Rating: 
Summary: Bad Rio SP50 Bad
Review: I bought the SP50 at Best Buy and was extremely happy with the mp3 performance, for a ... mp3/CD player it could play any mp3/CD I threw at it.One little problem though, the damn thing could not play store purchased CD's or CD'R's or CD'RW's. To be fair it could play 1 or 2 store bought CD's out of say 8 or 9. Hello Rio. I hope this is a fluke, I'm going to get a exchange on it. And then demand a refund.
Thank you for wasting my time.
Rating: 
Summary: More than 5 stars quality for your money
Review: Right now I think the best deal on CD/MP3 player anywhere.It cost me ($$$) after mail-in-rebate. Again great quality for money you pay,the best features -2 min antiskip protection ,and separate line out jack-features a lot of players do not have.Would highly recommend. Even without a rebate worth what you pay.
Rating:
Summary: Rio Dolt SP50
Review: The biggest disappointment in any piece of electronic gear in the 7 years I have had a PC. Sure it reads CD's but any of my full CD-RW Mp3's? Nope. I tried 15+ cds so far and it can't recognize a single one... I get the dreaded "NOCDMP3" error. The casing itself is so flimsy, you'd think this was a free gift that you'd get for starting a new checking account, or a subscription to TIME magazine. I don't know if I got a defwect but the casing lends to the lid "teetering" as the left and right edges aren't flush with the bottom tray (only the middle part where the "OPEN" buttion is, is where the two meet together) ESP??? What ESP??? Heck I just lifted the player and it STARTED the CD over.... I can't imagine how frustrating this would be if it was used doing anything requiring motion like walking or jogging. SonicBlues customer support? They responded to my email with a computerized response asking me for information about the rebate???? (go figure) Now I see why they are called SONIC BLUE, because if you buy this POS you will have a case of the SONIC BLUES
Rating:
Summary: RIO DOLT SP50
Review: This either is a defect or all reviewers prior are not keen to detail. My unit won't play ANY MP3's on CD-RW at all! Plays cds fine though. Not why i purchased this POS in the first place. In the FAQ's they mention if you burn with Adaptec Software and the disk is formatted with Direct CD not to use disc compression. It didnt matter either way as the disk is never read by the player "NOCDMP3" was the message I recieved on over 15 different CD-RW's I have loaded with Mp3's. I sent in the rebate before I found out if the Mp3 feature worked.. Hope I can still get a refund...
Rating: 
Summary: A good beginner CD/MP3 Player
Review: The SP50 is a good basic CD/MP3 player without alot of bells and whistles. The player includes a headphone jack, line out jack, rotary volume control, a slide switch to open the player, a enhanced bass/normal selector and a key lock to lock the controls on the top of the unit. The unit has 8 keys on top for operation. I only use four of them as the other four get you into the menu's to search and program tracks and unless I have the instructions it's just to much of a pain to figure out. The unit is shipped with battaries (chinese ones that don't last very long compared to normal alkaline's) and some ear buds that you might as well toss. I have no problems playing my burned CD's on this player. All of my files are at 128K and have been created with Misicmatch Jukebox ver 7.2. The display shows the artist and song on the display and is supposed to show the album but the album info comes up blank on mine. Sound quality with a decent set of headphones is good. Regular CD/s have played fine as well. I have not had any problems with skipping even when attempting to make it do so. ... I've deducted a star for non intiutive search controls, junky earbuds and the fact that the album title doesn't display.
Rating: 
Summary: Good ol white noise
Review: If you like to hear your songs clearly avoid this player. White noise is present at all volume levels and is rather distracting. The plastic lid doesn't even feel like it will last more than...well let just say it is REALLY weak feeling. Great price with the mail in rebate- only fourty bucks, but I'm still returning mine and getting an IRIVER 350, nice player..and trust me it SOUNDS GREAT!. The 350 even comes with rechargeable batteries! Head towards the IRIVER, away from this SP50
Rating:
Summary: Good value when on sale with rebate.
Review: I heartily recommend the SP50 with a couple of caveats: don't buy it at the suggested retail price and be sure to buy it during the rebate period. On sale with the rebate, the SP50 is a good low-end player with enough features to satisfy most users. At full price, the SP50 simply isn't worth it. The good stuff: I didn't see any of the extreme problems with playback reported by others here. In CD mode, the player worked flawlessly. With electronic shock protection (ESP) turned on, I tossed the player on the couch and even shook it with no skips at all. In MP3 mode, the player functioned equally well. It has played every MP3 I have tried at bit rates anywhere from 96 to 196 kbps on a variety of CD-R media. (One note: all of my MP3 CD-Rs are closed disks. Some users have reported playback problems with open CD-Rs. I haven't tested this.) I have experienced some minor playback blips on fewer than 6 individual MP3s, and I can't be sure that they weren't due to problems during ripping. In any event, fewer than 6 small problems out of over 1,000 MP3s is good performance, if you ask me. Finally, I prefer the styling of this model to any of the other RioVolt models. The blue SP90, in particular, has always looked little too cutesy and toy-like for my tastes. In contrast, the SP50 has platinum and gray color scheme with a flat, rough-textured finish that resists fingerprints and smudges. Not so good stuff: This thing eats batteries faster than any music player I have ever used. SonicBlue claims "10 hours of continuous MP3 playback." That may be true if you just put a CD in and play straight through, but if you actually use the file search and playlist functions of the SP50, you'll find that 5 hours is more realistic. I suspect this is due in part to the way that shock protection works in MP3 mode. The player has a two-minute buffer, and once the buffer is full, the disk spins down. Thirty seconds before the buffer empties out, the disk spins back up and the buffer is re-filled. SonicBlue claims that this is to conserve battery life, but any freshmen physics student can tell you that it takes more energy to move a stationary object than it does to keep a moving object in motion. All this spinning up and down just has to eat up a lot of electricity, and the more searching and skipping through the tracks you do, the worse it gets. Worst of all, this creates what I see as the biggest flaw in the SP50: As the batteries get low, the player takes longer and longer to spin up the disk. Eventually, it take longer than 30 seconds to get the disk moving, and you get long pauses in the middle of songs while the empty buffer waits for more data. The solution, of course, is to keep fresh batteries in the machine or use an AC adapter, which, unfortunately, is not included. As others here have pointed out, the included ear-buds provide inferior sound. This shouldn't come as a surprise. Since when are the ear-buds packaged with even the most expensive players worth much? If you're the kind of listener who is bothered by this sort of thing, you should already have purchased a decent set of headphones for yourself. The search and playlist controls are complicated and cumbersome. It takes some reading of the instructions and a little practice to make it all work. I was eventually able to use those features with ease, but the process could be simplified. Finally, the player does not include an adjustable equalizer as the package claims. It does feature a simple bass booster, which works well and is sufficient for my purposes. After checking SonicBlue's web site, I knew this going in, so I wasn't disappointed. It's probably just a misprint, but SonicBlue needs to correct it as soon as possible. Bottom line: You'll read a lot of criticism of the SP50 here. If you buy one of the players that are recommended, however, you'll never pay less than $100 for anything. On sale with the rebate, the SP50 is a solid little player at a good price that will satisfy the average user. If you are an audiophile and fussy about your playback, why are you listening to MP3s on a portable in the first place?
Rating:
Summary: My love affair with my SP50
Review: Wow. Let me tell you, this is the best thing since emo. It's a wonderful thing to store ten to twenty CDs (depending on the bitrate) onto one CD that you can take anywhere. Think about this:
>>>The unit is stylish and the screen is easy to read.
>>>It does work with every mp3 CD that I've put into it.
>>>...it is an amazing bargin.
>>>You can take your whole music collection with you where ever you go on about seven CDs.
>>>It simply does not skip. Whatever you do, even with regular CDs, no skipping. I was throwing it across my room and there was no skipping. NO SKIPPING!
>>>You can organize your music into folders and play only the foloder that you want to.
>>>MP3's play without the CD even moving. Crazy. There are some things that you have to know about the player though:
>>>The controls are a bit hard to get used to, but a little practice and you can search your whole database of music.
>>>Multisession CDs cannot be played, but you can store some songs onto a CD-RW, play them, erase them when you're finished and write new ones onto it.
>>>The headphones it comes with are [bad]. But that's it! I have no idea what these other reviewers are talking about.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Cd/mp3 player ever
Review: the price was great for the quality. they definetly under-priced this one. Even though it didnt come with the remote or the ac/dc adapter it is still great. the sound quality is exellent and the lcd display is cool. Overall this is a great item.
Rating:
Summary: best ever sounding player!
Review: WOW! I was amazed at the sound of this radio. It sounds better then any home theater system I have ever heard. There are some problems,though. IT DOES NOT COME WITH ANY SOFTWARE,OR AN AC ADAPTER
AND NO REMOTE. THE BUTTONS ARE A LITTLE CONFUSING, but the sound is great
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