Rating: 
Summary: Busted
Review: I received my IMP 550 today. Put an MP3 cd into and press play on the remote, nothing happen. Thinking it might be a bad cd, replace it with a different cd. Still nothing! Tried a music cd no better. The only message appearing on the LCD "No Disk".
As you can imagine I am very anooyed that this should happen. I will be sending it back to Amazon in US. The only problem now is that I live in Ireland and Amazon in US don't sell outside of US and Canada. I used a friends address in the US who then bought it with him when he came to Ireland.
Rating: 
Summary: It is just great
Review: This thing is awsome, the amount of options you can set on it is amazing. I mean you could just sit ther for hours tweaking everything. The sound quality is great. I mean for the money i think this is the best out there. Just go ahead and get it you know you want to.
Rating:
Summary: Non less than a masterpiece!
Review: What I like about IRiver is that they actually base improvements to their products on what consumers suggest. In case of imp-550, they not only making it comfortable and pleasant to use, but also recommending many undocumented ways to customize its work. They tell what to choose for best quality or for longest battery life. Such details as Multisection function, allowing to load non-multisection cds faster is already an example of caring about consumers. In my opinion it's ideal. It has everything one would wish mp3/cd player to have. Their updates are just great. You get literally a better player every months for no cost. For example the last 1.20 update added the Extreme3D equalizer, which made the sound much deeper and sharper. However you need to have adequate headphones to hear the difference, which are better to buy separately. Before I had an imp-350, and what I like about the 550 one, except the design, is that if you connect headphones to both outs, both of them will sound at the same good volume, just with less but bearable quality. In my opinion this model is the best you can get on the market so far.
Rating: 
Summary: Should be better
Review: I bought this as a quick solution for a lot of travelling to Europe after my Rio Riot developed a bad (insurmountable) power management fault. I was hoping that this would become the long-term solution. However... This seems to be a nice package - sleek unit, light, small remote (good screen), car adaptor (both power and cassette) etc. However, I have had awful problems getting it to recognise MP3 CDs. I have used Real Player (and then didn't on advice from iRiver), HP DLA and Windows XP CD recording software at 48x, 16x, 4x and 1x speed. I have also used only decent blank CDs - Memorex and Phillips. I hope I now have the problem licked by using 1x speed, but this doesn;t seem to be particularly acceptable - my laptop can recognise discs, so the iRiver should as well. Having said that, conventional CDs work fine, as does the radio (although if they had been the only features I wanted, I would have gone elsewhere). It is a nice idea to have slim, proprietary batteries, although they don't last that long. I haven't yet needed to use the additional AA battery pack, as I have always recharged. There seems to be a bit of a strange socket for the headphones - iRiver even supplies an adaptor for headphones that don't fit it. I think it is just a case of the housing being obstructive, not the socket being different. The sound quality really is excellent, although I would have expected the volume to go higher - maybe a power management feature? I think the navigation system is acceptable - remember it is hindered by a four line display on the remote, so it couldn't be much better. Considering this is pretty much the most you can spend on a personal Cd player these days, it is only 60% there (therefore 3/5!). Unfortunately, I have had so many hassles with getting it to recognise MP3 CDs that I will probably end up buying another hard drive player - the iPod 40Gb looks good, although steep. =================================
Update ================================= I have worked out the problem. The iMP-550 cannot handle variable bit rate (VBR) MP3 files (@v1.10 firmware). This is a bit disappointing, as it is marketed as the bees knees multi-codec etc. Also, my MP3 collection is almost all VBR. This is also disappointing because the manual does not tell you this. In fact, neither did the customer support number. I found the answer after a few hours digging around on the support web site. So, if you are listening, iRiver, I will boost my rating of this product from 3 to 5 if you update the firmware to use VBR. Rio seem to have managed it, so why not iRiver? =================================
Rating:
Summary: Another top of the line cd player
Review: Having already owned an IMP-350 I knew what to expect from Iriver when the 550 came out. I passed on buying the IMP-400 because other than appearance, the Imp-400 and 350 were pretty much the same. The thing about Iriver's IMP line is that they are not your average cd players. These cd players are in class all their own offering features that no other brand on the market can come close too. The IMP-550 is the latest " advanced cd player " to enter the market and this time they have made this player different enouph to give consumers who already have the 350 or 400 a reason to upgrade. First is the players size. Even though the 350 was slim, the width and iregular shape more than made up for this and it was akward to carry around. The 400 was not really all that smaller. The 550 finally delivers in making a compact player and while it is not as small as the Sony D-EJ2000 it should prove portable enough to carry around and even exercise with. The next thing is the sound quality which quite simply, is superb. There have been instances when while listening to certain cd's that I can pick out sound characteristics that I did not notice before. The 550 also has two new sound features Extreme EQ and Extreme 3D. Extreme EQ is simply the user defined setting only you set it by adjusting a 5 band sound control panel. Ths gives the user more control over the EQ than in the earlier models. Extreme 3D is a DSP setting ( digital signal processing ) that is supposed to mimic surround sound. While the Extreme EQ is a very nice touch, the jury is still out on the extreme 3D I have found that sometimes it works well for some music and not so well for others. the forum board has a lot more by the way of user comments. Neither sound feature is available for the 350 because it does not have the proccesor chip set that can support this. I have also heard that the same is true for the 400 as well. and finally this player has a few things that the 350 and 400 don't have such as the ability to charge and discharge the batteries while listening to it. a etiquette function that reduces the mechanical noise the player generates and a car kit that comes with the player to name a few. This player has excellent anti-skip protect as well. My friend went jogging with this player while the ESP was set to 80 seconds and it did not skip once. there are some minor gripes I have though such as, the fact that like it's predecessors the 550 eats through the batteries. the player also has no buttons at all on the unit. the player is completely dependent on the remote to control it. and there is a headphone adapter that you need to use because the headphone input on the remote cannot fit most headphone jacks ( too sunken in ) All in all a great cd player with few problems.
Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: It is simply the best possible portable CD player currently on the market in terms of sound quality. The first reviewer is a fool. Of course it comes non-functional on arrival. It comes with rechargeable batteries. Rechargeable batteries NEVER come pre-charged, because they would lose their charge by the time the product was finaly sold.
Rating:
Summary: Average mp3 player.
Review: The biggest problem with all iRiver products is their clumsy user interface. The remote and on player controls are all non-intuitive. You have to read the manual to figure mutiple uses of each button and then you can hardly remember the functions. Also the NiMH batteries included are not standard AA, but a new stick type. Mine didn't hold charge for very long, maybe isolated case. I would have preferred the normal AA battery size even at expense for a few mm extra thickness. Finding and browsing songs is a pain and again the poor UI issue comes up. Nothing even close to something like an iPod. Ofcourse the iPod costs twice this one. The extra wires all, remote, charger, etc make this a clumsy peice of electronics to own. Hardly any innovation since the original Slim-X 2 yrs ago, iRiver is falling behind. Ofcourse the main issue with a mp3 player is and should be the sound quality. And iRiver is good unlike pathetic mp3 decoder on Sony's. That said I would rather by original Slim-X or any other iRiver as they use same technology and UI.
Rating: 
Summary: D.O.A.
Review: I have purchased 2 of these units so far (07/31/03 & 08/04/03). Both were non-functional upon arrival. I am returning the second one and have given up on this unit. Buyer beware.
Rating:
Summary: Best CD player in the market
Review: In this age of high technology, it isn't hard to find intuitive and sleek machines that do exactly what you think of plus more. Iriver is an up and coming company that desings the best mp3 players in the tough mp3 player market. Iriver's business target isn't to make a product that profits them, but to make a product that satisfies the consumers best, thus making business by first convincing the consumers. Take Sony for example, they make great products, I must admit that they are pioneers in audio and consumer technologies, but in the end they are just there to make big bucks. Why? I say this because once you buy a Sony product you are obligated more of their things becuase that is how their products are made. I see mp3 players as nonconventional alternative audio players that should be able to expand and not restrict you with their own products. Sony players play ATRC3 a format of encoding used by Sony products and only expandible for more memory with Sony's own MemoryStick. That means that instead of using mp3's you have to convert them to ATRAC, costing the consumer lots of time in converting them. The Iriver IMP-550 is an expandible product that not only looks great but performs like a wonder. It even uses a Sony CD lens, just to show that it is made with the highest quality components. But instead of getting Sony's restrictions, you get freedom of an Iriver, the way mp3 players should be made. This is a great buy. I am very happy with it. I wish I could write more but my 1000 words will be up. I know [item price] is a hefty price, but I see it comparable to a HD mp3 player like the Ipod, for its expandability of using CD's. Navigating around each CD is easy and you can even search it by folders...
Rating:
Summary: PREMIUM MP3-CD PLAYER- Worth Every Penny
Review: I was looking for a truly premium MP3 CD Player and checked out iRiver. Their products were rated very highly in PC World. This is a player for people who simply want the best and are willing to shell out a little bit extra cash for it. The sound quality is exceptional, the remote is sleek and simple and it has some outstanding features. It looks absolutely killer and is a sure attention grabber. GO FOR IT!!!
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