Rating: 
Summary: Best "portable" sound ever
Review: I bought this device 6 months ago from Amazon and I'm still amazed of its performance. Actually each time I upgrade the firmware version I feall like getting a new player.
What amazed myself and everybody that tryied listening music to my Iriver IMP-550 is the quality and the power of the sound.
The second thing that "seduced" me is the advanced technology used to this device, allowing lots of menu options, firmware upgrade and multiple codec support. As a "minus" to the technology are the software bugs, but are allways corrected by the new firmware versions and are a very low price to pay in order to get the upgradeable feature.
An other important think is the beautifull design of the player. The headphones I got aren't the best looking though.
As considering the long lasting of the parts I may say that i have test it only for six months, but unfortunatly the headphones got broken recently, probably due to the high sound level listening.Concluding: I still find this player the best to buy of the portable CD players with MP3 support.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing....
Review: I need to start off by saying, that i really wish i could give this product but a 4 1/2, but...amazon wont let me! But on with the review! ~ok, this player is simple amazing...i knew what to expect from the machine (considering the hours and hours of research that i did) and this beautiful player fulfilled that and SO much more. I chose this over the sony D-ne1, and i'm happy i did! Design ~the design is simple, but modern. There's no screen at all on the player itself, it's even void of controls! it's all been placed on their remote. The player itself isn't actually a circle, it's actually an oval, but the extra space on the top is so small that i doubt it's noticable at all that it's not a circle. The player is very light, and seems very fragile, but what can you expect considering how much it ways? the remote has the same kind of feel to it. But overall it's a great looking machine. Remote ~ this and the somewhat fragile design is why i had to give the player 4 1/2 stars. The remote itself is just as well designed as the player, but it can be sooo confusing at times... it takes a lot of getting used too, but once you have gotten used to it, it's actually quite simple. But that means, if you're thinking about sharing it with friends or whatever, they may need some tutorials in the use of it. The jog sticks also act as buttons to go through the menus and such, and these are your main navigation tools. The stop and play buttons only act as what their names describe. Also a BIG problem with the remote is that larger headphones, where the jack is larger even though it's still a 1/8th size don't completely fit in! this can be truly annoying when your trying to use some of the nicer headphones out with with this player. i own a pair of AKG K240S, and with them i'm using a 1/8th adapter from radioshack, i can't even fit it in all the way to get the full effect of the headphones! and yes, it is the right stereo phone plug size... *Overall! ~beautiful player+great remote once you get used to it
~thing and small! a great combination
~problems with headphone plug-ins
~fragile design
Rating: 
Summary: Good sound quality, but no stability
Review: I have the player for about half a year now.
From the start our relationship wasn't very jolly - while charging the batteries for the first time the player was getting really heated so that basically if I left it charging for an hour more, it probably would've internally burned itself.
But fortunately nothing happened and I kept using it.
Couple months later, the remote control just died on me without any warning. Since I have the warranty, the company replaced it, but what will I do when it expires? Seems I'm not the first one getting bad parts.
Overall -
Pros:
-Good sound quality and sound options
-Can be updated with the newest file types
-Looks pretty good
-Many options, although most are unnecessary (Beep volume, Fade in etc)
Cons:
-Skips all the time!!!
-Pricey for what it is
-Charging is a nightmare
-Takes a while to load
-Noisy
Rating:
Summary: great player, bad battery life
Review: I really like this player, it does everything I expected. However, the battery last 6 months. I would recharge the battery following the instructions, discharging and then recharging. My batteries lasted 6 months. I called customer service and felt that they were rather rude (I'd called them earlier on another issue and felt they were not very nice then also.) Every time I went to their web site to order new batteries, they were out, about 9 months without batteries.
It's a great player, but I would not buy another one nor would I recommend buying one.
Rating:
Summary: A good investment
Review: Unless you want to cough up the cash for a hard drive player (and even perhaps then), this is the best way to go. This cd player has absolutely amazing fidelity and a variety of highly customizable equalizers. Codec support is good so far, and they're working on OGG. And the design is absolutely gorgeous.
My only complaints:
-Occasionally the battery cover on the inside of the cd player will come out. This is really only a minor inconvenience and happens only if it's jostled around in the right way.
-Firmware upgrades were few and far between earlier this year; they have started to pick up again, though OGG support is still only partial.
-It's somewhat finicky about cd quality; scratched cds can cause serious problems.
Again, this cd player has the best audio quality I've observed in any portable so far.
Rating: 
Summary: No-Disc error: non-functional after 4 months
Review: I should have read the reviews more carefully. My player no longer works: I'm getting a "No Disc" message, even when trying to play store bought music CDs. I now see in the reviews that bunches of other folks have gotten the same problem, so it is a basic design problem. At least I had 4 months of decent music playing.
I'm switching to a cheaper MP3 CD player (memorex,$40), which has the same basic functions I need, and the sound is just as good to me. At $40, at least I won't feel so bad when it stops working.
Update: Before tossing the player in the trash, I decided to fiddle with it first. I downloaded the firmware upgrade from the iriver.com website, ran the executable, and copied the ".hex" file to a CD/RW, per instructions. However, the player still gave the "No Disc" message, when I tried to play it.
I then used a small skrew-dirver to slide the little lense trolley all the way toward the center of the player, careful not to touch the lense itself. It then read the firmware upgrade file fine, and now it plays CDs again! I think the trolley gets stuck in the outboard position, and needs manual unsticking... still a design problem, but fixable.
Rating:
Summary: Too Expensive
Review: This product is good, but a little bit too expensive the price in Amazon is 161.49. and the MSRP from the fabricator iRiver is 149.99 This is a MSRP that item should be cheaper.
Please review the prices.. Thanks
Rating: 
Summary: mediocre
Review: I really cant think of more than one or two benefits that make the 550 better than my old sony AA powered CD player.
First let me just say the wiring of the device is extremely awkward. The cords constantly get tangled up and you have to unplug everything usually in order sort it out. Another nuisance is the battery life. Typically you get about 7 or 8 hours out of them. It's convenient that they're rechargable but I usually listen to my discman when traveling and I had to be careful about running them down. I got more hours out of recharable panasonic AAs in my old sony discman, which didnt have all the bells and whistles the 550 has, but it did the job. The only thing I liked better about the 550 was the LCD screen. If you use certain programs to burn your CDs then the song title appears when playing.
Truth be told its more of a hassle than its worth.
Rating:
Summary: don't do it!
Review: This is a terrible terrible terrible product. I purchased mine less than 3 months ago and it has already shut down on me. By that I mean it will not read any cds and just shows the message "no disc". Tech support is less than helpful and well, I guess it's my fault for buying a Korean product instead of a Japanese one. Don't buy this. Seriously, I am not joking.
Rating:
Summary: False MSRP
Review: Hey, if you want it, you want it! In fact, I just bought one. But, you might like to know that the MSRP on the manufacturer's very own website is $149.99. NOT the $179.99 claimed here on this Amazon page. Check it out for yourself. http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/iMP-550.aspx
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