I just got my h120 rockboxed, so I don't have enough experience to say whether it will perform as well as my M1. However, it is 1/10th the cost of the next cheapest hard-drive based recorder, the R4. The battery is removeable (with some effort), are there are lots of replacement batteries with higher mAh than stock batteries. You can even recharge the internal battery with an external AA pack. With Rockbox, the h120 has bit-perfect optical I/O, something the R09 doesn't have. It's only 16-bit and may not be the best option for the poster, but I'm anxious to see what mine can do.
From the R1/R-09 point of view:
- no hard-drive, which is fine because a 4gb sd or cf card is cheap and will hold a 4 hour show at 24/44 or 6 1/2 hours at 16/44
- takes 2 AA batteries, anyone that's run a d100/m1 or minidisc knows the advantages of a device that supports a pair of AA batteries with runtimes ~ 6-7 hours on a full charge
- no digital in. So ask yourself, what a/d would you be running into the device at 16 bit? a modsbm? edirol ua-5? V3? minime? I have run a-b with the R-09 and R1 adc vs the modsbm and v3 at 16/44 and 24/44 and the comparison was too close to determine one much better than the one.