My Rio Karma recently died, it was never going to last long with the amount of use it got...

Thing is, I cant buy another one (plus I will just wear it out in less than a year again), so I'd like other peoples suggestions. I think it needs to be flash, as I cant see Hard drives being very reliable for my use (side note: my iRiver iMP-250 cd player has received an extortionate amount of use / abuse (including full on fall out of a bag at 25 mph and roll down a hill), and still is as reliable as day 1)

Things I liked about the Rio Karma, and my new mp3 player needs (or to be better on):

* Goes ridiculously loud
* Has nice 5 band parametric graphic equiliser.

Almost nothing else matters

Thanks peeps.

I think the Cowon products are suitable for you.

You didn't say anything about capacity but why not a iRiver clix? I got myself an iRiver S10 and I'm more than happy with it after getting some good sony earbuds.

http://www.iriveramerica.com/prod/ultra/clix/

15 mW doesn't sound pretty loud - at least not when compared to the 30+ mW of iAudio.

That would depend of the buds, wouldn't it?

A 2x difference is power is only 6dB. I don't think you're going to notice a large difference in loudness between mp3 players with a given pair of headphones. Its the sensitivity of the headphones thats going to make the most difference.

Well, I can only say that my Sennheiser PX100 with 32 Ohm impedance were very quiet with my iMP-550 that (IIRC) had something like 11 mW while the iAudio unit I tested with a total of 74 or 76 mW (both channels) was somewhat louder.

I had a Rio Karma a couple of years ago (which broke as yours has). I eventually come to the conclusion that anything that Rockbox runs on is what I needed. Out of the currently supported players, I'd go for the Toshiba Gigabeat.

Although I don't like supporting big companies like Apple, I went for the new iPod Nano 8GB. Reasons:
- rock solid (metal body + flash mem), small, OK capacity, good battery (24H) and nice UI
- gapless playback, also with NeroAacEnc now. (-q .35 ~ 98kbps sounds great)
- loud enough (I do apply 92dB replay gain and advanced limiter with foobar)

The Samsung YPZ5 is the best sounding flash player I have heard (I have heard most of them).
They did a firmware upgrade that gave it a very nice 7 band equalizer.
Max Volume 20. 16 is the highest I ever go.
Nice little screen w/ album art as a bonus.
KILLER battery life at 40+ hours.
OGG support w/ gapless.

All around great little player.

What about the Vibez. I think you will recognize the interface... Not to mention the chipset, supported file types, etc...

TechEBlog » Trekstor Vibez Video Preview

Thanks for the advice guys



Thi looks good, tell me more about the 7 band equalizer. Which revision of firmware does that come from?
Thanks

Hmm. I'd poke around in their forum before deciding on this one. http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=8

What makes you say that?

I too had a Rio Karma that broke It was the best DAP I have ever used until now. I have an iAudio X5 and an iPod 5G. Honestly, I like the iPod better. Even with the Apple firmware it does a lot of things well. For me, the best thing was that it can even play mp3s gaplessly! Hence, you may want to check out an iPod too.

First impressions of the Samsung YPZ5 are very nice

I want to buy a Cowon iAudio X5L, but it seems that they don't play 48 kHz files or FLAC -8. Is it possible to play those files using Rockbox? (If anyone likes to try 48 kHz, here are some 48 kHz files.)