I have been searching for a decent DAP-player for a couple of years. I had one, the nearly excellent Rio Karma. The only problem was that after 4-5 months, it was three Karma's. Not too stable, that HD. Now, as probably most of you know, Rio has cancelled further production of DAP's. I guess the fancy iPods and all their look-alikes had a great impact on what the regular consumer thought of a good device for playing digital music.

I'm a non-Windows user. I know EAC is only compatible to Windows, but because i prefer not to use Windows, i want to have the freedom to use another system. Mac OS that is (I know, I know, I hate the iPod, but Apple have a winner in OS X, hands down). Well, my problems about having decent playback of fine music on a DAP are rising.Anyone here who have ideas, hopefully positive, about how the DAP-market will get more democrat

So, I'm looking for a DAP. Here's my list of what a decent DAP should be capable of:

- Gapless playback
- Multiple OS support (OSX, Linux, Windows. Actually the DAP should be supported as long as it is connected to a computer)
- Playlist-on-the-fly
- It isn't that important with the shiny color screen, we want to LISTEN to our fine music, not count the colors. Maybe a simple B/W screen won't take that much battery capacity?
- Compatibility to the different formats audio people tend to use

I just want to plug the player to my Mac and transfer my music, go out and maybe listen to a whole album (whithout the gaps). Everyone with a modern computer should be able to rip, encode, and transfer music to their DAP.

Am I right that no DAP can handle my requests? Anyone here who know about a DAP that I could have a look at? (Should the DAP and digital media industry become more democratic?) Are there any good audio rippers for Mac?

I hope not the disussion must end here.

Sounds like the Karma was actually the unit you're looking for. I just got my first one today, loving every second of it so far and I doubt I'll have issues with it, but who knows. Nothing is perfect and you will encounter stuff that just doesn't work sometimes.

I don't blame Rio for the problems with the Karmas that are well-documented in this day and age; I blame the Hitachi hard drives they chose to put in them. I know people that have the same hard drive in other devices and they have problems with them just like the Karmas do. But I could be wrong, we'll never know I guess since Rio is no more. Still didn't stop me from getting one, a refurbished one at that.

Anyway, if the Karma isn't an option anymore you should look into the Cowan iAudio X5L. Right now it's the creme of the crop for features, and it should cover most of your "requirements" for your next DAP.

Nothing is perfect, of course, but the Karma for what it was (and still is) ranks pretty damned close to me.

bb

ps
You can replace the stock 20GB drive in the Karma with the 30GB Hitachi with the same exact physical form factor/size. That's what I intend to do just as soon as I can actually locate one of the damned drives. They're out there but very hard to locate for purchase anymore. 50% larger capacity with 20% less power usage - sounds like a winning combo to me.

The discontinued iRiver H-1xx series (but with the 3rd-party Rockbox firmware only) seems to be the DAP you'd like to have.

I've had my Rio Karma for about 8 months now. It's still going strong, although I had to use the "paperclip trick" on a couple of occasions.

It's not without its faults, though.

Big annoyance: gapless playback doesn't work 100% correctly. Although it was reported to have perfect gapless playback on LAME MP3s, this is simply not true. When timing is critical on a track change you can clearly hear that some samples are being skipped, apparently. And even Ogg Vorbis isn't 100% gapless all of the time. Sometimes, when tracks are playing played for the first time there is a noticeable gap between the tracks. However, if you play them again it's perfectly gapless. I noticed this several times.

Medium annoyance: sometimes, when you select all albums from a certain artist, the track ordering of one of the albums is seemingly randomized.

Things I wish the Rio Karma had:
- The ability to sort each album from a certain artist by date, so I can easily play all albums from an artist in chronological order (now you can only play them in alphabetical order).
- A shuffle album mode.

Too bad that no newer firmware versions will be released.

Maybe I should have waited a little longer and bought a H140 with Rockbox instead.

Sigh... I too am a former Karma owner. My Karma's drive died on me. But I loved it as long as I had it. However, as a replacement, I bought a new iAudio X5. Well, I like it so far. It has a ton of features. I miss the gapless playback though. I dunno about sound quality. Does anyone think the Karma was better then the iAudio X5 in the Sound Quality department?

I also am a former Karma owner.

I just read that SigmaTel (who bought all the Rio IP and most of their engineers) is markedly improving their new chipsets based on the old Rio featurebase. Link. The best quote:

OMG, this would really kick some serious butt.™

At least something good has come out of the demise of our beloved Rio. Can't wait for those Sigmatel based DAPs.

Yeah, I mean what are people looking for in terms of a theoretical optimum DAP? are there no good DAP in terms of hardware specifications? or are they specifically referring to the firmware? . If that's the case the Rockbox is a great solution.

iRiver H-1xx with Rockbox firmware.

so that you can enjoy all those 24 bit mp3s?

riiiight.

Yep. Not straight from the store, anyway. I'm told the Rockbox stuff is getting close to doing what you want. Unfortunately, I don't know any more about Rockbox, because I, too, am a Karma owner/luuuver.

Antennae2k, watch dapreview.com for more about the Sigmatel chips and what players they'll be in. Also, info pops up pretty quick at the Riovolution forums. We're still rabid fans over there, and still consider the Sigmatel stuff Rio products.

QFT. If you can get one. (i got mine from ebay... refurbished)
Maybe it's better to wait until they finished their iPod port

eBay

One can only hope that they'll be using DACs with considerably better noise floors, which has been a big problem with all players (including the Karma).

Ebay is the way to go. They wrote a boot loader, so if you are having problems installing the firmware you can just switch back to the original firmware that came with the player. Last time I checked Ebay they weren't many refurbished ones, just someones that weren't sold. They are also attempting to port it to the IAudio X5. The thing that I would be interested in is whether or not Neuros team decides to use it in conjunction with their firmware for Neuros III.