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#257282 - 30/05/2005 15:03 Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg
Jemmi
member

Registered: 03/05/2003
Posts: 131
I got a Karma about 3 weeks ago... I know a bit late to the game but since I had other MP3 portables and it was pretty pricey, I could never justify it. Well, I got the itch for one and got one with the startup issue with dock and everything for like $75 shipped. One good hit to the back and it was working again. Well, I'd done a lot of reading prior to getting the Karma and I'm so glad that Jemplode works with it. I do not like the Rio Media Manager because I have well over 200GB of MP3's and it takes forever to go through and create the database and since I add a lot weekly to it, it was too cumbersome to use if I only wanted to upload one new album I got. I was using it with my old Rio Riot and hated it but that unit was touchy anyway and it was one of the few ways to get music into it reliably. Anyway, using Jemplode with the Karma is perfect because I also use it with my Empeg car player.

Anyway, after using the Karma quite a bit at the pool and work and at various other things, I am very pleased with it... But I think I can see why it didn't fare too well in the marketplace (other than poor advertising). I use the dock and ethernet to transfer files, but the average user doesn't know how to configure it into a network... And as with the Rio Riot, the USB drivers seem a bit flakey from all I've read. I know Cambridge had no part of the Riot, only bringing a point. Anyway, it seems like there has been a lot of frustration because the USB is not universal and seems to conflict with chipsets... The average user doesn't have the facilities to troubleshoot this and feels they were ripped off as they do not want to have to buy more parts just to get music into their player. Then there's the lack of a case which makes it difficult to use portably and it seems a fair share have been dropped leading to the well known hard drive issue. I have mine in a padded Gameboy case that fits the Karma and headphones nicely. But then again, I can lay the unit down everywhere I use it and would look into a Mindknob case if I were going to try to use it more portably.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Karma, like the Empeg vefore it, really seems best suited to technical people... People who are willing to be careful and learn and can handle what could be the difficulty in getting everything up and running. I love mine... in fact that I bought another broken one to try to get running for a spare.

I bought 2 Nitruses also and there seems to be a fundamental flaw in how the drive is mounted in there as there is NO shock protection and those drives seem pretty sensitive. Of the 2 I have, one had a cracked hard drive disk and had sheared the read head off... the other had issues with the read head as well... I like the size and features (I bought both broken... one worked for a bit. the other never did). But now I'm looking for a replacement drive which is near impossible. Cornice has a 3GB for $100 but I've heard they won't work with the Nitrus... does anyone know if this is true? Anyone have a spare Cornice drive they're willing to sell?

Another thing I'm wondering is will there ever be a Hijack for Karma? I know you can get to the Config.ini on the Karma but doesn't look like much there... is there a list of what can be added via the ini file?

Anyway... my two cents...

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#257283 - 30/05/2005 15:54 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: Jemmi]
msaeger
carpal tunnel

Registered: 23/09/2000
Posts: 3608
Loc: Minnetonka, MN
I have never had a problem with the USB on the Karma. You do have to use RMM but RMM is much easier to use than WMP10 for loading songs like some other players make you use.
_________________________

Matt

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#257284 - 30/05/2005 16:25 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: msaeger]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
Quote:
I have never had a problem with the USB on the Karma. You do have to use RMM but RMM is much easier to use than WMP10 for loading songs like some other players make you use.

Ditto. Never had any problems with USB or ethernet on my Karma. Just the useless HD inside. RMM is quite nice as well and much better than any other applications out there.

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#257285 - 30/05/2005 16:28 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: Jemmi]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
Quote:
Of the 2 I have, one had a cracked hard drive disk and had sheared the read head off... the other had issues with the read head as well...

Cracked? Sheared? What on earth are you doing to them??

Quote:
Another thing I'm wondering is will there ever be a Hijack for Karma?

Nope. Never. The Karma doesn't run Linux and the player is a massive monolithic binary combined with the OS. It runs an old version of eCos with the non GPL license from what I remember. I think there is some sort of protection against you trying to run your own firmware as well.

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#257286 - 30/05/2005 21:23 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: tman]
Jemmi
member

Registered: 03/05/2003
Posts: 131
I bought the Nitruses that way... they were not powering past the initial screen then going to upgrader. I decided to take them apart and see what was wrong... after the "whack" test did nothing

So... any chance you have some hard drives laying around for the Nitrus?

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#257287 - 30/05/2005 23:14 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: Jemmi]
msaeger
carpal tunnel

Registered: 23/09/2000
Posts: 3608
Loc: Minnetonka, MN
Don't those just have a compact flash HDD.
_________________________

Matt

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#257288 - 31/05/2005 00:58 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: msaeger]
Jemmi
member

Registered: 03/05/2003
Posts: 131
No, it uses a Cornice "Storage Element" or something like that... it's a small hard drive

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#257289 - 31/05/2005 01:34 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: Jemmi]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
Yeah but it's probably got a CF style interface on it. A lot of devices used to use normal Hitachi Microdrives inside them until people figured this out and bought them to rip apart. They alledgely changed the firmware inside to stop them working in CF mode and also removed the connector and replaced it with a ribbon cable.

Does it have a connector on the drive that looks like CF or is it a plastic ribbon cable?

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#257290 - 31/05/2005 06:25 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: tman]
rob
carpal tunnel

Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
The Nitrus uses a Cornice drive which has a proprietary interface - nothing like CF.

The Carbon uses a regular CF microdrive (Seagate I think). There was talk of nobbling the firmware so the drive wouldn't work in another device but judging from various articles on the net I see no evidence that this has happened.

Rob

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#257291 - 31/05/2005 09:15 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: rob]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
Quote:
The Nitrus uses a Cornice drive which has a proprietary interface - nothing like CF.

Ah okay. Highly unlikely then he'll find a replacement HD unless somebody out there has a busted screen on a Nitrus or something.

Quote:
The Carbon uses a regular CF microdrive (Seagate I think). There was talk of nobbling the firmware so the drive wouldn't work in another device but judging from various articles on the net I see no evidence that this has happened.

Possibly. There were rumours that Hitachi had changed the firmware in the Microdrives they were supplying Apple and Creative but other rumours said that was just started by the people that were ripping them apart and selling them on eBay since they didn't want any competition.

Seagate sold a little USB drive thing which had one of their microdrive style cards inside. Somebody I know bought one because they wanted to use it in their Canon but found out after cracking it open that Seagate had changed the connector to a plastic ribbon cable instead.

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#257292 - 31/05/2005 11:44 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: tman]
Jemmi
member

Registered: 03/05/2003
Posts: 131
I'm a "she"... but it's ok

And that sucks about the Seagate portable as I was looking at buying a Carbon with no drive and then one of those to grab the drive out of...

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#257293 - 31/05/2005 12:24 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: Jemmi]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
Quote:
I'm a "she"... but it's ok

Oops. Sorry! Hard to tell on the BBS

Quote:
And that sucks about the Seagate portable as I was looking at buying a Carbon with no drive and then one of those to grab the drive out of...

Yeah. The Creative 4GB Muvos might still have a compat CF microdrive but doing that would be a little strange. Buying a Muvo and then taking it apart to fix a Carbon... The digital photography forums should be able to tell you as they're usually the main users of these things.

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#257294 - 31/05/2005 13:45 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: tman]
matthew_k
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
Well, with the price of 2GB and 4 GB cards these days, the photographers have pretty much moved on. Microdrives are fine for lowbitrate things like mp3s, but a digital camera needs fast performance and reliability above all else.

I'm still waiting for my solid state 20GB player. It should be nice.

Matthew

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#257295 - 01/06/2005 21:46 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: Jemmi]
Jemmi
member

Registered: 03/05/2003
Posts: 131
Karma #2 arrived today... $54 shipped and it came with ALL accessories... stalled at "starting"... using the "whack" trick made it functions perfectly... Is in excellent condition and had barely even been used (50 songs on it MAYBE). I wish it had been received better, but who can fault a 20GB player of the Karma's calibre for $54... or even 2 of them for $130?

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#257296 - 03/06/2005 02:25 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: Jemmi]
genixia
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
Where from at $54 shipped?
_________________________
Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962 sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.

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#257297 - 03/06/2005 08:28 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: genixia]
Jemmi
member

Registered: 03/05/2003
Posts: 131
Ebay

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#257298 - 12/06/2005 15:38 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: Jemmi]
FireFox31
pooh-bah

Registered: 19/09/2002
Posts: 2494
Loc: East Coast, USA
Quote:
Karma #2 arrived today... $54 shipped and it came with ALL accessories

Wow, maybe it's about time for me to get one of these deals. Sure beats $200 + accessories for that cute blue iPod mini that I let my sister get.
_________________________
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FireFox31
110gig MKIIa (30+80), Eutronix lights, 32 meg stacked RAM, Filener orange gel lens, Greenlights Lit Buttons green set

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#257299 - 16/06/2005 20:54 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: FireFox31]
sldonmtns
new poster

Registered: 19/12/2004
Posts: 20
I bought one on ebay for $62 after seeing this post, and received the player yesterday. At first I tried paperclip reset, then reinstalling firmware, with reformat box checked, but niether of those worked, so impatienly I hit the karma a few times to try to get it to work, and that didn't work either. Today I reformated the drive on my computer, and now it works great. So if you're goimg to pick up a "broken" player, and recovery mode (menu + power) still identifies the drive, I would definately try reformating on the computer, BEFORE hitting the karma.

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#257300 - 17/06/2005 12:03 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: sldonmtns]
Attack
addict

Registered: 01/03/2002
Posts: 598
Loc: Florida
Quote:
I bought one on ebay for $62 after seeing this post, and received the player yesterday. At first I tried paperclip reset, then reinstalling firmware, with reformat box checked, but niether of those worked, so impatienly I hit the karma a few times to try to get it to work, and that didn't work either. Today I reformated the drive on my computer, and now it works great. So if you're goimg to pick up a "broken" player, and recovery mode (menu + power) still identifies the drive, I would definately try reformating on the computer, BEFORE hitting the karma.


What did you use to connect the Karma HD to your computer?

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#257301 - 17/06/2005 18:44 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: Jemmi]
sein
old hand

Registered: 07/01/2005
Posts: 893
Loc: Sector ZZ9pZa
Ah, I sold my Karma (see) just before I bought my Empeg! It was a lovely little toy, just a shame I didn't use it more often.
_________________________
Hussein

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#257302 - 17/06/2005 21:20 Re: Karma... a great device if you have an Empeg [Re: Attack]
sldonmtns
new poster

Registered: 19/12/2004
Posts: 20
I used a 3.5" to 2.5" hdd connector. Got it at compusa for $7, because it was the closest place. The karmas 1.8" harddrive has the same connector as a 2.5" notebook harddrive. There are a couple threads at riovolution in the support section about reformating the karma in the computer.

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