Which MP3 player?

[t_biggs]

I'm currently looking at hard drive MP3 players. Flash based are not an option. I'm just not interested in them anymore. My MuVo works just fine, so please, don't suggest a flash based player.

So, which hard drive MP3 player have you used or suggest? The ones I've been looking at are of course the iPod (15 gig), mini iPod (if I can find them,) Creative Nomad Zen Xtra (30 gig), Rio Karma (20 gig), and Rio Nitrus (1.5 gigs). I'd also consider a Muvo2 (4 gig version only) if I could find one.

The iPod looks best, but is it really worth the price for the limited space compared to the equally priced, double capacity Zen? The price and non-replaceable battery really turn me off to the iPod.

The mini iPod and Nitrus are unlikely that I'd buy, as for about $50 more I could get a large player. But the size of them is nice. Same with the Muvo2.

The Karma really looks nice to me. It comes with a dock, and connects via USB 2.0 or ethernet. The dock also has RCA stereo output. But, I havn't owned a Rio player since my old 32 meg Rio PMP300, and have read they like to leave customers high and dry when the product is discontinued (see: Rio Riot.) Also, it seems expensive for a 20 gig player... $50 more for 5 more gigs than an iPod.

So, what are your experiences with these, and which would you recomend?

 

[macky]

Ok, I guess I will chime in on this one here. This may seem one sided seeing as I am the proud owner of Rio Karma...

I'm just going to compare the Karma against the (industry standard ) iPod.

Starting with the "mini" players, the iPod mini is supposed to be the smallest most lightweight player out in its class weighing in at a tiny 3.6 ounces, but it won't start shipping until at least next month. Now, Rio has announced that they will begin shipping their 4Gig Nitrus this month, it is said to weigh in at less than 2 ounces and will more than likely be priced the same as the iPod mini. Another thing, the iPod mini..is it easter, because all I see are pastels there. The Rio Nitrus is a sleek black color that we can all enjoy without looking....well, sissy.

The iPod is currently the most successful had drive based mp3 player on the market, for good reason, Apple LOVES to market their pretty designs. The 20Gig iPod comes with everything you need, except for a USB 2.0 cable if you don't have firewire ports on your computer. When I compared the iPod and the Karma at the store, I noticed one main thing I couldn't stand about the iPod...the volume controls. There isn't a proprietary control for the volume, you have to navigate the menu and use the scroll wheel if you want to tweak your volume. The iPod also only supports mp3, aac, and wav, which is great if you love iTunes or just the plain old mp3 codec.

Now the Karma comes with everything you need except for a belt clip and wired remote. The included headphones are Sennheiser MX300s which sound amazing for their size, even if they are a tad uncomfortable. You mentioned the dock and what it comes with, but the dock also glows blue when the Karma is plugged in and being either used or charged. The brightness can also be controlled from the Karma. As for the audio codecs supported, you have mp3, wma, ogg, wav, and flac, with aac rumored to be supported soon. Using the ethernet feature, you can access the Karma over a network and have it stream the music to your computer over a browser, heck, it even comes with the ethernet cable.

Well, my fingers are tired from typing and I should really get back to working. So I'm just going to leave you with 3 links. Riovolution, iPod lounge, Karma Review, editors choice.
I might add more to this later on when I think of more stuff.

 

[eab]

Take a look at the dell DJ,

$270 for 20 gigs

I don't have one but I see that it has got some favorable reviews.

Here are 2:
http://www.digitalmusicsite.com/forums/index.php?s=&act=Tutorials&CODE=03&ID=10

http://gear.ign.com/articles/441/441625p1.html

 

[-N-]

I also had this dilema during christmas. It all boiled down to the Rio Karma, Creative Zen Xtra 30gb, or the RCA Lyra 40gb. They were all around the same price ($270). I ruled out the Rio Karma eventually beacuse.. well I don't quite remember but I did do it for a reason. I spent a full two days just reading reviews and considering my needs and finally went with the RCA Lyra.

A little overview between the Zen and the Lyra:

-the Creative mp3 player has great quality sound (after you replace the headphones).. well obviously, cause it's Creative Labs. Then the Zen Xtra also has replaceable batteries.. so in case it dies in two years, you can buy just the battery. It includes a carrying case that is very convenient to open/close.

-the Zen Xtra does all it's organizing by ID3v2 tags. So in case you're looking to find a song by it's filename... sorry. There are no folder organization either. all songs get placed in one huge folder and sorted by none other than the ID3 tags (artist name, album, song title, etc..). The scroll button on the right can get very annoying beacuse of scrolling too far or having to press real hard to select. The casing is really light and feels like really cheap aluminim.

-the RCA player has nice dark blue LCD backlight and big text. You can choose songs by ID3 tags or just browse a folder manually. You can copy over winamp .m3u playlists as well. There is no additional software needed for this mp3 player. cause unlike the creative, you can just plug in via USB 2.0, and it'll appear as a removable storage in My Computer. Just copy over the songs and click "profile" to sort, and there you go. You can also use the Lyra as a portable flash drive.. 40gb worth. Drag and drop your entire windows folder if you want. the RCA also comes with a car kit and stereo connectors.

-this player does not have replaceable batteries. So when it breaks.. you'll have to warranty it or.. i dunno call customer support or something. The battery life for this thing is not that superb. it's advertised up to 10 hours of playback but it really only gets maybe 5 hours or less.. even lesser if you transfer lots of files from computer without the AC adapter. The carrying cause also sucks.. it's hard to press the buttons while it's in the case..


yep so there you go. I'm at the library and bored so if you have more questions about the RCA Lyra or Creative Zen Xtra ask away... lol

 

[t_biggs]

Well I've eliminated the Mini iPod and Rio Nitrus for obvious reasons. Also, I won't get a Dell player because I can only order those online. Something like a MP3 player I would like to handle before buying. I do not want to buy something that I will handle almost every day if I hate how it feels.

So, I'll either be getting a Karma or Zen Xtra. I doubt I can find a Muvo2, they are hard to find on the internet, and even more at stores around here.

I guess a 15 gig iPod is still an option, only because I love iTunes so much. Does anyone know of a music management program (does not need a store) that works as easily and smoothly as iTunes, that will also sync with a Karma or Zen? Oh, notice I said smoothly. Creative's PlayCenter software does not work smoothly. I'm looking for 3rd party. 1st always sucks, with the exception of iTunes.

Oh, macaddict311, its not Easter, but the Easter Bunny did take a crap on those mini iPods.

 

[macky]

Does anyone know of a music management program (does not need a store) that works as easily and smoothly as iTunes, that will also sync with a Karma or Zen? Oh, notice I said smoothly. Creative's PlayCenter software does not work smoothly. I'm looking for 3rd party. 1st always sucks, with the exception of iTunes.

The Rio Music Manager is actually pretty nice. Its easy to setup to auto sync with the Karma when you put it in the cradle. Although, just out of curiosity, I'm checking out Sveta Portable Audio at www.dbpoweramp.com along with its beta drivers for the Karma. It seems to take a bit to initialize and read the files on the player, but after that its a no-nonsense drag and drop explorer view.

 

[9mmCensor]

My friedn has an iPod and it a looks beuatiful, and b sounds freaking awesome. I dont think you could be displeased with it. plus its really small.

 

[macky]

Oddly enough, almost every portable mp3 player on the market is fairly small. The Karma is actually smaller than the iPod but slightly thicker. And it also weighs less than the iPod.

As for the sound, the Karma has a 5 band parametric equalizer and 4 presets that sound awesome. I've heard it rivals and or beats the iPod in sound production. As for the Zen, I don't get why they have EAX on that thing. Does it make the nonexistant games sound better?

I just got really bored and took a couple shots of my Karma for size comparison.

My friedn has an iPod and it a looks beuatiful, and b sounds freaking awesome. I dont think you could be displeased with it. plus its really small.

 

[t_biggs]

Man! I didn't realize the Karma is that small! Thats smaller than my old 32meg PMP300. I have a question about its little red controller. It looks plastic, but because of the little nipple on top, it makes me think its rubber. Which is it?

The Karma looks best, except for one thing. I know its battery is not replaceable. But, some players are that way, yet you can replace them anyways. And some players you can switch in a larger non-proprietary hard drive. Can you do either with the Karma? If you can, I'll get a Karma for sure. Otherwise, it's still between Karma Zen and the iPod... They all look so nice... And they all look like I'll be disappointed I didn't get one of the others...

 

[CrashOveride]

My friend (a bit of an audiophile - builds headphone amps and stuff that clear up the sound and has ~200 dollar headphones) has the 30Gb Nomad Zen and he really likes it, looks good, has lots of storages, not too big and good sound quality.

Can't speak for any others though, other than the iPod (another couple of friends have them), but everyone knows about how expensive and fancy looking that is... and all the other preks and problems.

 

[macky]

Man! I didn't realize the Karma is that small! Thats smaller than my old 32meg PMP300. I have a question about its little red controller. It looks plastic, but because of the little nipple on top, it makes me think its rubber. Which is it?

The Karma looks best, except for one thing. I know its battery is not replaceable. But, some players are that way, yet you can replace them anyways. And some players you can switch in a larger non-proprietary hard drive. Can you do either with the Karma? If you can, I'll get a Karma for sure. Otherwise, it's still between Karma Zen and the iPod... They all look so nice... And they all look like I'll be disappointed I didn't get one of the others...

Yeah, the control stick is plastic and it is incredibly easy to use. As for switching out batteries and hard drives, unfortunately you can't change either. I don't see why you would want to change out the hard drive, 20Gigs is more than enough storage for me. The battery should also last quite a while if treated properly since it is a Lithium Ion battery. But I also got an extended warranty on the player when I bought it at Circuit City. So if anything borks on the player within the next year, I just hand it over and get a new one

 

[Blueacid]

I have a friend who has the Creative Nomad, and he's over the moon with it.

You can choose between either using the Creative Playcentre software (your choice) or just having windows see the player as an external hard drive, which you just copy MP3s to.

He says battery life is very good - he got it to go for 12 hours at full volume, skipping between tracks etc... don't know if that's good or bad for a hard-drive based MP3 player.

It is a little larger than you'd think though - it's around the size of a scientific calculator, except it's thicker (about 2cm thick in total), and while it doesn't feel heavy, it's not light... The little leather carry-case that it comes with looks purty too, and protects the player, but it's easy to open up when you want.

Hope that helps you

 

[Robrules18]

Dell has a music tunes thing same as apple and its built off musicmatch which is very nice. I think you could export iTunes with a third party utility if you wanted, but i myslef LOVE the iPod im saving for one now and I agree about the mini Ipod90, you pay 50 less for less than a third of the space and with an inch or two shaved off, plus its all those nasty colors.

 

[eab]

OK I just read a bunch of reviews on all the types of mp3 players you are considering and if I was to get one it would be the Rio Karma.
Reasons:
1. 20 gigs of storage
2. has an eithernet jack, can be used as an mp3 server, and can put files on it that way.
3. It supports, many music files, mp3, wma, .oog (thats the one I like), flac,
4. Can be had for around $270 on the internet.

 

[t_biggs]

Yeah, I think I'll get the Karma. WalMart.com has it listed for $290 (you can only find it with Google,) and Circuit City has it for $349. So, with the 110% price match, I can get it for around $285, and then the $20 rebate Rio has, so a total of $265.

The only thing I'm worried about is the software it uses. I've read that it's pretty good, though. I hope it is... Creative Playcenter sucks, so with my Muvo, I just used Windows Explorer. And my old PMP300's software was horrible (not surprising. It was the first attempt at MP3 player software.) So, I havn't had good experiences with MP3 player software. And many use Music Match, and I hate that almost as much as Real Player. It was very surprising to me that iTunes works so well, when every other piece of software sucks for MP3 players.

 

[Robrules18]

well im either going for an Ipod or a Karma, I really like the Ipods looks better than Karam and I can get the Ipod for 270 off their website w/ free shipiing and engraving...

 

[jspam]

I own a Karma 20, and I love it. The only downside to me is that the plastic face plate scratches much too easy. I try to take perfect care of it and it's marked up pretty good (after 3 months),

 

[eab]

I read that dbpower amp has a beta plug in for the rio karma. I haven't tried it obvisluy (cause I don't own a Rio Karma) but I do like the other dbpower amp software. Might want to try that out.

Linky: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/sveta-portable-audio.htm

 

[macky]

I read that dbpower amp has a beta plug in for the rio karma. I haven't tried it obvisluy (cause I don't own a Rio Karma) but I do like the other dbpower amp software. Might want to try that out.

Linky: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/sveta-portable-audio.htm

Yeah, I mentioned it earlier in the thread. I have been looking at it and it seem promising so far. The main thing right now is it takes a bit for it to bring up your library of files on the Karma.

Heres a screenshot of what it looks like...

 

[macklin01]

Greetings!

macaddict311 just posted the same thing I was going to post. (Nebraskans are just too quick! ) I've used the Sveta software for both my Rio 600 and Rio S10, and the software works quite well. See http://dbpoweramp.net/ as well.

The Rio Music Manager is also quite good. I've used them more than a few times. It's also quite possible that once you've installed your Rio drivers, iTunes might support the player. I know that WMP supports my Rio S10 once the drivers are installed. Haven't really tried iTunes with it.

In linux, you might hunt for rioutils.

So, you do have other software options where the Rio players are concerned. -- Paul

*edit* eab also beat me. Sorry! */edit*