Rating: 
Summary: WARNING - Buyer Beware!
Review: Digisette will not back the product!! I purchased the DUO-ARIA 14 months ago and it stopped working. It has a one year warranty - after that your out of luck. I called and asked how I could get it serviced and they told me they will not service any DUO product. Basically, you're on your own - I didn't want anyone else to make the same mistake I did.
Rating: 
Summary: Great little gadget!
Review: I feel like this gadget was something designed by Q from the Bond flicks.It looks and reacts just like an ordinary cassette. But then I'm able to load and play my top secret MP3's from any cassette deck. :) Loading the files are fast.
In about five minutes or so I have 128 megs worth of music or audio books loaded. My long commute is now filled with my favorite tunes. If I want to I can fastforward just like a regular cassette or instantly skip to the beginning of the next song by hitting rewind for a second and then hitting stop and play. The software could be a little bit better.
It's obvious that they spent more time and effort on the hardware.
Sometimes it takes a try or two before my PC sees the Digisette.
I've read a few bad product reviews here and it seems to me that the problem was with the user and not the product. Fast forwarding through songs is simple.
However, navigating through an audio book is nothing that I recommend. It's easy to get lost in the large amount of megabytes... Unlike a regular book, if you lose your place, you cannot figure out where you are.
Luckily the Digisette bookmarks where you leave off each time it gets shut off. If you think the battery is getting low, just recharge them while it is still in the Digisette. When using the Audio Book feature, I find it best to load only one book at a time and I don't add music files to the spare space.
It just makes it easy to get yourself lost. I updated the firmware and can fastforward and rewind at a much faster pace. So far the only problem I've had was with the additional 64 meg Sandisk MMC that I bought. After 1/2 a day it went bad on me.
Digisettes' tech support was excellent. They walked me through a few test procedures and determined it was the faulty Media card. Amazon quickly shipped me a new one. I also enjoy walking around with the Digisette using it as a walkman type device. It's very light weight and it is a cool gadget to show off to people around work. This certainly beats my old method of burning mixed complilations on CD's and then having them stored under the seats of my car. Every other night I put a new mix of songs together and play it to and from work. I've given it quite a workout and still no complaints. Oh yeah... I just remembered one problem.
It was playing the songs rather low when I first got it.
I had trouble hearing it and had to put the car stereo volume up high.
I thought perhaps it was not lining up with the magnetic head of the tape player.
Eventually the idea to try to turn the volume up on the Digisette, crept into my brain. Beautiful, clear sound came piping out of speakers. So if it seems like the sound is less than that of the normal radio sound, increase the volume on the Digisette. Have fun with it. It's a great toy!
Rating:
Summary: I feel like James Bond...
Review: I feel like this gadget was something designed by Q from the Bond flicks. It looks and reacts just like an ordinary cassette. But then I'm able to load and play my top secret MP3's from any cassette deck. :) Loading the files are fast.
In about five minutes or so I have 128 megs worth of music or audio books loaded. My long commute is now filled with my favorite tunes. If I want to I can fastforward just like a regular cassette or instantly skip to the beginning of the next song by hitting rewind for a second and then hitting stop and play. The software could be a little bit better.
It's obvious that they spent more time and effort on the hardware.
Sometimes it takes a try or two before my PC sees the Digisette.
I've read a few bad product reviews here and it seems to me that the problem was with the user and not the product. Fast forwarding through songs is simple.
However, navigating through an audio book is nothing that I recommend. It's easy to get lost in the large amount of megabytes... Unlike a regular book, if you lose your place, you cannot figure out where you are.
Luckily the Digisette bookmarks where you leave off each time it gets shut off. If you think the battery is getting low, just recharge them while it is still in the Digisette. When using the Audio Book feature, I find it best to load only one book at a time and I don't add music files to the spare space.
It just makes it easy to get yourself lost. I updated the firmware and can fastforward and rewind at a much faster pace. So far the only problem I've had was with the additional 64 meg Sandisk MMC that I bought. After 1/2 a day it went bad on me.
Digisettes' tech support was excellent. They walked me through a few test procedures and determined it was the faulty Media card. Amazon quickly shipped me a new one. I also enjoy walking around with the Digisette using it as a walkman type device. It's very light weight and it is a cool gadget to show off to people around work. This certainly beats my old method of burning mixed complilations on CD's and then having them stored under the seats of my car. Every other night I put a new mix of songs together and play it to and from work. I've given it quite a workout and still no complaints. Oh yeah... I just remembered one problem.
It was playing the songs rather low when I first got it.
I had trouble hearing it and had to put the car stereo volume up high.
I thought perhaps it was not lining up with the magnetic head of the tape player.
Eventually the idea to try to turn the volume up on the Digisette, crept into my brain. Beautiful, clear sound came piping out of speakers. So if it seems like the sound is less than that of the normal radio sound, increase the volume on the Digisette. Have fun with it. It's a great toy!
Rating:
Summary: Very Cool - Very Plain -
Review: I have had the Aria for close to a year. And in that time it has become a completely indispensable part of my life. I have been a customer of Audible for several years and had used variously their original player and then a Rio MP3 player to listen to the content - all the devices were used to play through my car stereo. My latest stereo did not allow me to insert the regular `tethered' cassette into the deck as the door completely closes over a cassette when inserted, and having a wire trailing out caused problems for the deck. So I though my Audible days were over until I ran across the Digisette Aria. Since I got the unit the internal software has changed several times - for the better overall. The drivers have changed, too, but they have never been a problem to the best of my knowledge. As many have pointed out the controls are weak and there is no display on the device at all - but that is no different from a regular cassette which is really the intended use for the Aria. I would like to see improved controls and a display, but since most of the devices time is spent hidden in my cassette player, it would only be a "nice to have" for me. Recent software changes improved the cassette fast-forward speed (much needed in my opinion) plus Digisette added the flat battery restore feature. Prior to the addition of this feature, when the battery went flat during play the Aria used to restart from the beginning of the section you had been listening to; now it will pick up from close to where it left off - excellent. The audio quality of the unit is excellent - only rarely I am made aware that this is not a regular cassette in my deck. The Audible books are mainly spoken word, and they sound very good on the Aria. I have used it a number of times with a simple headphone - pretty good, but 99% of my Arias life is in my car - and there is performs very well indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost perfect....
Review: I have had the Aria for close to a year. And in that time it has become a completely indispensable part of my life. I have been a customer of Audible for several years and had used variously their original player and then a Rio MP3 player to listen to the content - all the devices were used to play through my car stereo. My latest stereo did not allow me to insert the regular 'tethered' cassette into the deck as the door completely closes over a cassette when inserted, and having a wire trailing out caused problems for the deck. So I though my Audible days were over until I ran across the Digisette Aria. Since I got the unit the internal software has changed several times - for the better overall. The drivers have changed, too, but they have never been a problem to the best of my knowledge. As many have pointed out the controls are weak and there is no display on the device at all - but that is no different from a regular cassette which is really the intended use for the Aria. I would like to see improved controls and a display, but since most of the devices time is spent hidden in my cassette player, it would only be a "nice to have" for me. Recent software changes improved the cassette fast-forward speed (much needed in my opinion) plus Digisette added the flat battery restore feature. Prior to the addition of this feature, when the battery went flat during play the Aria used to restart from the beginning of the section you had been listening to; now it will pick up from close to where it left off - excellent. The audio quality of the unit is excellent - only rarely I am made aware that this is not a regular cassette in my deck. The Audible books are mainly spoken word, and they sound very good on the Aria. I have used it a number of times with a simple headphone - pretty good, but 99% of my Arias life is in my car - and there is performs very well indeed.
Rating:
Summary: a disappointment
Review: I have read all of the reviews and they were sort of mixed! So I still bought this thing...and yes its fragile and yes it sometimes freezes in the middle of a book. But I still say that I would recommend this little thing...it works pretty nice and even though it is a little flawed its still very very convenient and I take it with me everywhere!
Rating:
Summary: This is a nice little toy!
Review: I have read all of the reviews and they were sort of mixed! So I still bought this thing...and yes its fragile and yes it sometimes freezes in the middle of a book. But I still say that I would recommend this little thing...it works pretty nice and even though it is a little flawed its still very very convenient and I take it with me everywhere!
Rating:
Summary: WARNING - Buyer Beware! - Part 2
Review: I have to agree with the person from Edgewater, MD United States. I had exactly the same situation with my DUO-64. I purchased the DUO-64 on June 2001 and on October 2002 the internal memory got corrupted somehow (few months after its one year warranty period). I contacted DIGISETTE and they said that the product couldn't be repaired, i.e. if you ever have a major problem with it... throw it away in the garbage. The product is just a great idea. It's fragile (battery cap and its contact, on/off button, head alignment button), sometimes it does not line up with the magnetic head of the tape player, making the sound too low and bad to hear, and once and a while the software won't recognize the player or the expansion memory (if you dare to have one installed).
As I was not satisfied with their response, I tried everything I could to overcome the internal memory problem. After lots of attempts I managed to successfully low format it, and the player went back to operation. But for the price and problems that I had, I wouldn't recomend it at all.
Rating:
Summary: Great Product; Very Cool; Note: Don't Expect Perfection
Review: I LOVE this machine! I've looked at the reviews and also the user discussions through Digisette's site, and I know that there are some frustrations. However, it's such a great device that I can overlook the shortcomings and still recommend it whole-heartedly because of what it does right: It looks cool and plays what I listen to (audiobooks) very well; it works great in my car cassette player and beats stacks of audio book tapes floating around the floor of my car; the customer service people are helpful and the other users on the website are also very helpful. Of course Audible is great too, and pairing this machine with an Audible subscription has been the best thing I've done in years. As to the flaws--a couple of hints that seem to solve the problems that would otherwise bother me: 1. (This is only a problem with audiobooks--it wouldn't matter for music) The player does not set a bookmark if your battery goes out while you're listening, so sometimes you have to listen to what you already heard because the fast forward doesn't work very well, at least in the cassette player, maybe sometime they'll add a separate control for fast forward or a battery power end bookmarker, and then this issue would go away. Until then, my cure: When you know your battery must be coming close to the end start turning the tape off and on every 5 minutes or so and you'll have a bookmark closer to the spot you want when the battery dies (or just change batteries--they're cheap and you can charge a bunch at home on the wall plug-in charger). If you would have to listen to a very long portion over to get back to your place you can just estimate where you were and then re-load the portion you haven't already heard from your Audible in-box. 2. The memory expansion cards are expensive, but I think worth it if you are on a car trip and want to carry a bunch of books. Go for the 64 mb cards. It's true that sometimes the computer doesn't recognize the extra card when you're loading new material, but all you need to do in that case is to take the card out while the machine is hooked to the computer and still turned on (disregarding the instructions that say not to do this) and then click on the additional memory selection on the screen again. 3. The instructions that come with the machine are very short and not as well written as they could be. Maybe Digisette will fix that or post a better set if instruction online. However, the customer support people try to help and are nice. The best help I've found is the other users who are very helpful on the website help-chat section. What's really great is that all of the stuff you might want is included with the machine, even a really nice case for carrying it with two pockets to hold extra memory. You can order extra batteries from the Digisette website at a reasonable price, and I think that's almost an essential purchase.
Rating:
Summary: save the trouble...
Review: I purchased this product through audible in February. The unit was a nightmare. it would simply lock up in the middle of an audio book losing all bookmarks and starting over after pulling the battery and clearing it. The first unit lasted 1 month before it quit charging. Digisette was very good and replaced the entire setup (brand new box) and I had it in 5 working days from my e-mail. The second unit contained an extra battery. unfortunate it did me no good because the charger in the new box didn't work. Days later I was finally up and running. this unit does work better than the other one, but it's still a pain. Half the time it's won't recognize the 32MB MMC memory I added, locks up occasionally at the end of a 6 hour book, losing the bookmark and starting over, picks and chooses what WMA files to play. The device is fragile, and I expect the USB connection to stop working any time. Don't buy this unit, go with something more friendly and durable. Classic example of a good idea, and a bad product from it.
| 
