iriver h340 vs h100 series | crazy p’s new album

things i don’t like about the 340 vs the 100 series units:
– colour LCD screen. i couldn’t care less whether the screen is in colour or not. i’ll never use the photo viewing feature on the unit, and the normal monochrome LCD display was perfectly readable on the 100 units. because of the nature of colour LCDs, the unit effectively goes to ‘sleep’ after idle times (no button presses), after which it has to be woken up with a button-press before anything can be done. my old h120 did not have this problem and button presses were instantaneous.

– the square d-pad. i really thought the 120’s joystick was better, but i can get accustomed to the d-pad.

they’re only niggles though, and i can well get used to them. unfortunately being unable to obtain a h140, i have to make do with these sacrifices in order to get the 40 gig capacity. the colour screen is very nice, but the above mentioned issue is enough for me to wish the unit wasn’t equipped with one.
the first build went well – i created the entire directory structure on my PC first then copied it over to the new aleph. in the midst of that i restructured a few things and added numbers to the beginings of directory names in certain instances to make them list in a dictated order rather than alphabetically, and i had to retitle and id3 edit quite a few files too, the worst of which was the azumanga daioh soundtrack that has 38 tracks! all in all it took me roughly 5 hours, but it was well worth it – the unit is very efficent and will remain so until i put a few things more on it.

it worked out well with my old 100 unit – by the time i was ready for a rebuild, i had decided to go for a larger capacity mp3 player and file transporter as myself and my other mp3 player bearing friends are beginning to move some rather large files between us. so it was timed just right, i got to build the new aleph exactly how i wanted it, then wiped the old 100 series to rebuild for Laura who is now rockin out her commute to and from work with a piece of gear more elite than mine… it was a tough decision, but i don’t really need both, and she’ll benefit much more from it which makes me very happy.

crazy penis’ new album ‘a night on earth’ is absolutely brilliant – as chibi-r says, flawless. they’ve really matured as a band, and many of the grooves they presented in ‘the wickid is music’ and ’24 hour psychedelic freakout’ have really evolved and taken great shape – not that they weren’t brilliant before, but this album is a great progression from the band’s foundations. danielle moore returns for more than a few tracks which is great to hear, with the other vocallist doing a superb job also. it’s great that they still manage to pursue their house, disco and funk/groove sound, yet not sound like they’re either recycling the same old stuff, or sounding like every other house, disco and funk band out there.
this friday they’re playing the hi-fi bar and i’m hell bent on going. they’re a magnificent band, and i’m extremely impressed with this album, a perfect addition to their discography.