Hello!

I am planing to get a new MP3 player soon and have a few questions that I hope you can answer.

First of all, let's start with the iAudio X5.

1. Does the player support gapless playback with any of the supported formats?
2. How is the Ogg Vorbis support - any bitrate limitations like with older iRivers?
3. Are all FLAC compression levels supported, or only only up to 2?
4. Do videos play with a decent quality or do they stutter (I am asking because the product page reads "It's possible to convert various video files to MPEG4 up to 15 FPS using JetAudio.")?
5. How is the battery life?
6. Is the recording function good, or does it skip like with some iRiver models?
7. Is the radio sensitive enough or does it introduce noise often?
8. Anything else you can say about the player?

Now a few questions about the iPod Video:

1. Is the stuttering bug with LAME MP3 and Nero AAC files still present?
2. How long are the gaps between the songs (I heard from someone that they could be about one to two seconds)?

Finally, which of the two players would you recommend?

Sebastian

Thats about right with the Ipod line. Though eventually they'll likely be a completed rockbox port for the Ipod Video (currently no one has reverse engineered the DAC on it), so will eventually add gapless for all rockbox formats.

If the drive has to spin up because you're skipping through songs rapidly, then yes, it can be a few seconds. However, under normal playback conditions, the drive is spinning up when the buffer in RAM starts getting low and well before the song ends, so you're talking a tens of milliseconds gap at best. It's never been enough to bother me or for me to notice, when I'm letting it play continuously.

2. No
3. Yes
5. It used to be great, but my battery has only been lasting about six hours a charge now, with very little video playing

I own the iAudio X5L (and love it) so I'll answer some of these, though most of your questions about the X5 are answered on these pages:
http://onlinestore.cowonamerica.com/index....ATS&Category=60


No.


It supports up to q-10, and a low-end isn't listed for it, and I've heard from people who've used as low as q-2 on it.


It only supports FLAC compression levels 0 through 2, but frankly I don't really know why anyone would want to use FLAC on a portable player anyways, heh.


I've never experienced any stuttering of video on mine, but yes it can only do up to 15 FPS, and you can convert them at different quality levels to take up more or less space/have better or worse quality, and the conversion process is quick.


If you get the X5L model it's unbeatable! Up to 35 hours of MP3 playback. If you get the regular X5 model it's 14 hours though, which is why I got the X5L since it's not that much of a difference in price, and I've yet to use up all the battery life on it yet, even with long periods of Vorbis and video playback.


I've yet to experience skipping with the recording on mine, though I haven't used that function a whole lot.


Never used the radio function on it so I can't answer this one.


Umm, well, it's great! The sound quality is fantastic and with the X5L model you can't beat the battery life.


Well I've actually encountered at least one of the video iPod models from a co-worker, and I can say that it's much thinner and lighter than the X5L (though the X5L is also a little fatter than the X5 model, because of the battery I'm assuming), and the video quality on the iPod is better than the X5 (the framerate isn't limited to 15 FPS, the screen's a little bigger, and hey it did come out later than the X5 afterall). So if the video quality is really important to you, you'd be better off going with the iPod. Personally though I love the X5L and doubt I'll get any other brand of MP3 player when I upgrade. I use Vorbis for my music so that was a big part of my decision to get it, along with the battery life, but the sound quality is great too and if you like EQ features the BBE effect sounds great.

1. The iPod Video doesn't have the stuttering issue. LAME playback is perfect.
2. Gap between songs is a few hundred milli seconds. If you like I can record the line out from my iPod Video so you can hear the gap for yourself.

Although the iPod doesn't do gapless playback I would not hesitate to recommend it. For a more direct comparison between the two players look here.

If you insist on gapless playback and playing FLAC and Vorbis RockBox might be something you want to consider. I don't have any personal experience with Rockbox and will probably stick with the iTunes + iPod combo. The iPod will play all my files and I use smart playlist and the iTunes COM interface.

Gaps when using any mp3 file are half a second at most.
You can hear it when you listen to the music. If your walking or not concentrating there are no gaps. If you want short gaps you need to switch album art of. With album art on its 1 second.

Skipping songs when your playing an album (ie 10 or 17 songs forward) take the same amount of time since its cached in memory. the 60g ipod has 64MB memory the 35G only 32. Not sure about iaudio.

Both players have its advantages and disatvantages. if your in europe though get your ipod from the US somehow... it cost so much less

Have fun deciding.. took me 2 weeks (went with the ipod cause its slim and plays videos too)

IIRC the X5 can now support all FLAC compression levels after a firmware upgrade.

Also the 5G iPod will probably have fully functional Rockbox soon so format support and gaplessness won't be an issue at all anymore for it. The X5 is slated to get it eventually but the 5G iPod looks like it will be first.

I don't own either so I can't say which one I would get. I'm hoping my H140 doesn't kick the bucket for a while.

If you do get a player that supports Rockbox it's a really nice combination IMO.

Heresy! Iaudio got it right from the start...

Play time on the iAudio X5 60 Gb with my q 6.16 ogg's is about eight hours; mp3's play significantly longer. Look, q 6.16 ogg's are so near to transparent that FLAC is virtually pointless. And the lancer ogg transcoding is so incredibly fast that you'll have more ogg's after a night's sleep than you can listen to in a month.
Don't expect to buy and use any DRM'd music for it.
Loudness/volume is significantly greater than other players. I consider the BBE options very useful.
Recognizing the device when connected by USB can be erratic, but it'll always get accomplished.
You'll have to decide what "sync" and/or file arranging method you want, so that's more for a geek than other players. Some like MediaMonkey but I'm using SyncBack SE because I subscribe to a fair number of Podcasts (iTunes is banned from my PC, so I use Nimiq and the RSS aggregator in Outlook 12 + Outlook Attachment Sniffer); syncing is VERY zippy. The player's view window for song titles is too short so finding the right one from a list of, say, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young can be troublesome.
I've had mine since just before New Year's and am very pleased with it. I get more exercise because I take long walks so as to hear the 4,500 "songs" totaling 43 Gb I've so far put on it.
Oh! Remember there's a 9,999 file limit !
You ought to look around in the iaudiophile.net forums.

One thing to consider is that on the X5 OGG Vorbis gaps are relatively large. Of course, the ipod can't play them at all...

Somewhere on the net (prob either Head-fi; DAPreview; or Iaudiophile) someone posted samples of a seamless track transition for all formats on the X5. MP3 was around .08 sec gap, IIRC.

Nope none at all

It has been able to play FLAC 8 for quite a while, you just need the latest firmware.

The framerate at 15 FPS stutters and usually people have very good results at 12-13 FPS. Visit this site for some information and a few guides.


I have the X5L 30 gig with all vorbis files... battery life is really good and can play without having to recharge for a week

I'm amazed that Cowon aren't making a bigger thing of this 168 hour battery life

Ha, I probably should have added my listening times... it's usually 4 hours a day Monday-Friday and another 4 hours for the weekends... so it's about 24 hours