Rio Karma
FORMATS: MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC
BATTERY LIFE: 13 hours continuous
CAPACITY: 20GBThe effortless hardware interface that
made the iPod so popular hasn’t been
bested by any other player, including
the Rio Karma. But—and this is big
news, considering Apple’s dominance in
this category—the Karma
sports
enough
features to
make it the
only player
we tested
that held
its own in
a head-
to-head
comparison.
When we
took into
account its
increased
functional-
ity and the significantly lower price, we
find ourselves convinced that, for some
users, this MP3 player will feel superior
to the iPod.
On a primal level, the Karma is a
thrill to hold in your hand, with its
boxy palm-sized shape and comfortably
rounded corners. Like the iPod, all the
playback features can be manipulated
with one hand. Even straight out of
the box with its default settings, the
Karma’s sound quality was matched by
only two other players in this roundup,
producing brilliant, full tones without
any noise or the airiness typical of
cheap players. Furthermore, the basssounds keep their shape without degen-
erating into mush.
Of course, if you want to get particu-
lar with your music, you can still access
simple bass and treble controls, alter-
nate EQ presets, and add up to three
custom settings via a five-band para-
metric EQ mode. And while good MP3
players get loud enough to hurt, the
Karma gets loud enough to kill.
A recharging dock is included, but
unlike the iPod’s, it’s more than just a
porta-potty for your player. The dock
includes an Ethernet port that makes
your player a network-accessible
device, which means you can access it
from any other networked PC, like your
living room’s media center, for example.
The player itself is endlessly configu-
rable, with options to customize what
information is displayed on the gener-
ous-sized screen, cross-fade between
tracks, and how to resume playback
after it’s been turned off.
The Karma has a serious drawback
in that you need proprietary software to
manage your music and, even worse,
you need a proprietary application just
to load data files onto the player! Sadly,
this limits the usefulness of the 20GB
hard drive, and we’ve yet to find an
acceptable software work-around for
this shortcoming.
Still, as far as MP3 players go, the
Karma is fully loaded with the kind of
versatility, flexibility, and power we like.MA XIMUMPC VERDICT: 9
THEREMIN: Small, reasonably priced, and
feature-rific.
TAMBOURINE:^ Requires proprietary software
to manage.
$300, http://www.rioaudio.comKanguru Micro MP3 Pro
FORMATS: MP3, WMA
BATTERY LIFE: 13 hours continuous
CAPACITY: 512MBA disastrous product is always a fabulous
addition to any roundup, and Kanguru
came through in this respect. The play-
back of the Micro MP3 Pro sounds as if a
Hattori Hanzo sword cut out the low-end
and took a few slices from the midrange
as well. More than one editor likened its
audio quality to ye olde cassette tapes.
And don’t bother with the equalizer—we
tried it, and it didn’t help. Although the
Micro MP3 Pro packs a generous 512MB
of flash memory, this capacity is cruelly
paired with a USB 1.1 transfer rate which
instantly quelled our enthusiasm.
Although a voice recorder and driv-
erless operation (making it accessible
through Windows Explorer) are nice
touches, it doesn’t make the music
sound any better. The Micro MP3 Pro
takes a seat at the ass-end of the MP3
player spectrum. We can’t recommend it
in good conscience.MA XIMUMPC VERDICT: 3
BASS DRUM: Not a bad price for 512M.
COWBELL:^ Horrible sound, USB—
oh no!—1.1.
$220, http://www.kanguru.comWINDOWS MEDIA AUDIO
Extension: WMA
Some swear by the superior audio quality of WMA. Others insist
that WMA encoding produces quality sound but alters the “mix”
of the original. What is generally agreed upon, however, is that
WMA produces fi les smaller in size than MP3 tracks encoded at
the same bitrate.
Our take: The point may be moot. Microsoft will never pull the
plug on this baby. Expect it to remain ubiquitous, and supported
by most portable players. If you’re happy with WMA and don’t
own an iPod, we see no reason to switch.LOSSLESS CODECS
Lossless codecs like Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless, AppleLossless Codec and the open-source FLAC differ from lossy ones
in that they don’t eliminate any audio information during com-
pression, so the compressed tracks they create are essentially
identical to the originals. Although you’d be lucky to achieve
anything near a 50 percent compression ratio using a lossless
encoder, these codecs are becoming more popular as PC users
liberate themselves from CDs and archive everything to their
hard drives.
Our take: Few people engage in online fi le sharing of these enor-
mous fi les, so the popularity contest between lossless codecs is
pointless. That said, we recommend going with FLAC. You’ll fi nd
tons of information on the web about using FLAC and integrat-
ing it with your CD ripping application, and you can be fairly
assured the format won’t suddenly be shackled by “digital rights
management” in the future.48 MA XIMUMPC SEPTEMBER 2004
2.7“3 “Rio KarmaKanguru Micro MP3 ProCODEC-OGRAPHY (continued)
4 “1.125“