From: Grant Hardy <granthardy_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 21:12:11 -0800

Bravo John! My thoughts exactly. Even by touching it you can tell it's
VERY rugged!
Now here's my question, HOW and WHERE to you buy a drive for the Archos
Jukebox V1? And how would you replace it, or could you have someone else do
it? How much would that be? Thanks.

Grant
----- Original Message -----
From: "Neon John" <jgd_at_johngsbbq.com>
To: "Rockbox" <rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se>
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 10:57 AM
Subject: Re: Buying a rockbox machine


> On Sun, 12 Feb 2006 10:40:54 +0000, Joseph Jones
> <bumpycarrot_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I tend to agree with Scott's sentiment. The Archos' were okay a couple
>>years ago, but I believe they are terribly dated now. I suggest one of
>>the iRiver models, or maybe one of the recently ported iPods.
>
> Dated? Only if bling is more important than functionality.
>
> I've played with an Iriver and an Ipod and consider both steps down in
> the hardware department even with rockbox onboard. I won't EVER be
> ready to give up replaceable batteries. If and when I'm forced to,
> it'll be only after some kicking and screaming.
>
> The JBR is VERY rugged. I hate to think how many times I've dropped
> mine off my belt clip while scootering or working. Like they say, it
> took a lickin' and came up tickin'. I even dropped it in the wet snow
> this weekend. I yanked the batteries out until it dried out and no
> harm done. I know, someday it'll drop at the moment of a disk read
> and I'll crash the drive. I'll just put another one in and keep on
> truckin'.
>
> If I ever do need to work on it, the JBR isn't so tightly packaged
> that I need an electron microscope just to see the components. I've
> had to tack the power connector back down twice now after tripping
> over the charger cord. No big deal. Try THAT with these new
> microscopic players!
>
> With 2500mah batteries, I get over 24 hours' play time at 32kbps
> (audio books) and around 12 hours at 128kbps. Then if I need to, I
> just slap in another set of batteries and go. No chargers or cords or
> other crap to haul around. I haven't seen anything out there yet that
> can touch this, especially for the cost.
>
> I don't want a do-everything-but-a-BJ type box. I want my jukebox to
> play MP3s and do it the best it can be done. The JBR does exactly
> that.
>
> I have 4 JBRs and one Studio in my little hoard. That should be a
> lifetime supply. I probably need to hoard some 100gb drives too, for
> when they stop making those.
>
> I highly recommend putting forth the effort to find a JBR version 1 or
> if you can't find one, a Studio (play only, not record.) Pop a 100gb
> drive in the thing and enjoy!
>
> To give you an idea of just how reliable a JBR/Rockbox combo is, I
> have a JBR in my restaurant playing background music. It runs all the
> time. During the last Christmas season I pulled it down to load on
> some more Christmas music. It had run continuously without rebooting
> since LAST Christmas when I pulled it down to put the first Christmas
> music on. That's 12 months, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without
> being touched. There are about 1800 songs in the regular playlist.
> The old version of Rockbox didn't randomize that large a list very
> well but the current version (as of Christmas) fixed that one problem.
> One can't ask for more.
>
> I'm about to move the 80gb drive from that JBR to my studio and put it
> into background music service. I want to save the JBR in my hoard for
> just in case. We'll see how well the Studio does. I expect equal
> performance.
>
> John
> ---
> John De Armond
> See my website for my current email address
> http://www.johngsbbq.com
> Cleveland, Occupied TN
> A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.-Ralph Waldo
> Emerson
Received on 2006-02-15