Rating: 
Summary: Not great but not bad either!!!
Review: After reading all 188 reviews (Really!)at Amazon's web site, I went ahead and purchased RioVolt at CompUSA. The manual that came with the unit doesn't help much. Get more info. from Installation CD. I downloaded the newest version (2.1) and upgraded it. Not too hard. Prog and Navi buttons on the player are extremely difficult to figure it out. When I played one of my mp3 cd's in the car, the unit would start with the first song, then would play the second. But, the player then would start playing the third song from next directory or album.After that track, it would jump to the fourth track in a different directory. This was very annoying. Same thing happened at home. I've found that reading the entire manual, even downloading it from RioVolt's web site (Don't, it is the same!) didn't help at all. I am no beginner to electronics stuff. I can't imagine how upset some inexperienced people are. I have no idea the purpose for the dancing guy on the player. I hope we get a chance to get rid of it with future upgrades. I agree with some reviewers that the carrying case is pretty cheap. Get yourself a CaseLogic brand case. I've used a lot of their products. and was always e pleased with them. The ear buds are okay. Good quality headphones are always a better choice. There aren't many choices out there for this type of player. Philips and TDK are other two choices. People have had some mixed reviews about those ,too. Maybe the best thing to do is to wait a while until Sony or Panasonic come up with their own Cd/Mp3 players.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good player
Review: I was really surprised by this player. I thought I won't read some CDRs (as normal readers do, some have problems with the blue ones, some don't), I thought it will skip - nothing like it! It reads all the CDRs I burned long time ago, I can't ever read some of them on a normal CD-ROM anymore, but Rio can play them very well. CDRW's also. It does a smart thing - Rio reads the track ahead to a memory and the disc doesn't have to spin all the time. Very good idea to prevent from skipping, saves battery power as well. The navigation is very easy, especially if you put albums into separate folders. The tape player in my car is malfunctioning, I thought about replacing it, but Rio with a cassette adapter (not supplied! the only complaint!) sounds fantastic! I would have to spend quite a lot of money to buy a car system with this kick!
Rating:
Summary: Well Designed, Usefull, well worth it
Review: I wasn't exactly sure why I purchased the most expensive mp3-cd player I could find, but I was sure there was a reason. This thing rocks. I've had mine for about a week now and feel that I've played with it for enough hours. First let me say I'm still on the first set of batteries, which is very cool. When the shock protection is on (120 seconds) in mp3 mode it actually reads the first 2 minutes of a song into memory in under 20 second, for the next 1:40, it lets the CD spin down, saving battery life.The ability to lock the main unit without locking the remote (in any combination such) is very nice too. I leave mine in the back compartment of my backpack, and just run the remote out to one of the straps, controling it from there. One thing I'd like to see that would possibly bring the battery life out to 20+ hours would be to disable the backlight, especially when the remote is in control of it. the case is nice, but the belt loops on the back are un-needed. I cannot imagine putting this thing vertically at my belt, and this is coming from a person who carries a Leatherman, a Maglight, and a Cell Phone on his belt every day! Another feature I'd like to see is the "skip 10 tracks" button put on the remote. It's not all that useful on the unit because you can just go into directory navigation mode there. The main problem with the unit I've had so far is that when the CD has spun down it takes a LONG time to do track skipping. The initial load time as it cache's the FAT table is understandably yet annoyingly long - it takes about 15-20 seconds after you hit "play" to hear anything at first. Overall, however, I've been very happy with this unit, as has everyone else I know who owns one.
Rating: 
Summary: A Real Lemon!
Review: Skip-protection is at best - REALLY BAD! The only time it doesn't skip is when it's turned off! My old Sony 10-second ESP CD player doesn't skip like this thing. LCD display fractured while in use in my car. Just sitting on the seat! Couldn't take the 90 degree heat. I do not recommend this product to anyone who uses it while in motion (moving around, walking, jogging, in the car, etc.), only to those who are sitting down with the unit on a table or desk!
Rating:
Summary: Just fabulous!!!
Review: I love music and I take my RioVolt everywhere!!! I make sure to take the AC adapter (don't want to waste my precious batteries - they only last 8 hours). The sound is amazing and better than anything out there. It's easy to find the songs I want from the 100's that can be stored in every MP3 CD. The display window is very useful and I love the fact that every file can be easily read. I've never had a problem with the unit skipping, but I hate the useless carrying case. It looks cheap and it's completely useless. Other than that, this is a great product!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Player - Terrible Support
Review: I was loving my new Rio Volt player for about a month. The new version 2.0 firmware upgrade was great. I would have given it 5 stars about 3 weeks ago. It even plays those 16kbs audio books that other players wont - even though the volume is a bit low. But if it breaks, you are out of luck. I sent an email to their customer support over 2 weeks ago, and 2 more emails since then, and have still gotten no reply (except the automatic "We received your email and will get back to you within several business days" message). It would be very easy to fix if I could just get a replacement part. So, if you get one, be gentle with it. It's the best player available but has 0 customer support behind it.
Rating:
Summary: Spend the extra couple of bucks-you'll be glad you did.
Review: Had my volt for a couple of weeks now. Didn't waste any time or money on the cheaper players, and based on others' reviews, glad I didn't. This player is a real crowd pleaser... No hisses, pops, quirks, etc. I was pretty happy with its' shipped firmware, 1.3. The only thing that was upsetting is that it reverted to the beginning of the CD when you stopped it. I went on the web, downloaded the firwmare, and in a couple of minutes...voila, problem fixed. To the reviewer who complained about this problem-try the new firmware, you'll be glad you did. Otherwise, the player is great... A good built-in soft EQ that actually shapes sound, great directory navigation, very good reproduction quality, even with the earbud earphones. As for some of the negatives voiced in other reviews... okay folks, I'm also a picky consumer, but let's be reasonable. Sure, the sky is the limit for our desires, but... the remote is not wireless, but it's very functional for what it was designed to do...keep your player in the backpack, and clip the remote on to your belt. When I'm on the move, I'm not going to check the song being played anyway-so no need for an lcd on the remote (which would probaly jack up the price by another 50 bucks). Also...sure, it'd be nice to have a wireless remote so I can hook it up to my stereo, but again, aside from the price increase it would generate, that's just not what the player is designed to do. Besides, I hooked it up to my amp, and the sound is very low-probably an impedance mismatch-I wouldn't get much use out of it anyway. Would be nice, but again, that's just not what this player is designed to do. Case...yeah, it's lame, but again, I'd only use the case when I'm on the move, and normally wouldn't want the distraction of checking the name of the tune for safety reasons. Okay, I'll give you one bogey-the dancing dudes really are annoying!!! But don't let them keep you from getting a really well-made toy. This one's a keeper! Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: If I lost it, I would get another just like it.
Review: When I bought this player, i was preparing for a 20+ hours worth of time in the air. I figured that I could condende some of my cds onto Mp3 discs, and get about 8 or so hours of music on each. So far, I have had very few disappointments with it. It seems impossible to skip, even on the lower memory setting, and it is surprisingly east\y on batteries. I have had one Mp3 encoded cd that only plays about 1/3 of the tracks, and I have not yet had a chance to figure out what the problem is. Considering that I have played 20 or so Mp3 encoded cds in it, the fact that one doesn't work right is a pretty minor complaint. I hope that the next firmware upgrade will maybe fix this problem. The only other minus inviolves the backlit LED, this is a minor problem since most of the comparable devices don't even have a backlit LED. The problem is this: it doesn't stay lit long enough (1 or 2 seconds) Many track names do not display fully during this time, and whats more, in order to get the light to turn on, you have to press some button (ie volume etc) that turns the light on, *and* causes the display to stop showing track information. Imagine you are on a dark bus, or plane, or in bed, or wherever, and you want to know what track is playing. You press the volume button in order to get the LED to light up. When it lights up, the only information you get is volume information. By the time the track information is displayed, the LED is dark again. Very frustrating.
Rating:
Summary: Nice hardware, wretched software and accessories
Review: Although the unit itself is fine, the software bundle and accessories are pathetic. The included MP3 encoder can only rip MP3s at low quality and the CD burning software is very basic. Ahead's Nero would have been nice. It's the best CD burning program on the market and has an optional Fraunhofer MP3 encoder. The accessories are just as bad, with cheap headphones and a cheaper carrying case (unless you like genuine pleather). In the end, you're really paying for the hardware, since the included bundle doesn't add much value.
Rating: 
Summary: Get some well recorded MP3s & let Rio Volt do the rest!
Review: I got this fascinating gadget for my birthday a few days ago, and I've found it to be almost the perfect tool for any serious MP3 music collector that wants access to his/her music on the road. THE POSITIVE
1) As most people know, from other reviews, this player plays both, "normal" music CDs as well as CDs with MP3s in them. The cool thing I found about this is that I didn't need to do any tweaking to the way I had my MP3s coded or named. I used MusicMatch Jukebox as my ripping software, and whichever default values it came with fitted perfectly the Rio Volt, meaning that the palyer recognized the tracks, as well as the name of the songs, which is displays in its LCD screen. 2) Want shock proof? Tested it in my car, and while riding my bike. When I played 'normal' CDs the performance, I have to admit, was just OK (nothing out of the ordinary). But when I played MP3s, due to the way it operates, it was flawless. There was one big exception to this (which I HAVE to note): if the MP3 song you're playing happens to have any sort of sound 'artifacts' (see NEGATIVE #2 for details) you're not going to enjoy the playback as much... Anyway: the way it works is, it takes music in chunks of 20 minutes or so and reads it off the CD. Then it sends it to its memory, so what you're listening to actually comes from the memory, not from the CD directly, which makes it pretty much shock-proof. This concept has been in use several years to provide that buffer (or whatever it's called) of several seconds that traditional CD-players have, when the lens skips the CD (due to a bump, for example), giving the CD enough time to recover, by continuing to play from memory. The difference is that here, this memory amounts to several (some 20) minutes of music, so the CD stops spinning a few seconds after you press play, which is also very good in terms of battery usage. 3) The navigation scheme it offers to find songs takes almost no time to learn, and offers enough information in the LCD screen for the user to be able to move 'around' the CD with ease. 4) Not too expensive. Just a little more than plain MP3-only players (the ones that that read CDs), and considerably less expensive than others such as the Nomad Jukebox, which dies at 6GB (what is that? 8 CDs?) with this one, you're limited to your collection of MP3 CDs! Not bad, ah? ;) THE NEGATIVE
The Rio Volt in fact has very few flaws, namely (from worst to, most tolerable):
1) When you are listening to MP3s, and you press the STOP button, not only does it stop. When you press play again, it goes back to the very beginning of the CD. This can be VERY bad, if you happened to be listening to one of the very last tunes in your CD! This, I have to say, is not nice! 2) If you happen to have 'noisy" (or should I say jumpy) MP3s (you know what I mean...) you will run into disturbing moments with the Rio Volt. You need to make sure your MP3s are 'clean' which at times can be a little challenging, depending on your sourcing for them. What will happen is that, while reading the MP3s to store them in memory, it will 'think' that the noise in the MP3 was caused (perhaps) by a bump on the road, and will retry to read it for as long as you can imagine, literally KILLING the song from that point on. However, if you have a clean MP3 collection (not an easy thing to have, in fact), this will be a minor thing to bear with. 3) The case that comes with the player!! Rio people: you guys ran out of ideas? It's just awful. And worst, it doesn't have any 'windows' so you can accidentally (I did) hit the Play button and have the player working while you don't even suspect it is, which combined with disadvantage #1, can prove very annoying and battery-sucking. 4) The ear buds, which (as I had read before) are very uncomfortable. These, of course are easily replaceable. Honestly if it were not for the #1 and #2 negatives, I'd give it a five. The other two negatives I can easily live with.
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