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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!
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
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 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'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?
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
I own one of these little devices, and I'm very unhappy with the harddrive performance. Not only does it suck battery life while playing, the drive performance seems to suffer after a while - I can't tell if it's fragmentation from being nearly full, or running while the battery slowly drains is causing hardware failures. The sound, though, remains decent. The multiple formats are nice. The software is actually quite good. It's not the type of player where you throw it out after you buy it because it's garbage, but you may want to think carefully before purchasing it.
Video Phone Blogs send video messages straight to the web.
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.
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.
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
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 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
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!
Having owned one of these devices since last christmas, let me offer my own two cents:
:-)
The battery life is awesome. I get an easy 12 hours of run time out of my karma between charges.
The built-in DJ funtion is unparalled. The ability to generate random playlists, or playlists based upon id3 criteria (such as decade, genre), playlists based on most listened to, least listened to, not recently listened to, etc.. all from the player itself just blows away all the competition.
The network integration is a nice feature, which the OP does mention. I also think that having lite-yet-fully-function java version of the software built into the player is a great and useful add on (simply browse to the ip and you can download the software right from the Karma). Plus, the included dock does this cool pulse thing when the karma is docked
The price point on this thing is just right. I got mine on sale for $280 last christmas, while the MSRP is a little higher is still beats the price of the ipod at the same capacity (20 GB)
Audio format support: This thing supports ogg, mp3, wav, flac, and probably more that I am too lazy to go look up.
I do agree that the player is a little bulky, at least in the dimension of width. Were it a little narrower I would say that it is perfect, but it is nowhere near as unwieldy as was my first hd-based player, the Archos Multimedia Jukebox 20.
Eschew Obfuscation