currently , ipod photo 30gb for me . trying to get rid of it for something else though bc it sucks at vbr playback and im sick of ipods

Philips Expanium 211

Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 60gb.

4th gen ipod (20GB) and eagerly awaiting my Sony NW-E405 flash player for when I run.

MPIO HD300, 20GB

iRiver H120 ... eagerly awaiting Rockbox software with FLAC support and single-platter 60GB 1,8'' HDD to put in ...

TrekStor i.Beat 115 512MB.
a flash based player is enough for me, I change the songs every now and then and have the bonus of listening to my music when I do sports.

hows sound quality, size, and navigation on that 60gb zen?

i can get it for like 270 retail , humongous storage.

Creative Nomad II MG. I bought it 3 or 4 years ago, and no hardware player has met my needs yet (not that the Nomad MG II does - I just haven't upgraded yet).

iRiver H120

Yep, me too.

Oh yes.

Seems possible; but is it probable? Would be great though eh.

A one-platter 1,8'' 30GB from Toshiba (to upgrade your H120 to H130) is already available ... first problem is thickness (5 mm required), second problem is power hunger (pretty much the same for the 30GB model ... but there is a third-party battery replacement available that offers 30- 40% capacity increase).

There is a replacement guide at http://www.pdainternalbattery.com/iriverinstall.html

The two-platter 1,8'' 40GB from Toshiba is 8 mm thick and is built into the H140/H340 ... there does exist a 60GB two-platter from Toshiba (built into iPod Photo 60GB).

Oh ... over at the misticriver forums, they have successfully connected an 80GB ATA drive to an H1xx model ... it was recognised and fully accessible.

Edit ... typo

iRiver H120, and I love it!

Wow!
So, what would this little lot cost then? Say with the 60gb HDD & new battery.

h320 or h120, which is better?

not trying to start flamers, just want an opinion or two

A 60 GB one-platter doesn't exist yet (but will surely come) ... as for the batteries, there are two threads at http://www.misticriver.net/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=37

iPod Mini, first generation.

iriver ihp-120, massively kicks ass.

Creative Zen Micro 5GB

oh yeah and is 120 id3tag db or filetree ?

I'm a happy iPod mini (4GB) owner!

iAudio M3L (20 Gb HD player), supports Vorbis & Flac. The L (= long) version is for long playback (28 hrs for Lame 160 kbps VBR and 25 hrs for Vorbis Q4, according to my own tests). No gapless playback, but gaps are quite short. I'm very happy with it.

Edit: info

Panram Music Yoyo 256 MB, just plays mp3s but its got a radio, and records radio and line-in and mic up to 320 Kbs. Its a real cheapie with a dim screen, but a pair of £10 Sennheiser MX400 earbuds took its sound quality past my expectations.
Its so small, with it hanging round my neck I accidently plonked it in a glass of juice yesterday - it has made a full recovery after a bath in methylated spirits to fix

A beautiful thing called the Rio Karma. It does everything I would expect a DAP to do, and does it perfectly.

how does that karma compare to ipod? and whats the "learning curve" on it?

thanks its like 188 on newegg

I use the Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 (20 GB). To me it's awesome and the sound is great on it (hell a 96dB sound to noise ratio).

4th Gen iPod (20GB) with Sennheiser mx-400 headphones

another extremely happy rio karma user.
this puppy does absolutely everything i could possibly want from a music player, and probably a lot more.




read this article, from dapreview.net, its got everything you ever wanted to know about the karma (but were afraid to ask) in it!
1000 Things about the Rio Karma

I'm a happy user of the iRiver H120. The only letdown is the lack of gapless playback, but hopefully RockBox will fix that.

Iaudio I5 One GB flash player is currently making me happy, esp. with its full bitrate playback support of ogg.

Hi. This has been discussed many times, but I will throw in my two cents here. Well, I have used my Karma for about 4 months now. MY room-mate has a 4th gen iPod, so I have used both. Here are the Pros and Cons of the Karma against the iPod.

Pros:

1) The Karma plays all kinds of formats-mp3, ogg, wma and FLAC.

2) It is the only player capable of true gapless playback-a big plus if you love live albums.

3) It has a 5-band parametric EQ, which is AMAZING!!

4) The sound quality is much better than the iPod. You can read the specs [http://www.riovolution.com/FAQkarma.php#gen13]here[/URL].

5) You can create playlists-on-the-go, insert, add, delete, re-arrange songs from the current playlist to your heart's content.

6) It comes with a dock with an ethernet port, USB2.0 and RCA stereo outputs. Once you connect the Karma to a jack on any network, the ethernet port lets you transfer files and stream songs-perfect on a home network!

7) The display is monochrome, but compared to a similar iPod, is much better.

8) It has about 14 hours battery life as compared to about 10 of the iPod

9) A bunch of other things that I can't remember right now. You can read about all those things here and here.

Cons:

1) The Karma is not being prouced any more. Rio was supposed to come up with something to replace the product a long time ago, but they still haven't.

2) You are better off buying an extended warranty with the Karma. There have been reports of some hard-drive failures, but hey, my room-mate's iPod had a dead hard disk even before it came out of the box!! So, this is just not a problem with Rio. I have had 4 months of trouble-free usage and I am sure that some people have over-hyped the Karma's hard drive failure rate and are trying to kill the company.

3) Available as 20GB only.

Now, the Karma is technically the best DAP out there. There is no "learning curve". The menu system is much easier and user-friendly as compared to the iPod. Consider this, the folks at DAP Review have used and reviewd all the DAPs out there-most of them even before they are released into the market, but they still love the features and the excellence of the Karma. If you ask me, for the price you are getting it at, this is a steal!!

thanks. how about that iRIVER h10 20GB?

sorta fixated betwixt-

iRIVER H10 20GB
iRIVER H3XX 20GB/40GB
Rio Karma 20GB ...


edit- i would say that iriver h120 is an option, but it really isn't. not because the screen isn't colour or its too old, but just the fact that it's sooo darned expensive and hard to find nowadays

Happy iRiver H120 owner

The 5GB H10s were buggy when iRiver released them. I'm not sure on the 20GB units but I'd look into that first.

The H3xx is nice but I prefer the H1xx series to it for both reasons of aesthetics and the fact I just don't need a colour screen on a music unit.

The Karma owns. I got to play with one of these one time. I like this as much as the unit I own

Palm Tungsten T3 with Pocket Tunes.

Recently TCPMP got Musepack support, so I'm switching to that, once the player matures a little.

Where'd you get that number? With the photo it's closer to 17. 25+ for the mini.

Yeah, sure it is

Creative Nomad Jukebox 3.

iRiver IFP899 (1GB flash player)...I like it! Does all I want and more :-)

How does it suck at vbr playback? I have a 4G 20GB iPod and it plays vbr just fine.

He probably refers to the bug where vbr files stutter if the EQ is turned off.

Another iRiver H120 user here. will upgrade it to a 30gb HDD as soon as prices come down.

Getting about 10 hours per charge playing ogg vorbis Q8 files from a two year old battery...not too bad.

rs

Another happy Rio Karma user here... if only the disk were bigger...

I got the H320

i'm very happy with it , even more so once I flashed it to Korean firmware to play videos.

Lovely features, great for a techie.

I'm a happy owner of a iRiver iHP-140 (or H140 in new iRiver speak). I particular like its recording functions and optical i/o.
Waiting for Rockbox too!!

The only problem I see with putting a bigger drive into it at the moment is the 9999 file limit. I want GAPLESS, FLAC support, and no 9999 limit!!!

I've got this one too, but the normal version without the extra long playback. It sounds really great when you disable all hyperbasses and EQs. I'm currently using Sennheiser PX100 headphones, but i want to get good in-ear ones that sound like the PX100 and are not too big (suggestions are welcome).

I have an iPOD Mini, the gaps between songs are a bitch, battery life isn't the best either but nothings perfect...

Rio Karma...plays ogg and flac...makes me happy. I hope the follow-up is as good, but somehow I doubt it. If it died today, would replace it with an Iaudio X5 probably.

Had a H320 and traded it to a forum member for a karma and a chiba. After using both for a while the parametric EQ and gapless on the karma were the winning points for me. I have used the iPod and found that without a fully adjustable EQ my Grado SR-60 headphones sound lifeless, although my shure E3c's werent as bad. I think the Karma may use a better DAC than the iPod.

Creative Nomad Zen Touch - 20GB

iAudio X5 30gb. Flac, Futurama, UMS, and USB OTG.

I use a NEX iA. I use it for books-on-CD during my 3.75 hour weekend commutes, and occasionally listen to music at work. It has pretty low output and I use my headphone amp when listening to music to stop occasional clipping.

Plus for me: it uses the same CF cards as my camera.
It was Dirt Cheap, too. And I already had the headphone amp.

Mark