Rockbox only for audiophiles?

[neo.cerberus]

I was reading about RB and its features and it all seems very complicated. Would a casual/mildly audio inclined user like me have a use for RB or would I just be wasting my time? Does it just boil down to preference?

[NPswimdude500]

Depends what you like. RB adds a lot of simple audio features that the stock firmware lacks (gapless, crossfade, etc.) It also adds a good deal of other features, such as on the fly playlist creation, custom while playing screens, and perhaps most importantly a proper equalizer.

If you're happy with the stock firmware, then you won't need Rockbox, but if any of the previously mentioned features appeal to you, then RB is probably worth a try.

My advice? Play around with your player for a while, get a feel for it, etc. May 1st is the proposed release date for Rockbox 3.0 (a stable release). At the moment, RB builds can be buggy, as they're preparing for a proper release. If all goes well, 3.0 should be only 2 weeks away, and that isn't too long to wait...

[neo.cerberus]

Originally Posted by NPswimdude500

Depends what you like. RB adds a lot of simple audio features that the stock firmware lacks (gapless, crossfade, etc.) It also adds a good deal of other features, such as on the fly playlist creation, custom while playing screens, and perhaps most importantly a proper equalizer.

If you're happy with the stock firmware, then you won't need Rockbox, but if any of the previously mentioned features appeal to you, then RB is probably worth a try.

My advice? Play around with your player for a while, get a feel for it, etc. May 1st is the proposed release date for Rockbox 3.0 (a stable release). At the moment, RB builds can be buggy, as they're preparing for a proper release. If all goes well, 3.0 should be only 2 weeks away, and that isn't too long to wait...

I gave RB a try and I found it better in almost every area. the only problem is that when i switch songs manually the player freezes more often than not. I'll stick with the stock fw until may 1st. Thanks

[BlaqReaper]

I'm no audiophile, but I love rockbox. The plug-ins are great (the games), the ability to create playlists, and the very very short loading time compared to the regular firmware .

[sduck409]

Originally Posted by neo.cerberus

I gave RB a try and I found it better in almost every area. the only problem is that when i switch songs manually the player freezes more often than not. I'll stick with the stock fw until may 1st. Thanks

that's one of the common side effects of the current development - some builds work, some of them have these bugs/lockups. Wait a little while...

[ton]

For me, one of the best things is the ability to play lossless files, such as flac, in Rockbox and gapless play.

[jkl2000]

I just installed RockBox yesterday, and so far the biggest improvement is in how much faster it boots. It may seem silly, but I probably get an extra minute or so of listening time each day because of this.

Gapless playback also seem like a big bonus, but I haven't experienced it enough to say for sure (I listen to a lot of epic-length songs).

Didn't the iRiver firmware SUPPOSEDLY have gapless playback implemented? What was up with that? It just didn't work?

I have to admit that at first glance there are a few things in RB that seem confusing (the graphic equalizer for one) but I think overall it seems like an improvement. I think the best thing for people to do is if they have more than one MP3 player that RB will run on to install it on the older or lesser one and give it a try. If my player was brand new I might not be so inclined, but I have an H-120, and if it broke I wouldn't bo SO unhappy to buy a new player I also have an old Archos HD player as well as an Archos flash playe, and I'm curious to try RB on both of those.

[Febs]

Originally Posted by jkl2000

Didn't the iRiver firmware SUPPOSEDLY have gapless playback implemented? What was up with that? It just didn't work?

Nope. Iriver promised gapless playback, and ended up giving us gap delete, which is NOT the same thing. And gap delete never worked right anyway.

[captain_cornflake]

I thought about installing rockboxx for a long time before I took the plunge.
Eventually I just got fed up with the boot time on the iriver firmware and took the plunge in january.

I have to say it was the best decision I've made in a long time.
The boot time , which is what originally drove me to rockbox was a vast improvement (from about 40 seconds down to 2 or 3).

I'm still discovering new things every time I play with it, but (ignoring the last few weeks worth of releases) in my opinion it is a vast improvment over the3 iriver firmware.

The only thing I don't particularly like is the configuration of which buttons do what, but I am gradually getting used to it.
Also sometimes the increased control can be a bit too much. It took me ages to select a font and WPS which I was happy with. While I appreciate the ability to change this as you see fit is a big plus, at the moment it just doesn't seem as straightforward as it should be.

[Lad]

For me the best RB feature over iRiver is its Equalizer. It is referred to as Graphic EQ, even though strictly speaking it is a parametric EQ (being able to change cutoff frequencies, graphic EQ have these fixed). With quality recording of the sound sources varying so wildly I found it invaluable to have several presets saved and loaded appropriately to the music. The presets don't vary greatly (not like Classical and Rock presets on iRiver), but it does make a difference to my ears. Need to spend some time though tweaking it, changing cutoffs, experimenting with Q settings. Fun. Froze RB optimized build once only, doing some silly thing with remote.

[andrewcampbell2003]

when i first got my h120, i was really happy with it. after joining misticriver, i discovered rockbox, but i did not install it as i thought the website was too confusing. but now, im just amazed, i think its just a smaller computer, it can do anything. the only thing i would like is WMA playback and video playback, which hopefully are both on their way, or atleast video has arrived...
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=2913.0

[edil]

Let me put it this way. Before RockBox I used a Sony ES 400 CD changer connected with a toslink optical cable to my Yamaha receiver. After Rockbox with the avility to play FLAC compressed files, I rarely use the Sony CD changer and switched to my H140 conected with the same TOSLINK optical cable. To my ears, with very few exceptions, it sounds the same, sometimes better.

Now I have to warn you that some RockBox builds are buggy playing FLAC or OGG files.

[kwalik]

sounds pretty cool. i'm thinking of upgrading my H140 to a 340 though, to take advantage of the Rhapsody service. you lose that if you put rockbox on, right? or does that apply only to the international firmware upgrades? thx...

[strad84]

Being green yet to the options/limitations on current firmware, by May 1 - I'll plan on downloading the "stable version" of rb- will there be any documentation with that version or will it be a trial and error process per the testers...

There are so many functions added and altered, it would be great to be able to have a reference for the novice to not get lost...

[TedJ]

Sorry Kwalik, but to my knowledge patching the firmware for the Rockbox bootloader (the actual firmware for RB is kept on disk) will break DRM support permanently... so no Rhapsody after you upgrade.

Strad, there is a H300 specific manual being written to coincide with the 3.0 release. There is a daily snapshot of this manual available from the rockbox.org downloads page.