so I called on like the last day of my warranty, which was a month if I remember correctly, and yelled at them. Support was worthless, so they sent me a new one. I stupidly assumed that the previous one was defective, so I jogged with it again, and I started to get some of the same unpredictable behavior, so I stopped jogging with it all together. Aside from these bad experiences, and the problem with the ethernet and crappy java program, the player actually is pretty good. If used with the windows software and kept quite still, the thing surprisingly does what it is told and plays music. Would I suggest someone buys one? Well, if the things mentioned were definitely fixed, they yes, I really would. If not, then, I would say spend the money on anything else.
40 gigs. No bs software. optical I/O, wav recording. long battery life. indestructible. Firmware isn't open source but doesn't mean it's bad. Only yearning for gapless playback... sigh.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
My Karma has locked up on me only a single time, and that was while I was running in the rain with it, which probably isn't the smartest thing to do with any HD based DAP.
I don't know how you guys manage to lock yours up so often, I treat mine like total crap and it never has problems. I snowboard with it, bike with it, walk everywhere with it, mow the lawn with it, drive with it (gravel roads, speed bumps, no problems) and generally abuse the poor thing (my screen is scratched to hell because of my abuses).
Are you using the latest firmware? I guess that's been brought up before, but I can't believe you guys are using the same player as me..
10 years ago. Actually, I think AC3 is another (related) shitty format, but one thing saves it: directional quantization for 5.1 sound... a novel feature.
ATRAC3+ may be great at 192, and maybe it uses more advanced techniques to model sound than it used to and sounds just as good as 256 MP3 or 192 AAC or OGGs, but you know what?
I can get unencumbered encoders and decoders for all of those formats.
ATRAC3 doesn't. So it loses.
And in my opinion, yes, 128kbps ABR OGG beats 132kbps ATRAC3+ in listening tests.
Gapless is a strawman. OGG and MP3 can play gapless. Player support is lacking with the exception of the Karma, but that has nothing to do with my criticism of the format.
I'd buy an MD player if it could play other formats...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
damn, I wish I had mod points...
I can't believe how many posts there are at +5 Insightful and +5 Interesting talking about how the owner has had the same problem and whacking their expensive hard drive based player really helps. We used to have monitors with green guns going out that when you whacked them they would come back on, but eventually the gun would stop firing again, and you'd be left with a pinkish screen. Of course, maybe if I tried to sell them here on slashdot to a Rio owner.... I could even include a troubleshooting guide for handling "What to do when my screen turns pink..." you know, just in case!
Focus on BATTERY LIFE. I want a multi-gig storage MP3 Player that can play through it's entire list SEVERAL TIMES on one charge. Now get cracking.
I believe it is Rio's first HDD-based player,
Uhh, no. That would be the Rio Riot. (I was a developer on it back before the Sonicblue implosion).
If the development team is the same as it was after we were laid off, it's a group of guys from England, who use linux as the basis for everything. They should be adored here! (Except for those with the obvious Apple bias).
For me personally, I use my CD/mp3 player for the most part, but I bought a Rio Forge 256MB Flash mp3 player for athletic purposes (I've recently gotten into running, and I hate carrying something in my hand).
I was thinking of getting the i-pod mini with an armband and a pair of sports earbuds, but there was no way I needed more than a gig of songs when I only run for maybe 45 min to an hour at a time, and apple charges $35 for the armband that fits the ipod on top of a player that is already around $250. Not to mention it only comes with the standard earbuds that I can never get to stay.
The Rio Forge I got for $170 and it came with the armband, the sports headphones, and has been more than adequate for my needs. I'd definitely recommend that if you have needs like mine.
I have never had the lockup problem, but I would really like it if the rio dj feature allowed you to do random playlists based on a subset of all the music on the player (say, randomly play all techno music for example). I have a bunch of classical music on my player which sounds really silly played in random order (espec. mixed with other types of music).
Perhaps they have updated the firmware by now -- but I got a Karma just under a year ago -- returned it right away. It couldn't play ANY of my Ogg v1.0 formated music (encoded using official oggenc). Apparantly it could only play Ogg music encoded with included music encoding software. Pretty much useless for me.
However, I did have a small collection of MP3s back then. It sounded pretty good and reliable. Cool ethernet connection as well (though need special JAVA app to access).
CD stands for "Compact Disc", the old vinyl ones were just "Discs", so they were known as "Ds", not "CDs". You could also overclock your Ds from 33 all the way up to 78!
I thought everbody knew that.
One down side was that the D-R drives made a lot of vinyl shavings though.
Putting moderation advice in your
I had an Archos for under a month. I used Rockbox which is much better than the builtin firmware but still no iPod. ;) After about a week, it developed interference in the headphones any time the hard drive spun or the backlight turned on. Basically, a high-pitched whine. So I returned it (thanks, my tinnitus is bad enough). Battery life was also less than expected.
Have things gotten better? IIRC, customer service was supposedly a nightmare too...
--Pete
What you state is all true, however the player's integrated headphone amp also affects the sound quality, at least for playback through headphones.
I've read plenty of anecdotal evidence on the various internet message boards suggesting that the Karma indeed does sound better than an iPod when compared side by side, using a same audio file and same set of headphones. Personally, I attributed this perceived difference to the quality of the phone amp in each unit. It's entirely possible that the Karma amp drives the phones with a bit more power, which would tend to make the sound more dynamic.
You guys do know this device is close to EOL and is being replaced with a MUCH better unit. The replacement to it's little brother is already out (the Carbon). Rio is really good at listening to people and they fixed all the issues with the Nitrus (which the Carbon replaced). The replacement for the Karma (the Chroma) should be here soon.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
...but bear in mind that like many buyers, I wasn't aware of the issues when I first made the purchase. My position is that of, "well, I already paid for it, so here's my opinion on the device over-all". And the truth is that it suits me just fine, despite the fact that my heart sank when it froze for the first time. Since a few months back though, I haven't had a single problem with it. I honestly don't know if the issues have since been resolved over at Rio.
That this alone should be reason for me to be sterilized makes me wonder how many people you must tell every day to not breed. Perhaps yours is a world inhabited by people of a much higher calibre than ours. If that's the case, then I envy you deeply. But seriously though, it was a funny read.
Holly freakin' geezuz!I've got points to burn, but the option "unbelievably stupid post with a complete lack of common sense" isn't available.
I love mine, but I'm not gonna write a whole review about it. It rocks, test it out before you get an ipod, it plays my ogg and flac!
MP3s are not designed to be gapless. There's only two frame sizes, and you're screwed if the end of one song doesn't coincide with the end of a frame... the encoder will have guessed as to what the rest of it should be filled (probably silence).
There's basically one way to handle it. You encode the exact length of the decoded song in samples into extended ID3 tags. LAME started doing this and all the major software players and the Karma (specifically) can read these tags, and thus know exactly when to cut that last frame short and stick in the first frame of the next track.
All the other formats define the handling of this detail in the format itself.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Slashdot is such a herd.
FYI, There's currently an (early) effort to support Rockbox for the iRiver H120 DAP.
the unit was warm to the touch and had drained half the battery
Isn't that supposed to be an ipod feature?
~
~
~
-- INSERT --
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I admit, I bought mine BECAUSE of the very fact that an Ipod w/ comprable storage costed $100 more at the time. But I have to say that I am pleasantly suprised at my investment. I love the fact that it generates random play lists, and that the software that comes w/ (Rio Music Manager) is actually a very user-friendly package- unlike MusicMatch. Actually, I am going to be getting an AUX hookup where I can bring it with me in my car- JUST B/C RIO DOESN'T ADVERTISE IT, DOESN'T MEAN THAT IT CAN'T BE DONE (and relatively easily too- I might add)!!! The only complaint I have is that they do not offer a carrying case for it- something that you could attach it to your belt or an armband- but I also found my way around that, by using a pda case that attaches to your belt. In stars, I would give it a 4 out of 5, but when you take into account the storage, and price it would probably be a 5 star investment.
If you'd moderated it as "Offtopic" I'd happily agree :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks