Battery on the RH-1

[dogville]

Can any one who has one tell me how long the battery lasts on playback and on recording?. I mean not regarding the brochure but after having used it for some time (the REAL duration)

cheers

[nevermore]

I've had it for 1 day now (was supposed to wait but someone else cancelled his order so I got lucky) though I haven't fully used the battery yet (I've been at home all day yesterday so it was almost always either connected to the pc or charging but I've used it about an hour without and it didn't seem to show any decline. I know this isn't very helpfull but I'll let you know when I field test it. Very cool thing about charging though is that it shows exactly how many minutes are left to a full charge. I'm not sure if this is calculated or if this is measured but either way I think it's really cool.

[dogville]

I've had it for 1 day now (was supposed to wait but someone else cancelled his order so I got lucky) though I haven't fully used the battery yet (I've been at home all day yesterday so it was almost always either connected to the pc or charging but I've used it about an hour without and it didn't seem to show any decline. I know this isn't very helpfull but I'll let you know when I field test it. Very cool thing about charging though is that it shows exactly how many minutes are left to a full charge. I'm not sure if this is calculated or if this is measured but either way I think it's really cool.

okay, thanks so much. When you are at it, tell us your personal opinion about the rh-1

Regards

[Qwakrz]

Be very carefull with the remaining charge time, if its the same as the NH1 then this will only be 80% charged and require a further 2-3hours to get it fully charged.

[nevermore]

Be very carefull with the remaining charge time, if its the same as the NH1 then this will only be 80% charged and require a further 2-3hours to get it fully charged.

Yup, it says this in the manual. For me this isn't too much of a problem as I usually charge players at night, I just thought it was really cool for displaying the remaining time.

dogville, I just took it out of the charger (was on all night so it's fully charged. I'll let it play continuous today. it's been playing for about 40 minutes now so I started at around 13:20 (I put that here as a reference for myself so I can also report when it's completely discharged, that is if that happens today) perhaps important is that I use all mp3 VBR files at 256 kb/s (space/quality, I prefer great quality so I would've maxed it to 320 kb/s but then I wouldn't have been able to put some bands on 1 disc as I got around 10 cds of most of my bands)

[dogville]

Yup, it says this in the manual. For me this isn't too much of a problem as I usually charge players at night, I just thought it was really cool for displaying the remaining time.

dogville, I just took it out of the charger (was on all night so it's fully charged. I'll let it play continuous today. it's been playing for about 40 minutes now so I started at around 13:20 (I put that here as a reference for myself so I can also report when it's completely discharged, that is if that happens today) perhaps important is that I use all mp3 VBR files at 256 kb/s (space/quality, I prefer great quality so I would've maxed it to 320 kb/s but then I wouldn't have been able to put some bands on 1 disc as I got around 10 cds of most of my bands)

Thanks nevermore. Keep us posted and tell us not only about the batter but the sound quality too.

Regards

[nevermore]

Little update, it's now 20:30 over here (playtime 8 hours and 10 minutes) I've let it play continuous today skipping between headphones and line out occasionally (when I'm at my place in my bedroom I tend to connect it to my speakers, I'd say it's been 70% headphones 30% line out), the player skipped to the last bar on the battery about 25 - 30 minutes ago.

There are about 15 minutes when the player wasn't on though, I went out today and talked a bit to a friend walking his dog, the dog jumped me and the headphones came off of the remote at which point I put them in my pocket, figured it'd keep playing, not sure if it stopped playing because nothing was connected or if pause/stop accidentally got pushed. I'd count another 15 minutes all together for times when I changed discs (it'll be considerably less but just to make the generalisation big rather then small).

As I said the mp3s are all VBR 256 kbps, I've used the player on max volume (with AVLS so that's volume '14' except of course the times it was in line out mode).

The sound quality I gotta say is simply amazing, perhaps I'm not the right person to judge this as I've been using plain mp3 players for the past years but the sound is very vivid and alive, it far surpasses what I was used to on the sony vaio pocket player (though those files were CBR at 256 kbps since the vaio pocket doesn't handle VBR's).

Anyway I'll report later today wether the battery gave out before I go to sleep or if it didn't.

(Oh btw I'm not a great photographer so the picture seems to show the battery being halfway but it's at it's last block)

[attachmentid=1741]

[EDIT: I screwed up the percentages line out/headphones above

EDIT2: was playing 8 h 10 at the time]

Edited June 5, 2006 by nevermore

[dogville]

Little update, it's now 20:30 over here (playtime 8 hours and 10 minutes) I've let it play continuous today skipping between headphones and line out occasionally (when I'm at my place in my bedroom I tend to connect it to my speakers, I'd say it's been 70% headphones 30% line out), the player skipped to the last bar on the battery about 25 - 30 minutes ago.

There are about 15 minutes when the player wasn't on though, I went out today and talked a bit to a friend walking his dog, the dog jumped me and the headphones came off of the remote at which point I put them in my pocket, figured it'd keep playing, not sure if it stopped playing because nothing was connected or if pause/stop accidentally got pushed. I'd count another 15 minutes all together for times when I changed discs (it'll be considerably less but just to make the generalisation big rather then small).

As I said the mp3s are all VBR 256 kbps, I've used the player on max volume (with AVLS so that's volume '14' except of course the times it was in line out mode).

The sound quality I gotta say is simply amazing, perhaps I'm not the right person to judge this as I've been using plain mp3 players for the past years but the sound is very vivid and alive, it far surpasses what I was used to on the sony vaio pocket player (though those files were CBR at 256 kbps since the vaio pocket doesn't handle VBR's).

Anyway I'll report later today wether the battery gave out before I go to sleep or if it didn't.

(Oh btw I'm not a great photographer so the picture seems to show the battery being halfway but it's at it's last block)

[attachmentid=1741]

[EDIT: I screwed up the percentages line out/headphones above

EDIT2: was playing 8 h 10 at the time]

Nice live review

cheers

[nevermore]

13:20 -> 23:20 (10 hours of continuous play, 9 hours 30 minutes not counting some downtime)

It's still at 1 bar, time for bed. Mixed feelings about the outcome. I would've liked to know exactly how long it would last (though I can't imagine it holding out another hour depending on the time it took for the other bars to go down) but I gotta wake up at 05:00 tomorrow so I have to get some sleep. On the other hand I'm very happy that it went the entire day without going down (weekend -> I wake up pretty late). Since I never listen the entire day through this means to me that I can listen as much as I want which is great for me.

Manual says it can play 16 hours of 128 kbps mp3's. Since I'm using 256 kbps VBR I'm willing to bet that it would indeed be between 14 - 16 hours but then this is just a guess.

Since I don't have a mic yet (planning to get one, would be great to record some guitarpractice in high quality) I can't test recording but I bet before I ever get to it someone else will have checked it.

Hope I've helped you out. Cheers

[MDX-400]

Be very carefull with the remaining charge time, if its the same as the NH1 then this will only be 80% charged and require a further 2-3hours to get it fully charged.

Just as a note: This is the same for pretty much all Li-Ion and Li-Ion-Poly batteries. Due to their nature, they are only capable of being recharged rapidly to ~80% of their capacity, and the charge controller must decrease the charge rate to "top-off" the battery. Continuing to rapid charge a Li-Ion after the 80% mark will result in either premature cell failure (low number of cycles before capacity drops off significantly), at best; or fire/rupture, in worse case scenarios.

Another note: Try not to fully discharge a Li-Ion often. It isn't particularly good for cell life. Not saying don't use the full capacity when you need to, but Li-Ion chemistry does not "like" to be fully discharged so don't make it a regular thing unless you're fine with replacing the battery sooner rather than later. The batteries aren't too expensive but just a word of caution. Li-Ion batteries essentially have what I like to call "reverse-memory"--unlike NiCd and NiMH, you actually want to avoid fully depleting a Li-Ion before recharging. I.e. Recharge frequently

[nevermore]

Just as a note: This is the same for pretty much all Li-Ion and Li-Ion-Poly batteries. Due to their nature, they are only capable of being recharged rapidly to ~80% of their capacity, and the charge controller must decrease the charge rate to "top-off" the battery. Continuing to rapid charge a Li-Ion after the 80% mark will result in either premature cell failure (low number of cycles before capacity drops off significantly), at best; or fire/rupture, in worse case scenarios.

Another note: Try not to fully discharge a Li-Ion often. It isn't particularly good for cell life. Not saying don't use the full capacity when you need to, but Li-Ion chemistry does not "like" to be fully discharged so don't make it a regular thing unless you're fine with replacing the battery sooner rather than later. The batteries aren't too expensive but just a word of caution. Li-Ion batteries essentially have what I like to call "reverse-memory"--unlike NiCd and NiMH, you actually want to avoid fully depleting a Li-Ion before recharging. I.e. Recharge frequently

Thanks for that, I was aware of most of the pro's of li-ion batteries but had no idea about the cons, still, anything is better then NiCd in my opinion.

[Top Cat]

you actually want to avoid fully depleting a Li-Ion before recharging. I.e. Recharge frequently

Surprisingly, I've recently encountered recommendations of not to discharge Ni-MH batteries completely on each cycle. Ni-MH's are supposed to dislike undue stress too.