Rating: 
Summary: Volume Control Problem
Review: I received the RCA Lyra rd1080 as a bday present from my wife and it worked fine for over a year. Last week, the volume control, which many other reviewers are complaining about, broke for no apparent reason. The volume now only works going up and as a result is stuck on 50. It seems like there is something broken as there is no "click" when pressing down. Up until now, I have been reasonably happy with the mp3 player and have even recommended it to others. I use it moderately, usually only hooked up to my car stereo through a cassette deck adapter. However, 1 year is not the lifespan I expect from a very expensive gift - my Sony Walkman (10 years old) is still kicking. I haven't tried calling the service desk, but since the unit is over a year old, I'm not expecting much. Landfills are full of electronic items that have become useless due to one poorly made part. It's disgusting. I'll update this if I get satisfactory results when contacting RCA.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent mp3 player for the price!
Review: Having had this mp3 player for a week now, I can honestly say that I am quite impressed. This unit is lightweight, very simple to use, and I didn't find the buttons awkward to mess with as I did the other mp3 players that I have tried. The RCA Lyra RD1080 also boasts an FM tuner -a feature that seems to be lacking on other mp3 players out there on the market. And the audio from this bad boy? Well, The sound from this little toy is simply awesome! I wasn't able to find any specific instructions (could be I didn't look hard enough) on how to download my mp3's to this device, but after loading the software, I was able to play with the software and download into this mp3 player within 15 minutes. This player comes with Musicmatch software where all of your files are managed. Keep in mind that you cannot download raw mp3's into this unit, as the Musicmatch software converts your mp3 files into mpy files. Therefore you wouldn't be able to just go to your friends house and download mp3's off his/her PC without the Musicmatch software. To download into this mp3 player, I simply hooked it up to the provided USB cable, opened up the Musicmatch software, went to "file", then "send to device", and then I simply clicked and dragged my mp3 files from a folder on my hard drive to the Musicmatch software then hit the download button. It took about 6 seconds to convert one mp3 file to an mpy file and download into the player. It's that simple... All in all, I am very happy with this mp3 player and would gladly recommend it to those looking for a combination mp3 player and FM tuner for a reasonable price!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent player and Excellent price
Review: I bought this MP3 player and am completely content with it.I did have trouble adding music when i first bought it and i simply fixed what was wrong....the drag and drop file works great as well. I saw it Xmas week at the GOOD GUYS for $69 (regular price) and wanted to buy them all. I paid about $139 about 2 years ago. I love it still! You can add an SD card and play music for hours. I have a nice 512MB SD card and cant wait to slip in a 1GB card I use my player so much. THe battery life is a bit weak, but i went to Radio Shack and bought myself rechargeable batteries and dont spend a dime anymore on new batteries. If you dont care about looks, this MP3 player is great! I use it to go jogging, mountain biking, or simply waiting for my plane at the airport. Love it! !
*Disclaimer: Musicmatch is a great program to have for your MP3s. Remember it is not part of the RCA family. They just give you a free disk so you dont have to go out and look for it to download on the internet. I love musicmatch as well, but for adding files to my MP3, i use the drag and drop (music file to MP3 player, much easier)
Rating:
Summary: Poor support for a simple player
Review: I loaded the software (musicmatch) and it's difficult to navigate through. Took me 2 hours to initially load the music as you need to copy the cd tracks to a folder then to the mp3 player. I tried to use it on my laptop which has an upgrade and it can't find the player, so now I can't load anything to the player. I tried to contact RCA but there is no support for the basic software package. You need musicmatch to interface with the player and if it can't find it, then it's money down the drain. Get an Ipod, it's alot easier as my friend demonstrated and face it, spending 5 hours to get this thing to work plus the aggravation is worth the ease of an ipod, just plug and load.
I wish RCA wouldn't use me as a beta tester and then not provide support unless I pay 19.99 for it. The radio presets are also a pain to use. Mine's going in the trash.
Rating:
Summary: Great item with newest firmware 4.26.
Review: If you have bought RD1080 or RD 1090, and at FIRST upgrade it firmware to the 4.26. at Thomson Lyra site
After that step you will get best mp3 player on the market, with suport of *.mp3; *.mp3pro; *.wma *.DRM wma music file standard.
Put in additional SD or MMC flash card of 512 Mb or 1 Gb and your music listening will be endless.
It have digital FM also, what is nice feature for news e.c.
If you are ruuner, so I am, it is best mp3 player for the price and features.
with 128 onboard memory, you can put in ~~ 4 hours of your CD collection at 64 kbit rate. If you want better quality sound at less, try use lowest quality mp3pro VBR option with CoolEDIT 2.0.
RD1080 is hard to beat, because it only support mp3pro.
Rating: 
Summary: Bypass the software and it's not bad!
Review: It seems like the lion's share of gripes about this product relate to the software. But the truth is that you don't even need it. Just move songs directly from your computer to an SD card! Then stick the SD card into the player and you are good to go! It doesn't matter what the bit rate is. Even variable bit rate files will play fine. And there is no problem with even WMA files. All you need is an SD card (and a card reader/writer if your computer doesn't already have one built-in).
As for the sound, I certainly have no complaints. Although I am new to MP3 players, this one sounds really good to me. At least as good as any portable CD player. It also works GREAT connected to a home stereo or any car stereo system with an AUX input.
My only real gripe is file access. Specifically, this player does not let you advance to the next file until it starts to play the one you are at. And this takes a few seconds. So if you have a 1GB SD card (as I do) and want to get from track 40 to track 195, it takes some time. But once again, I don't know if other MP3 players are any better in this regard. However, if you can get over this nagging little problem, the RD1080 is not a bad player. Just get yourself a big SD card and you will be quite happy. Especially for the money.
Rating:
Summary: RCA Lyra RD1080 sounds better than the iPod!!
Review: I cannot overstate the excellent sound quality of this mp3 player! I have listened to different iPods and, let me tell you, they can't hold a candle to the sound quality of this tiny mp3 player!!!
Now mind you, I am an extreme audiophile fanatic who is very very VERY picky about sound quality! So picky in fact that I refuse to download music from the internet because I've found for the most part that those who post the mp3s don't care about sound quality as much as I do! Too many times I've gotten mp3s with clicks and pops in them or they sounded unusually flat. For this reason I actually buy my own CDs and encode them into mp3s to control how I want my music to sound.
Let me emphasize something about mp3 encoders: THEY ARE NOT ALL THE SAME!! Some create mp3s that sound really horrible, others sound really good. It also depends on the source CD, whether it was clean or had scratches when it was first encoded. For these reasons I advise you NOT TO USE THE MUSIC PROGRAM PROVIDED ON THE CD TO MAKE MP3S! ****USE ITUNES TO ENCODE YOUR MUSIC INTO MP3S!!!***
ITUNES IS THE BEST MP3 ENCODER ON THE INTERNET!!
iTunes has a check box that allows you to enhance the sound quality of the mp3s when you encode them that makes them sound better than the original CD itself!!
Now back to the RCA Lyra RD1080. It has an FM radio that's a great plus! Now, you're not going to get the same reception as you would on your home stereo so don't expect that. For this player not to have a potruding antenna, it sounds damn good on FM!
And to get to what I think is the biggest selling factor of this unit - the SD (Secure Digital) card slot! It is completely awesome! [...] You can fit roughly about 400 songs on that card if you encode them at 96kbps (ON ITUNES!!) as it is perfect for keeping the sound quality in tact and reducing file size.
But let's be real folks, who in the hell is gonna need that many songs in one outing? No one!! It is for that reason alone I think the purchase of a
Rating: 
Summary: For $60, it's a good buy
Review: I just purchased it on This black Friday at Fry's electronics. Brand new for $60 without any mail-in Rebate,plus a $10 SD memory card. Overall, for the price this low, that's a good buy for me.
If you have a SD momery card, the software is not needed. Just connect it with your computer, it will automatically recognize the momery and you can drag your mp3 to it. It's a snap. FM tuner is the the one i like particularly. If it does not have this function, i would not buy it though. after all, there are tens of mp3 player out in the market that can beat this price and is better-looking. sound quality is decent.
the things i don't like:
1: when i use the external memory card, i can not see the internal card. i guess you can not use them simultaneously.
2: the button is pretty awkward. you have to push hard to activate it.
3: transfer speed it slow.
Rating:
Summary: Happy Indeed
Review: I bought this MP3 player roughly a year ago. It has a nice price and the expandable memory slot. I use it mainly while running. It doesn't come with a belt clip like sometimes advirtised. Instead it has an armband. Reasons I really like this MP3 player:
* Takes Normal batteries not some wird watch one or some $20 one and the AA last for several weeks.
* FM radio feature
Rating:
Summary: Great product, could be designed a little better
Review: Overall this has been a great product, I have been running with it for about 1 month now--3 times a week. I formerly ran with headphones so was a little concerned about having the strap on my arm. The carrying case is adjustable to any size arm and weighs almost nothing--I adjusted to it immediately. You can adjust the volume easily without removing it from the case. It seems durable, I copied about 25 songs over from my PC and just put it in shuffle mode and forget about it. I have not even tried to install the musicmaster software (I already have a war on my computer between Windows Media and the Real Player)--all that I did was rip my CDs to mp3s, hook the Lyra up via usb (same cable that my Palm uses) and my XP PC recognizes it as another drive, so I just copy the files over--I've not been able to accomplish this with WMAs successfully yet but I prefer the mp3s anyhow.
Having the SD card slot is fantastic--this is the same card that my Palm Tungston E uses, so I can transfer songs between these devices very easily and can carry lots of music, if needed. My battery has never run down yet, its still on maximum power after about 10 hours of use.
The headphones are kind of weird, but I've gotten used to them, they allow you to listen to the music and hear the other sounds around you.
The bad:
The radio doesn't have a lot of range (tends to be staticy), but I got this thing to avoid the constant DJ chatter on every Houston station that used to drive me bananas before I got the Lyra.
The buttons on not intuitive (I hate reading directions), I still can't figure out how to put the songs in a particular order and the tiny buttons are hard to navigate.
Summary:
Great for working out and running, especially given the price.
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