Rating: 
Summary: Good Product / Great Value
Review: Here is the good, the bad and the ugly regarding this mp3 player:The Good:
1. 128MB with an expansion slot.
2. Small and very lightweight.
3. Excellent sound, particularly with DSP settings.
4. Use of MusicMatch software. (Some hate it, I love it.)
5. Pretty good battery life with only one AAA.
6. Low price. The Bad:
1. No belt clip and armband prevents access to controls.
2. LCD is not backlit and has lo-tech look.
3. Max volume could be a little louder.
The Ugly:
1. The headphones are straight out of The Flintstones. Overall, a solid value.
Rating: 
Summary: It' a great product--for the first few months.
Review: I bought this unit on the strength of its consumer reviews as well as on the virtue of its affordable price. Contrary to some of the reviews, the software is not so difficult to use. In fact, despite some minor irritations, this is an overall good product. But only for the first several months. I had mine for two-and-a-half wonderful months, and it worked great in that period of time. I used it for running and it served its purpose more than adequately. Then it happened; the very thing I had heard about from other reviewers actually happened to me. It stopped working. No error message, no response, no startup, nothing. So I called the manufacturer for a frustrating "troubleshooting" call with RCA's customer service department (by the way, you should be warned: their customer service dept. is not toll free; it's a long distance number and they like to make you wait on hold before and during the call). To save the boring details, I've now had to call them three times about my MP3 player which they told me to send back to their service center. It's been at their center for over six weeks and they refuse to offer any details as to where it is, what's wrong with it, or whether or not I'll ever see it again. I will never buy another RCA product. If any of this sounds exaggerated, do some research. In under two minutes of brief internet searching, I came across three websites dedicated to the victims of RCA products and customer service. Here's my objective, rational advice: just buy someone's else's product.
Rating: 
Summary: Small player, big memory
Review: I got this mp3 player last month at July 4th. I was amazed when I bought it, it was better than I thought! It is so small that you will not feel uncomfortable when you put it in your pocket, with the MP3PRO encoder, I could hold more than 50 songs. One thing that's really cool is the DSPs which most of other players do not have, making the music better. There are 5 DSPs: Flat/Bass/Pop/Rock/Jazz. One thing that's really bad is the way they tell you how to use the Music Match Jukebox. They tell you the way that it seemed to be very simple but it made it even more difficult. After about 3 hours I had figure out that I could simply drag and drop like other folders. Then I went to Yosemite and brought the MP3 player along, since the trip takes about three hours, I listened to it for the whole trip and back, it still got half battery left!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Sound and same USB port as my Palm Zire!
Review: Okay, well the comment about the usb cord fitting my Palm Zire may not address the sound quality of this little gem (And believe me, the sound is fantastic. Right now I'm listening to Pachabel's Canon transcribed by The Canadian Brass=absolutely gorgeous!!).
Anyway, I had a different MP3 player that didn't last and was returned. But the thing that gets me is that the usb port on that mp3 player was not the same as my Palm that ALSO wasn't the same as my Fuji 2800Z camera.
Now the Lyra's port IS the same as the Palm Zire, and I have successfully used both devices with the same cable.
The sound and operation of the Lyra is terrific. I don't care for the MusicMatch software, and Windows Media Player recognizes the player as an "F" drive, and file transfers are cinchy.
But the multiple usb cables are so unnecessary and this is one more positive for an already nifty little device.
Rating:
Summary: Great price and product
Review: For $ this is a great player. I have noticed, though, some reviewers are not satisfied with the software. I run Windows XP, and did not even install the software. USB to the Lyra, my computer recognized the Lyra, and right clicked and sent it to Lyra. Out of the box, it took me about 2 minutes to load 20 songs. The earphones are over the ear type and will take a while to get use to, but other than that it's great.
Rating:
Summary: Good Value
Review: The Lyra is my second mp3 player. My last one was a Creative Nomad IIc. I was very pleased with that player and had no complaints until it died after a year and a half of ownership. I was hesitant to buy the Lyra because I had an unpleasant experience with an RCA television in the past and know of the RCA reputation for making crap. Nevertheless, I took a chance and I am quite happy with the Lyra after 2 months of ownership. The player is very small, smaller than my Nomad. It is not an unattractive device. It had 128 mb of memory, which is twice that of my previous player, more than enough for ordinary needs. The player itself is easy to use and easy on the batteries. The only reason I didn't give it five stars is because I had trouble getting the musicmatch software included to recognize the player. I contact RCA and musicmatch and was not able to resolve the problem. Eventually I gave up and now I just transfer files to the player by using Windows Explorer (it reads the player as a drive and you can just drag the files into the drive). It is a most inartful solution but it works for me.
Rating:
Summary: Great product; poor documentation and support
Review: Bought this product for similar reasons that other reviewers did - I needed a replacement for my cassette Sportswalkman. I opted for an MP3 player as I've ripped most of my CDs onto my laptop. The Lyra was the smallest player available and the price was competitive with other products. The salesperson also mentioned that RCA manufactures RIOs, so I felt confident that they'd also provide a good product under their own brand. I've Win2K, so I installed the respective software and was listening to music in short time. It also plays MP3Pro files, which are smaller than MP3 files. Biggest problem I ran across is that the unit plays songs in alphabetic order, which was unacceptable. I re-read all the included documentation, then Mucicmatch's documentation, then the website's for both RCA and Musicmatch...no solution. I contacted RCA and received little support. After 5 business days, they gave me a number for their tech support, which I didn't follow up on. That said, after toying with it for a few days, I discovered that you can simply number your tracks, i.e. before track name, append with 01, 02....10, 11, etc and the unit will play in increasing order. Musicmatch will automatically number tracks when you rip them; look under RECORDER/OPTIONS/TRACKS DIRECTORY. Further, if you have many albums on your Lyra, then the best thing to do is to create multiple directories, and number each in the same way, 01, 02, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Great Product
Review: PROS:
*small, lightweight, easy to use
*great sound quality
*holds about 60+ songs at once CONS:
*headphones are uncomfortable (i bought a different pair)
*comes with an armband rather than a belt clip
*after following instructions provided perfectly, musicmatch software did not recognize the player...if this happens to you, use the windows media player software instead. (another reviewer had this problem also.) after figuring that out, it was really easy to transfer songs. OVERALL: This is a great item that's easy and fun to use, once you get past the kink with their software.
Rating:
Summary: Player = great, SW & support = disappointing
Review: The player itself is great for [the price]. It is very small, very light with decent battery life (8 hours maybe). It has good volume and sound. Its buttons are a little bit hard to press especially the back/next. The white housing feels flimsy, the battery cover in particular, so need to use with care. It comes with an armstrap which is very useful, except that you can only access the volume control buttons, and it fits the player in VERY tightly. The "clip on" earphones are very comfortable, but tricky to learn to use. The music software is easy and friendly to use, except you need to pay extra to "unlock" special features. It is unacceptable from a user standpoint. However, when using Windows XP to downloading MP3's to the player to its full internal memory capacity, it sometimes runs into a strange error toward the last few MB of music download - even though there apparently is space left. And those last few songs cannot be downloaded. But with 65+ songs in it already I don't really mind, but it is mind boggling. Also Lyra advertises that it has 128MB memory, but the program only shows that it really has 122MB when the player is "empty". Not sure what is going on, I might need to reformat the internal memory, and the customer service from RCA/Thompson REALLY doesn't help. They sound unhelpful, unfriendly and uninterested. They are the kind of people who tell you to reformat your hard drive whenever something on your computer goes wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Little Gadget for Morning Joggers
Review: I bought this product two weeks ago and I am so satisfied. It's light and the armband makes such an excellent convenience for workouts and jogs. MP3 tracks transfer smoothly using the MusicMatch software included with the player. The LCD displays song titles and/or artist. Definitely a best buy!!!
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