iriver H-10 20GB music player on sale at staples

[Malpine Walis]

OK this is not technically a cyberdeal but it is a deal.

I went to my local staples yesterday to buy the thing expecting to pay the price of $159.99 that I see on the web site. But when I got to the register, it scanned at $111.50. Basically it came up as $60 off.

I don't know if other stores are going to have this deal or even how long it may last but if you are looking for a good player, this is worth grabbing while you can.

Also, pay no attention to what it can play because it can run after market firmware from rockbox (linky mclinkage) (http://www.rockbox.org/), which gets you into either FLAC or OGG VORBIS.

[g0dM@n]

What made you go for this particular player?

That's a great deal... $111.50!! :D

[skou]

I can attest to the quality of these, since I got a refurbished one in the notorious BOC from Woot! Got it over a year ago, and it has performed flawlessly. It is the Iriver H-10, but only 5 GB. I use it almost daily, mostly as an FM radio.

It was also $2, since the Bag-o-Crap was $3.00 plus $5.00 shipping, and I got 3 other items.

steve

[thaclassikz]

Not for the hardcore audiophiles if you ask me. It takes way too long between the time you press next track to actually playing the next track. Plus i wouldn't pay 2 dollars for it. But good deal if you don't anything fancy!

[Jizzzared]

What mp3 player is for the hardcore audiophile? I'd love to know because I didn't think they existed. Thanks.

[skou]

Since I spent numerous years in the Army, as well as in an airplane factory, my hearing is too shot to tell the difference between "good" and "not-so-good."

So, the $2 iRiver is just fine! :D:D

steve

[Malpine Walis]

What made you go for this particular player?

That's a great deal... $111.50!! :D

Well, the rockbox software more than anything else.

I had been thinking about getting a player for a good while now that the prices are down to realistic levels. Prior to this, I have been using a regular CD walkman and carrying around a fanny pack with more than enough music for the day. Of course that meant that I had a somewhat large thing to carry around and I had to decide every few days what I wanted to carry with me.

In my specific case, I have been buying CDs for about 20 years so I have no real use for any of the online services. Also, there is no love lost between me and DRM. So ripping my existing music is where it is at for me.

With rockbox, this player can play ogg vorbis files and that is attractive if for no other reason than the GPL free software thing. Then too, with ogg at level 6, my rips are coming out at 80MB for any CD that is reasonably full. So I am estimating that I will end up with between 250 and 300 full CDs on the player (I lost count of my CDs years ago but it is somewhere over a thousand items).

Not for the hardcore audiophiles if you ask me. It takes way too long between the time you press next track to actually playing the next track. Plus i wouldn't pay 2 dollars for it. But good deal if you don't anything fancy!

Well, I cannot comment on the standard software as I never used it. But I can tell you that with rockbox it is almost gapless. If you stay in a single CD it seems that it prefetches from the HD for gapless and if you switch to another CD, the gaps feels like about a quarter second.

Also, rockbox has a few other features of note.

First is that the original software shutdown only does a spindown on the HD where rockbox does a full shutdown. So the battery life is improved from the original spec. I have not charged it up since I bought it and it is still going strong.

Second, rockbox has far more control over the internal amplifier. In my first testing, I set it up so loud that it caused my Koss KSC 75 headphones to clip almost constantly. I had to set the level down a good amount to clear the clipping. For serious audiophiles, the only use for less volume is if someone is trying to talk to you. In this case, the iriver is nice because it has a ribbon controller.

But yah, show me an audiophile player like this for south of $200. It has to play both OGG and FLAC. It has to keep the battery going for a week or so. It has to be as loud as your headphones can take. Gimme the gapless.

Is this one perfection on ice? No. But is it a good deal? With the rockbox software I would say that it is rather more than I expected.