Iriver H120 mp3 player

Forum Moderator Joined: 18 Feb 2004 Posts: 7432

Ive been after a HDD based mp3 player for ages to replace my faithful but now dodgy minidisc player.

After much reading and looking about i settled on the Iriver H120 player over the ipod, the Iaudio M3 and the Creative Zen Touch (all 20gb models).

I had read reports that some people had experienced an annoying ticking sound from the Iriver when the remote control was used, but I figured that since this thing was designed with fidelity of sound in mind, any such problems would have been rooted out and fixed by the manufacturer sharpish.

I was wrong. My player has a quiet but very irritating ticking/buzzing in the headphones when using the remote, but it is fine when you dont use the remote, plugging the headphones directly into the unit. It is a very quiet sound, and you can only really hear it when the music is quiet (and at the beginning and end of tracks obviously). Once you have heard it though, you know it is there and its bloody annoying.

I thought i would register on iriver's webpage and see if i could get a replacement remote that doesnt cause the ticking sound. I got as far as inputting the serial number of my player (wouldnt let me proceed without it) and it kept saying "invalid serial number", meaning i couldnt even register. This really got my back up. So I emailled them. No reply.

Its a real shame because everything else about the thing is quality. Looks good, feels well made, menus etc are good, sound is excellent (without the remote).

if this was a PDA or a mobile phone or something that just happened to play music, I could overlook the ticking and learn to live with it. But its not, it is a (expensive) supposedly near top of the range device designed and sold for the sole purpose of reproducing sound to a very high quality.

if you could put up with no remote and just plug the headphones in (course, youd need to buy some new headphones with a longer lead), then fine, but other than the fact that im not willing to do that, its the principle of paying for something which is blatantly flawed that i cant deal with.

So I am sending it back to where it came from for a refund. Ill probably get the Zen Touch instead. It has no remote and a few other features that the Iriver has are missing, but its also Â£30 cheaper (and presumably works properly).

Mr Quoter-vator Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 7405

that looks sweet i want one ...i got a little USB stick effort at the mo, but its only got 128mb which barely holds 1 album of mp3s....how much was that dare i ask?

Level 5 User Joined: 18 Mar 2004 Posts: 112

I went with the Ipod.. Can't fault it - it's ace..

I know it doesn't do as much as the Iriver, but I only want it to play Mp3s.. Which it does.. Oh so well.

Looks the best out of all of them too.. Iconic design IMO.