After my many tribulations with the Nomad Jukebox 3, I’ve thrown in the towel. The new firmware allows the player to boot, however the volume has the annoying tendency to jump to 17 every time the player changes tracks. In a player like the NJB3, that’s alot of sound, and it’s quite jarring. On top of that, the player seems to be over-heating on me, which is certainly not an encouraging sign. Sending it back to Creative to wait three months and pay $200US for an unguaranteed repair just isn’t an option, so come New Year, I decided to jump ship to the competition.After doing alot of research, I narrowed my choices down to two players: the Rio Karma and the iRiver ihp-120. Both support Ogg Vorbis, which is a big plus, and the Karma has the nifty capability to function as a network device, but it doesn’t have any recording capability and lacks a remote.
The ihp-120 doesn’t win any points for pricing, but it boasts even more recording options than the NJB3, and unlike any other HDD player on the market, it functions completely as a vanilla removable USB drive. There’s no proprietary software needed to interface with the player, so it can be mounted under any OS with USB mass-storage support and files can be transferred back and forth with no intermediate software. Coupled with iRiver’s reputation for solid construction and sound quality, I was sold.
Design and Construction
My initial impression of this thing is that it’s small. Here’s a shot showing the iRiver next to a 3.5″ floppy-disc and the Sharp DR-480, which is one of the smallest minidisc players on the market. It’s about half the size of the NJB3, and only a hair larger than the iPod. Weight is about the same as a normal-sized cel phone.
(During much of this review, I’ll be making comparisons to the Nomad Jukebox 3. I do this for several reasons. First, the NJB3 pretty much set the standard for sound-quality and recording. Second, I have in-depth experience from using it for several hours a day over the span of eleven months. Third, the feature-set and price-segnent of the NJB3 makes it a good product for comparison. I haven’t posted any pictures besides the size-comparison, as there are plenty to be found elsewhere on the web.)
Construction feels solid on the ihp. The outer shell is made largely of something that feels like magnesium or aluminum. It has a very metallic feel, with well-rounded contours that allow it to settle comfortably in my hand. The unit is obviously meant for right-handers, as the play/power, stop and mode-selection buttons are on the right side and fall directly under the fingers if held in the left hand. The left side has a record button, and directly under the thumb is the built-in (yep) microphone, which is flush with the side panel.
Each of the buttons has several options, and though this isn’t the most intuitive player I’ve used, I got the hang of it after a few minutes. The whole layout seems a bit odd at first, but once you’re accustomed to it, it becomes clear just how much thought went into the design.
Audio I/O jacks are on top. There’s one for standard headphones, plus a second jack for the remote. Line-in and line-out are both 1/8″ RCA jacks, and both can be set to work as optical interfaces as well. Minidisc users are accustomed to the optical-in, and it was a welcome feature on the NJB3, but to my knowledge, the ihp is the only consumer-level portable on the market with an optical-out jack. This is nice work. Optical I/O allows for bit-to-bit digital recording to and from other devices that support it. When using an optical hook-up, there’s no intermediate analog step in the signal, so the sound quality is unaffected by things like line-noise or external interference. Most DVD players and high-end stereo decks have optical outs, so signals from those players can be recorded directly into the ihp. The optical output allows for pure digital signals to be sent to high-end receivers as well as minidisc players.
On the bottom of the player are the AC input and USB2 port. I wish there were some kind of cover for the USB port, but that’s a small concern at best.
The front of the player handles the navigational interface. 3/4 of the front is covered by a clear plastic panel, into which are mounted a nicely-sized LCD and the joystick. The joystick doesn’t protrude much from the player, but if it did, it would run the risk of breaking off. As it is, it’s really more of an extruding directional-pad than a joystick, but after a bit, it becomes second nature. Left and right are forward/backward, while up and down control the volume. Push directly down to activate the navigational menus. The LCD is bright and very legible, with a clean interface. Contrast is excellent, and in daylight, it’s readable without the backlight. The backlight itself is a pale translucent blue color that’s very easy on the eyes. There’s a three-line display at the top for folder/artist/track title, underneath which are the volume and progress meters. Line-scrolling can be increased or decreased through the settings menu. The screen is about the same size as on the iPod, and much larger than the one on the NJB3
My one big gripe with construction: this player is a magnet for fingerprints and smudges. The top and bottom of the player are adorned with glossy silver bands, and having most of the front covered in clear plastic means you’ll be wiping this down pretty often. However, I have yet to scatch either, yet, so it’s more of a nag than a design flaw.
The player includes a remote that may very well be the best I’ve seen in any portable unit. IMHO, Sharp really set the standard for portable remotes with their Minidisc players, allowing them to handle most if not all of the player’s functions without having to handle the player itself. With an expensive recording unit, this is a must, and it’s one place Creative fell flat on their face. The NJB3 doesn’t include a remote, and if you want one, you’ve got to shell out around $60US for a cheap piece of unintuitive plastic with a terrible interface. In contrast, the ihp remote is amazing. As far as I can tell, every feature on the player can be handled on the remote. It consists of two large front buttons (play/power and stop) with two separate jog-wheels on one side and one on the other. Each of the jog-wheels has several functions, and this was where I had to break out the manual. After a brief acclimation, though, I was right at home. The remote has a three-line LCD that conveys almost as much information as the one on the main unit, and is also backlit. Basically, iRiver, like Sharp and Sony, understands that the remote should allow the user to stow the player safely in a bag or deep pocket and not have to expose it to damage or the elements. The headphone jack is slightly sunk into the remote itself, and although I had no trouble plugging in my EX-71s, larger headphone plugs could be a problem. iRiver packages a four-inch adapter cord to accomodate for this.
All the jacks feel solid and well-seated, and unlike the NJB3 and most other players I’ve used, there’s no play or wobble at all with the USB port, even after about 20 uses or so. The buttons are all tight, and though I’ve heard a few complaints about the looseness of the hold-button, the one on my unit is just fine.
iRiver has included a ton of accessories with their product. In addition to the remote and headphone adapter, you get the obligatory AC adapter and USB2 cable. There’s a line in/out cable, and though I would have preferred an optical one, it would have driven the cost up quite a bit. Also included are a lavalier microphone for voice recording (which I haven’t tried) and a decent pair of Sennhauser earbuds. That in itself is a first for a portable player, as even the best ones on the market include horrendous earphones. They’re certainly not reference-quality, and most users of a player like this will likely discard them for something better, but still, they’re a nice touch, and it never hurts to have a set of decent back-ups.
The other accessory of note is the carrying case. This is another area where just about everyone drops the ball. Not here. The ihp comes with a really nice padded leather case, which is tailored specifically for the unit, and it’s a perfect fit. It does increase the form-factor a bit, but if you’re going to carry the ihp around on your belt, you’ll be thankful to have it. All the buttons are easily accessible through accurately-placed holes in the case, and the display is covered by a clear plastic pane. Like the headphones, I’ve never bothered with the cases that other portable units use, but this is certainly a welcome exception, and it reaffirms my initial impression that iRiver took as much of the end-user experience into account as possible when designing the ihp.
Interface and Firmware
The iRiver firmware is surprisingly robust. This is the only hard-drive player I’ve ever used that has yet to crash on me. The option menu is accessed by a long downward-press of the joystick. There is an amazing degree of control available from here, all broken down into well-organized categories. Notable options include a sleep timer, the ability to select scroll-speed and default recording formats, and such niceties as fade-in (which allows the first track to fade in when the player is first started) and separate backlight settings for the remote and main unit.
A red indicator light on the front of the unit shows hard-drive activity, while a green one shows charging status. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it’s better than having to squint into an LED to find the tiny battery icon. It’s all about the little touches…
The music library is organized in folders, just like a normal hard-drive. Basically, however you copy everything over to the unit is how it’s organized. Music can be navigated and selected using a drill-down method through the file-tree without the need for any software, or you can create an on-board database using one of several programs. The database is a small (
Generating such a database is fairly simple, so there’s no need for a huge (ala Creative’s bloated PlayCenter) suite of programs, and iRiver hasn’t burdened us with such. The included DB generator is small and fast, though it only reads properly tagged mp3 files, and it only gets the genres right if they’re written in plain-text. There’s a wonderful third-party app called iRipDB, which compiles on either Windows or Linux which does the same functions, though it seems to label all mp3 files with the genre “Blues” for now. However, it does just fine with Ogg files, which is what I’m using. Simply run either program from the root directory of the player after adding or deleting files, and it’s ready to go. Updating the database takes about 15-20 seconds, depending on how many files you’ve got.
Though the player can be run just fine without the database, bear in mind that without the index, it won’t parse Id3 tags, so make sure the files themselves are accurately named. In this fashion, songs within an individual album or folder will play in alphabetical order, so it’s best to name them with the track number first (ie. “01-Tiny Tim goes to Tinseltown”).
This is a welcome change from the reliance that other hard-drive players have on proprietary software layers to access the player, and it’s welcome news to Linux and BSD users that I have not had to boot into Windows at any point to use this player. Though the NJB3 could be accessed through a third-party app like Gnomad, it frequently hung and for some options, you simply had to use PlayCenter (or Notmad). Not so here.
Despite this, there’s some room for improvement in the iRiver firmware. First off, there is no way to create playlists on the fly. The player can read m3u playlists (Linux users read more on this below) if generated in Windows, but that’s it. The player will play the currently-selected folder or album, then move on to the next in alphabetical order. This bites, especially for a player with such robust features otherwise. However, since this is a firmware issue, it can (and most likely will) be corrected in the near future.
The second big firmware issue has to do with the database itself. There is no search function, so you’re stuck navigating alphabetical lists when finding anything. This can be a real pain if you’re looking for an album starting with “N”, and you have to scroll through a list for 20 seconds to find it. The Creative players have an option to jump to individual letters within lists, and such a thing would be very welcome here.
Issue number three involves recording. There’s no VU meter on the display while recording and no on-the-fly record-level adjustment (this is where Sharp’s MD recorders spoiled me), though recording can be monitored in real-time so as to adjust the source levels. Again, this is a firmware issue, and a fix is hopefully pending.
Speaking of recording, it’s very well implemented here. Unlike Creative’s recorders, you can specify WAV (44 or 48kHz) or mp3 (plus default bitrate) as the default format, and the player remembers it. I’d like to see onboard Ogg encoding, but from what I understand, it’s just too demanding on the Fpu. The optical input appears to automatically recognize input types, though for output, it has to be selected manually. This makes sense, since you don’t (presumably) want the unit constantly emitting a red laser out the jack.
Battery life is, in a word, sweet. I was apprehensive about the fact that the battery is non-replacable, but the iRiver uses a Lithium-Polymer which is rated at 3000 charges, so it’ll be a few years before that becomes a concern. And unlike the Lithium-Ion batteries included in most other players, these aren’t as volatile, so there’s no worry about possible combustion or overheating. Even when under significant stress and hard-drive spin (such as uploading ~1000 files), the player only gets slightly warm. iRiver advertises a 16-hour battery life, and this doesn’t seem to be an exaggeration. Presumably, this rating represents constant playback of low-bitrate mp3 at a minimal volume, but still, between transferring several albums to the player, running the database, and playing high-quality Ogg files (which are much more of a drain), I got about 13 hours off my first charge. That’s simply amazing in a player this small, and it outclasses everything else out there.
This leads to the last issue I have with the firmware, which involves the hard-drive. It seems to spend an inordinate time spinning up and caching files. There’s certainly room for improvement in the way it buffers files. Playback is almost gapless, but not quite. The player inserts a slight (
Still, these flaws are relatively minor (and nothing no other player’s innocent of), and iRiver has an excellent rep for their firmware upgrades, so they’ll most likely be fixed in the near future.
Sound Quality and Conclusion
With an S/N ratio of 90dB, sound output is loud and bright, easily rivalling Creative’s players. The bass gradually rolls off at higher volumes, but at that point, it’s pretty punishing anyway, so it won’t be noticed. Channel separation and soundstage are clear across the spectrum, and unlike Creative’s players, there is no hint of hiss or line-noise anywhere in the signal. Even with the default Eq and none of the SRS enhancements, sound-quality has the clarity of MiniDisc with better bass response and amplification. That’s one heck of an achievement.
For road testing, I plugged in a pair of Sony EX-71s and took a rattly old Chevy Cavalier for a drive down a rural stretch of interstate with the windows down. Volume had to be boosted by about five notches, but sound was still clear and realistic.
The analog line-out jack has variable volume, and basically acts like a high-impedance headphone jack. It puts out a line-level signal at a setting of 30. As with the headphone amp, sound is clear, with no artifacts to speak of.
Recording becomes easier after a bit of practice. Luckily, iRiver includes good documentation with the ihp. The optical input works like it should, though it doesn’t automatically recognize track-breaks like MiniDisc does. Analog input can be monitored easily through headphones, so once you’re familiar with the default volume for the device, the lack of a VU meter becomes livable, and after awhile, it’s almost as intuitive as MiniDisc.
All said, this is a remarkable device. This is easily the best hard-drive portable unit on the market. A few firmware tweaks (especially in the area of playlists and navigation), and it could be nearly perfect.