Cheap Alternative to my iRiver that just died?

[nulldogmas]

I usually aim for around -12 as well, though I'm probably being overly conservative.

[fmaderjr]

-12 to -10dB is what I run - religiously.  Allows for some headroom should you need it (and a solo piano artist I saw on Friday night still managed to overload when she slammed the keyboard drawer about four or five times.

Me too. Aiming for -6 increases the chance of a surprise overload with no increase (to my ears) in sound quality. Even if I wind up peaking at -18 I still don't detect added noise when I raise the levels in post.

[Humbug]

If it's just the hard drive that died, you might want to try the CF mod. It's an inexpensive way of resuscitating an iRiver.

I recently had the power button resoldered and replaced the battery..I must like it..

[nulldogmas]

My screen died on mine — just shows white. I wouldn't want to spend a ton on fixing it, but if anyone knows of a cheap repair possibility, I'm all ears.