Rating: 
Summary: Excellent for the price
Review: I got [another] version... Look around. They are going [for less].
It has been dropped about three times, and still plays like a champ. It does what is says, and I am pleased. For what I paid, I am VERY pleased. I would not, however, pay full price for it.
Regrets;
Can't FF to a spot in the file. I listen to thirty minute old time radio programs, and unless I pause the program, I have to start from the beginning each time. Can't RESUME when I shut it off. Have to step thru to the file you want to hear. Oh yea. It EATS batteries. But mine came with a car adapter kit, which is a cig liter plug and cassette insert thing. Plus I get free AA batteries where I work. (I know, a tremendous perk.) But this thing goes thru two AAs a day if I am using it much. I don't know where the power goes, since MP3s are hardly spinning the disk at all. But the batteries get down to 1.35 volts, and the thing shuts off. The batteries are still good for a Minimag flashlite when I take them out, but won't run the player. I think they should have run it off of three AA's and got more life out of them. (A simple voltage regulator IC added to the circuit would allow for this.) Other than that, it is OK.
Rating: 
Summary: be prepared to return this item
Review: this player is a piece of junk. i went through two of them before i gave up and returned it for credit.
the first player would stop if you so much as breathed near it. i mean, forget the fact that it is supposed to be portable. if i moved the unit even an inch, it would shut off. thought it was a fluke, and after 1 week exchanged it for another.
the second one refused to play certain cds, both MP3 and brand new store bought! then after less than a month i got the NOCDMP3 message and it stopped working altogether. so that one went back too. don't waste your time or money.
Rating:
Summary: Plays okay, but is missing a several key features.
Review: Before you purchase this player you should know about a few key things:1. There is no resume feature. Every time you stop the player and start it again, it will start at song #1 in folder #1. This can be really really annoying if you are listening to an MP3 CD with 100+ songs. The player can display ID3 tags and even search songs alphabetically, so I can't see why it can't start playing song 51 if you previously stopped it at song 50. My two year old MP3 CD player has no problem doing this. 2. The Equalizer that they mention on the packaging is nothing more than a bass boost (a simple on/off switch). 3. There is on AC adapter included. Not a big deal, but worth noting. 4. The display is not lighted. This would make the ID3 tags and track information much easier to read. Because of these things, I returned the player shortly after I opened it. The one time a played a regular CD and an MP3 CD, the sound quality did seem to be okay. You might want to check out their more expensive models...perhaps they have these features.
Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile player
Review: I bought the SP50 about 4 months ago, and it still plays the way it did the day I bought it. The sound quality is good, and the output is loud enough. The controls are fairly easy to master, although it takes some time to get the menu navigation correct. I have dropped this play from a couple feet up, and except for the CD popping out, it was fine. I haven't had any problems with burning MP3 CD's for it to play, and I put almost 15 albums (165 songs) on one CD at decent quality. One of my few complaints is that the battery life is definatly not long enough. It just eats batteries, but what is to be expected? The player does take a couple seconds to start up, and it takes a second longer than most to get to the next song, but overall, with a little patiance, it works out. Everyonce in a while I will get a "No Disc" error, usually when I haven't used it in a while. It refuses to read the disc and only randomly starts playing it. After it first read the disc, it has no problem with anything else. The last problem is that at the highest volumes it has quite a lot of static, it might be my inexpensive headphones, but it has done that with all of the headphones I've used with it. This player is a great value. It's cheap for a CD/MP3 player, and even though I make a bigger point of the faults, it definatly works for me. I would suggest this product to anyone who is looking for a lower end MP3/CD player.
Rating:
Summary: Apparantly commonly defective
Review: I purchased a RioVolt SP-50 today and promptly returned it. I played several MP3 CD's and consistantly had the same audio problem: an occasional "chirp" (for lack of a better description) coming through primarily the right channel. I then tested several MP3 CD's with the same material in the SP-50 and other CD players. The SP-50 was the only one that displayed that defect. ... The Rio, save the audio glitch, was a little louder and less noisy. ...
Rating:
Summary: An above-average MP3 CD Player
Review: This unit actually gives great sound, if you get your own headset. The cheap one comes with the unit doesn't do it justice. Here are things you need to know: 1) When in MP3 mode and the unit is advance reading the data into the "anti-skip" buffer, if the unit is bumped or moved, the "skip" will be read into the buffer memory. There is NO error-correction for reading or buffering. 2) A big battery drainer, a freshly charged 1600mAh NiMH batteries only last about 5-6 hours, so I know it can't reach the claimed 10 hours with regular alkaline batteries. 3) In MP3 modes, there is a long gap (silence) between tracks. The unit doesn't advance read or buffer read until the current track comes to a dead end. It then spin up and buffer read, which creates a long delay between tracks. Overall, it read all kinds of burned MP3 CDs I threw at it, and the sound quality is amazing, especially with the bass turned on.
Rating:
Summary: Very Bad Player
Review: ...I made an mp3 cd and tested it. It played very well for the first few songs. However, as the player got futher and deeper into the songs, it would take longer to load. Eventually, near the 40th song, it would be 2 minutes plus to load. It gives no error message or anything so you don't know if it is loading or just stuck. It can't even load up the 200+ songs. Very bad player indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Great Player
Review: I ove this player. It doesn't skip (contrary to other reviews). It doesn't have a backlit display. The earbuds are terrible. Buy new headphones. The menu controls are some what difficult to use. It took me about a half an hour to master them. The only complaint I have is that when you burn an mp3 cd, if you want to organize it by artist, you have to create folders of the artist and drag all the files into that folder. You then have to reneame all the mp3s so they don't show the artists' name in the filename. That was the only problem.
Rating:
Summary: RioVolt SP50 is the best MP3 bargain around
Review: I'm deployed overseas and was looking for a bargain CD/MP3 player before I left, since I didn't want to take my valuable CD collection with me. In a nutshell, I bought this player...It works flawlessly. I play 128k MP3 files on CD. Batteries? I use NiMH exclusively. They last long enough. I always have another set in the charger ready to go. Skipping? Not yet. It works perfectly. I agree it takes some time to figure out the menu system but it can be mastered... The display has all the info you need. There is no player on the market that can match this one for performance and price in my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Lowpriced player with an accpetable audio quality.
Review: In general,SP50 is excellent.
I use it on my car. It works well even in the poor road conditions.By using rechargeble batteries, it will last about 6-8 hours. I think it will have better perfermance with normal batteries.
There is a little noise of the ouput if you listen to the song by earphone. But you cannot feel it by the car audio.
Another shortcoming is the poor quality of earphone.Again, it's not a problem for me because I never use it.
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