The iRiver iHP 140 looks very promising, especially for a musician who currently records gigs with a MiniDisc unit. Although I'll need a powered mic, it just may be possible to take this unit to gigs. The built in mic seemed plenty good to my fairly discriminating ear. Like MD recording units it seemed to be picking up everything (room/computer noise) - nothing like listening to one's own music library, only to be inspired. What a great way to capture those little hummers of ideas (that's how I do a lot of writing, by singing riffs, licks and often strange musical fragments into my cell phone voice notes - one can't have enough devices to capture those fleeting gems!).
The key purchase points for me (and I haven't purchased yet but will strongly consider it) are ease of use/reliability, storage capacity (40 GB seems pretty good), ability to record audio, small size. This device meets those demands with high marks - plus it sports the ability to navigate in a way that works best for me, either from the ID3 tag data, or by the file folder, and I believe by various other categories. Nice. The FM radio is also nice. The optical IN and OUT are very nice. Noticing a theme here?
The price (rhymes with "nice" but currently around $450 US, or maybe even a bit higher as of this writing) is probably worth it. But when the price comes down (hopefully), that will be even nicer!
However, it's time for me to hang hang up my red sweater, take off my white sneakers and head up to bed...please sing along with me:
"Would you be mine, could you be mine - won't you be...my jukebox!?"
Rob Birdwell
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