Rating: 
Summary: Having Troubles Deciding? You're Not Alone!
Review: After checking the prices and reviews of other manufacturers' MP3 players, I bought the RCA LYRA a month ago and believe that I have sufficient experience with it to share several thoughts that you will hopefully find helpful in your quest.1.) I agree with virtually everything that is cited in the AMAZON.com review for the RCA LYRA MP3 Player. Essentially, it is a thorough, objective, and accurate review. READ IT! 2.) Prices appear to be fluid-- effectively coming DOWN. The stores and the web cites are competing and running their specials. You can almost count on a price this week changing within the next week or two. This will make your choices harder if you are basing a significant part of your decision on price comparisons. Waiting for a "better deal" can be good, but there is such a thing as "waiting too long". Newer models are replacing those of today and are offering more features to confuse you! You must be careful to compare "apples to apples". One of the biggest differences among players is the "amount" and "type" of memory. A player equipped with 64 MB will naturally cost more than one equipped with 8MB or 32MB. CompactFLASH or Smartmedia Cards serve as the storage media. Technically, there doesn't seem to be any discernable advantage of one media type over the other. However, there can be a price variation [between] the two depending on where you buy them. In retail stores, the prices appear to be the same. However, SmartMedia Cards appear to cost a little less on internet sites-- possibly due to a growing preference for them. BOTTOM LINE-- the internet sites can save you $20 to $30 over retail store prices. 3.) There is a lot most of us will probably never understand or realize about "formatting" of the storage media that can cause disappointment when planning to use it with "other" products as well (i.e. Digital Camera, Multiple Media Reader/Writer, etc). Each device seems to use its own format which makes the storage media incompatible with the other products. If you're lucky, you have two products that use the same format. How would you positively know until you try it? That's when the disappointment sets in! At least the RIO MP3 Player tells you this on their packaging if you know to look for it. I believe that "formatting" will always be an issue since everyone is attempting to protect their technology or end-product. The music industry serves as a good example. As hard as it is to accept this fact, DON'T AGONIZE OVER IT! 4.) When comparing features of MP3 Players, remain REALISTIC about your needs and intended uses. It is easy to "try" to make the product do more than it is intended to do. Until music is sold as less expensive CompactFLASH and SmartMedia Cards presumably compatible with your MP3 Player of choice, remember that the MP3 Player is not supposed to give you all sorts of versatility for hours of music listening pleasure and variety at a low cost through a simple change of the storage media. If this is what you want, then you should buy a compact Disc Player/Recorder! The MP3 Player provides you with a portable, lightweight product that contains NO MOVING PARTS and needs minimal accessories (if any). This makes the product more reliable and offers SKIP-FREE music listening pleasure-- great for active people. It serves as a good stop-gap product to occupy your time while using public/commercial transportation or during lunch break. It is not necessarily practical for that long vacation automobile drive where you will have to listen to the same music over and over again until you can get to your computer and change the song list. If economy is not a priority, you could purchase multiple 64MB CompactFLASH Cards to take with you for easy changeout. IF YOU DO THIS, I SHOULD INVEST IN THE COMPANY'S STOCK! 5.) The MP3 Player should not be expected to be all things to all people. I suppose that a RADIO function or a VOICE RECORDER function would be useful-- neither of which can be found in the RCA LYRA. How much do I really need it to store 300 telephone numbers and addresses? Isn't that what Electronic Pocket Organizers are for? Fortunately, the RCA LYRA Player does not come with such a feature! Perhaps it would be more advantageous for the Organizers to include a MP3 player function for those that have the need (and the money) for such products! 6.) Contrary to the AMAZON.com review, I find the headphones to be one of the better quality versons packaged with the MP3 Players. In part, I suppose it depends on your preferences. I prefer the full, one-piece headphone that comes with the RCA LYRA even though it is less compact than an ear-bud, foldable style. As AMAZON.com stated in their review, you can always purchase another style of headphones or even use your favorites from another product. THANK GOODNESS THE HEADPHONE PLUGS WERE STANDARDIZED YEARS AGO! 7.) It is important to hold the various manufacturers' MP3 players in your hand and sample the pushbuttons/displays. I find that the RCA LYRA fits comfortably in my hand and provides controls that can be operated single-handedly. I attribute this phenomenon to its "larger size" when compared to other MP3 Players. Someone referred to it as "the bar of soap" which is a suitable description. It is more rectangular than square like its competitors. It is also as much as twice as thick as some of its more compact competitors which I think is a good characteristic. Therefore, it doesn't fit as comfortably in a pocket as its competitors. I find that thin products usually require two hands to operate them since they have controls located in odd places. I also find it more difficult to cradle square shaped objects than rectangular shaped objects in one hand-- depending on the dimensions. 8.) Initially it bothered me that the RCA LYRA Player does not have a "HOLD" button to prevent unintentional activation of its controls. However, the controls appear to have been designed with this issue in mind. The buttons require a genuine, intentional activation to get a response. The unit seems to ignore rapid, light activations of the buttons. This may be one reason that both AMAZON.com and I experienced the need to push buttons a second time to activate the desired function. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I can see where it can be irritating at times. 9.) The only EQUALIZER setting that is worth anything on the RCA LYRA Player is the "customizable" version. You can do some really good things with the feature. Minimal impacts to the music are distinguishable with the five other preset Equalizer settings. This is disappointing-- particularly since the "customizable" version must be reprogrammed EVERY TIME the CompactFLASH Card has been altered to make changes to the play list files. Frustrating? THIS IS WHERE SOME BUILT-IN EPROM MEMORY WOULD BE HELPFUL! 10.) Don't let the WEIGHT figures fool you! The RCA LYRA is relatively lightweight until the two AA-Batteries are installed. Obviously, a product that utilizes only one AA-Battery or possibly disc/puck type batteries found in calculators will weigh less. Then again, they are probably thinner and more squarely shaped. YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT THAT! 11.) The parallel port computer cable for the RCA LYRA Player involves more than that. It includes two "pigtails"-- one to be plugged into the keyboard or mouse port and one to be plugged into a printer cable. These "pigtails" make the cable arrangement unwieldy. A federal case does not need to be made of this issue! Just the same, it's something you should know about. It seems advantageous to have a separate storage media reader/writer which comes standard with the RCA LYRA Player. It serves as an external drive for your computer-- limited only by the amount of CompactFLASH memory inserted. 12.) There doesn't appear to be any reason to perform hand-stands and cart-wheels over the RealJukeBox software. I don't have much experience with comparable software programs. The software does the job. Contrary to the AMAZON.com review, I am not so sure that the files are strictly MPX-- an extension that "protects" the file from duplication. The "options" can be set to less protective extensions. Of course, RealJukeBox is quick to flash WARNING notices on your screen to advise you of the potential consequences for doing so. As I recall, RealG2 files require less space than MP3 files. Even a little savings adds up. Any time storage space can be saved, this is an advantage. Chalk one up for RCA!
Rating:
Summary: One Little Problem
Review: Here's my only problem with the Lyra and the reason for the missing star; the buttons are not only on a hair-trigger setting (no click), they protrude from the front. If you put it in your pocket, attach it to your pocket or to your belt, you will inevitably inadvertantly brush across the front and turn it off or skip a track. I don't know if the jogging case solves this, but it doesn't look like it from the picture. It's irritating. Other than that, I think it's an excellent machine.
Rating:
Summary: One Little Problem
Review: Here's my only problem with the Lyra and the reason for the missing star; the buttons are not only on a hair-trigger setting (no click), they protrude from the front. If you put it in your pocket, attach it to your pocket or to your belt, you will inevitably inadvertantly brush across the front and turn it off or skip a track. I don't know if the jogging case solves this, but it doesn't look like it from the picture. It's irritating. Other than that, I think it's an excellent machine.
Rating:
Summary: The Lyra works just fine
Review: I am a PD junkie and the Lyra does what it's is suppose to do, play MP3. The music put on the card is secured becuase of SDMI. The recording industry in their attempt to reign in mp3's do not want mp3 players to become vehicles for exchanging mp3's. Try pulling MP3's off of the Rio300 or Rio500. If you did it was probably an unsupported hack. If you have a digital camera that uses CompactFlash cards then I'd go with the Lyra. The same argument could be said for SmartMedia and the Rio500. There were concerns about RealNetworks Jukebox vs MusicMatch. For newbies I'd actually recommend the Jukebox. Playlist editing is actually easier in the Jukebox than MusicMatch because the Jukebox uses an explorer like interface. There are some idiosyncracies about the default Jukebox setting that should be changed. 1) Users should turn off security in Menu->Tools->Audio quality. Again it has something to do with SDMI (damn recording industry). Turning off security allows the Jukebox to rip to native mp3's that you can share with others. Otherwise the rmx files will only play on the computer that ripped those files. 2) For faster ripping turn off playback while recording. Initially this will seem to be a cool thing but it wears quickly if you need to rip a bunch of CD's fast. 3) If you're using Jukebox version 160 or later I like to have the 'Organizer' view open. That opens the explorer tree like interface. To do this in menu click on View->Organizer In conclusion like any software hardware or any feature rich device. 80% of users will only use 20% of the product. The Lyra doesn't appear to offer much but what it does do (Play mp3's) it does fine.
Rating: 
Summary: Windows 2000 Users Should Pass on Lyra
Review: I bought a Lyra only to discover that it is a nightmare in a box for Windows 2000 users (like me). First Problem: Included driver for the Compact Flash drive doesn't work with Windows 2000. There is no documentation in the box for Win 2000 users, and web FAQ says nothing either. Tech support sent me to get a SCSI driver from Adaptec's web site -- because that's what they tell NT users to do -- but it didn't work. Second problem: The other included software, Real Jukebox, does not support Lyra (at least for Windows 2000). Tech support confirmed this and told me that "Real hasn't been supportive. Download Musicmatch Jukebox instead. That might solve your driver problem too." Did that, but still my Lyra wouldn't play. Third Problem: MP3 files loaded through Musicmatch were not recognized by the player. Actually, even the few song samples that came loaded on the Compact Flash Card refused to play on the Lyra! Tech support's work-around, "Convert them to Windows Media Format." Which DOES work -- but all tracks picked up a rumbling static (at 128kbits!) after being converted. And now I have to keep 2 copies of all sound files (an MP3 and a WMA) -- a huge waste of disk space. Converting files can also only happens at about 2x speed -- a huge waste of time for libraries of any size. And then you have to load the file on your Lyra... Best advice from Lyra Tech Support: "Go ahead and return it to the store -- I'd buy a miniDisc player instead." Yes, I couldn't believe they told me that either. I'm not interested in miniDiscs -- but I think I'll hold out for a Creative Labs Jukebox. A little more expensive up front, but Compact Flash card prices are insane in comparison.
Rating:
Summary: To bad RCA had to get Real Audio involved.
Review: I bought it, had it for an hour, retuned it. I was willing to forgive the fact the Lyra felt like it should have cost $5.00. The main reason I picked the Lyra was the 64 MB Compact Flash card, I already have a camera that uses CF and have other accessories as well. The number one reason, is Real Audio. Why must it run in the task bar? Why regardless of what you do in setup it associates itself with every music format? Why won't it work without registering? To bad RCA had to get Real Audio involved, you have to run MP3s through Real Player for encryption. RCA should have taken the time to write their own software, a simple send to Lyra selection in explorer would have been cool.
Rating: 
Summary: This is the best MP3 player around!
Review: I have had friedns who bought the new SONY one and i think it sucks but i thought that i would by the RCA one because i liked the looks and the company was a good one. So i bought it then when i used it it was the best thing around in MP3s with the 64mb u can hold like 30 songs and the combo pack comes with everything you need. THis is the best MP3 player for the money on the market today and it has good looks good sound and great price so if your looking for a great MP3 player to buy i would definetly buy this one!
Rating:
Summary: Great Little Player
Review: I just purchased one of these. I would give it a 5 star rating if only I didn't have to use Real Jukebox Software to transfer files. The sound is excellent! Great EQ functions which further increases the sound quality. Transfering the files to the flash card is a snap once you get familiar with the software. It would be much easier if the files could just be dragged and droped in windows instead of real jukebox. Another problem is the speed of file transfer to the compact flash card. It would of been better if the usb port was used. A usb adapter can be purchased but it's costly! But I feel this is the best personal mp3 player currently on the market due to the outstanding sound!
Rating:
Summary: Price is Worth the Real JukeBox Hassle
Review: I purchased my RCA MP3 player [on website] after comparing several models on this great Amazon.com web site. The unit, while appearing flimsy, has held up through much more than any of my CD players would take. In comparison to a Samsung model I have tried, the actual recording process to the memory card is MUCH easier, and that goes ditto for "transfering" CD tracks to be put on your MP3 player. I do have to agree that RealJukebox is not the best program out there, but I am VERY happy I bought this unit.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent MP3 Player! Highly recommended
Review: I purchased this player a couple of weeks ago and Love it! The sound is Awesome, it comes with a car kit that works great, its backlit, has a Great Equalizer, an overall excellent player. The software is a snap to use, (I had 18 songs transferred in no time, its that easy)
| 
