RioVolt SP100 Portable CD/MP3 Player with 120 Second Anti-Shock

Rating:
Summary: it's about time, it's about good music !!
Review: The first MP3 CD players were picky about what discs they would play and lacked any features beyond bare-bones playback. But these products have matured quickly, and after seeing Sonicblue's Rio Volt, we're ready to say that MP3 CD players have arrived. Aside from an awkward carrying case, we were hard-pressed to find anything wrong with this player. Best of breed To put this device through its paces, we burned a number of test CDs, which included MP3s and WMA files with a wide range of bit rates. We used CD-Rs, CD-RWs, discs with everything in one root directory, discs with songs organized in folders, and a number of different burning preferences within the included Easy CD Creator Standard 4 (for PC) and SoundJam (for Macintosh) software packages. Much to our surprise, the Rio Volt handled every disc that we threw at it with aplomb. It's also only the second MP3 CD player we've seen that reads ID3 tags (the Pine Technology D'music SM-200C being the first). Without ID3 tags, you have to plod through 150 songs on each CD using only track numbers as a guide, so we consider them a necessity. It's also the only such player to play WMA files as well as MP3s and audio CDs. But there were many other reasons to be impressed by this newcomer. The +10 button, which lets you jump ahead ten songs, makes navigating more than a hundred songs much easier. You can also group your songs in folders, since the Volt lets you navigate within directories, unlike the other players that we've seen. A Shuffle mode lets you skip around between all the songs on the CD-R, while the A-B mode is useful for looping any section of audio. We were as impressed by the player's form as we were by its function: The understated, rounded design is starkly modern compared to those of other portable MP3 CD players, which often look like prototypes. Skip the skipping The Volt collects 120 seconds of audio from MP3/WMA discs and stores the sound for playback in a flash-memory buffer. When playing back standard audio CDs, you can choose between 10 and 40 seconds of antiskip protection (40 seconds consumes more power). While walking around with the device in a bag, we encountered an occasional delay when fast-forwarding between songs on an MP3/WMA CD. However, once the music started playing, skipping was not a problem. If we can single out one problem with the Volt, it would have to be the carrying case, which must be threaded through your belt if you want to attach it to your hip. (The player itself doesn't have a belt clip.) While the player is in the case, you can't tell which song is playing or whether the player is on or off, since there's no display on the remote control. But at $..., the Rio Volt has to be one of the best portable audio values around. Unless you really need a very small, light MP3 player for exercise or travel, multiformat CD players such as this one are the way to go, since they're cheaper and hold many more songs on a single CD. Some other players cost a little less than the Rio, but its ability to play every type of MP3/WMA CD-R and CD-RW that we burned definitely makes it your best bet.

Rating:
Summary: The Best. Period.
Review: I have no frame of reference, as I never used another MP3-CD player, but why should I? I bought this player after a LOT of research online, comparing it to the Philips Expanium, Pine (D'Music) players and others, and I came to the conclusion that this one is the best, without a doubt.
This player's ability to read ID3 tags is marvelous, as well as its ability to navigate through folders on the CD, including nested folders (not every player will do this). The Rio Volt has an internal Memory of 2MB, meaning 120 seconds of memory for 128kbps songs, which serves as 2 minutes (!) of anti-shock, a very useful feature, especially if your country has roads as bad as Israel. I took it on a bumpy train ride of 1 hour, and it skipped only once. I can't say that for my old cassette player!
With 15 hours of battery life, built-in equalizers, a remote control and easy navigation it is worth every penny.
It does come with earphones, but these aren't much. Get good ones yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Great So Far
Review: After just a short time with this, I'm really happy. The warnings about this skipping have proved untrue. I made sure I had the latest software update. I will say that I haven't done a lot of jumping around to test this, but I've carried it in a fanny pack while working around the house and shop. I did find that it is a little slow to rev up with MP3s, and so gave it only 4 of 5 stars. My TDK Mojo gave up the ghost after a couple years, and I chose this RioVolt as a replacement. If I get a couple years out of it, I'll be happy.

Rating:
Summary: My one and only portable audio solution
Review: I wanted a portable audio solution that would play my many cds and my (even more) many mp3s. After a little research, it looked like this was the hit. I haven't used it enough to kill the batteries, but I've prolly used it for over 10 hours so far. The actual piece of hardware feels very strong and compact, and is just about a big as a normal cd player. The screen is backlit so it's easy to read. There is an inline remote for the headphones (bad headphones, but I don't like earbuds anyway!). etc etc My only real concern when I first bought it was "How is it going to identify my mp3s?" You see, I don't use id3 tags, becuase I primarily store full albums on my computer. So each album has a directory, and in each is a filename - .mp3 It works well for me but I had seen nothing about using it w/o id3 tags. But, to my pleasure, the Rio simply identified each mp3 by its name. The whole system works beautfully. When playing mp3s, the cd doesn't spin after ~20 sec into the song, therefore is unskippable hehe. I've gotten it to skip when playing a normal cd on 10 sec skip protect by shaking the unit for 10 sec, but isn't that expected? :) I can't recommend this unit enough. I love it. I've been looking for something this capable and useful and easy to use for months. Good luck figuring out what to get... gimme an email if you have a question.

iocax

Rating:
Summary: Great Product - Highly suggest it . . . .
Review: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This unit really is a great deal at 169 dollars.

Good Stuff-

-You get AC Power supply, batteries, inline remote with headphones is very helpful, you can use it or not, it doesn't have propietary headphone plug like Sony units have had in the past, carry case (kind of cheap though), earbud headphones (you'll want to use your own), software

-Great to see display of all the songs and artists. Backlight is GREAT too, very useful

-Stores MP3/WMA music into a buffer, spins the CD up for about 20 seconds (starts the music quickly though) and then the CD shuts down. This gives 120 seconds of music that is stored in memory, then you'll see it spin up again to get the next portion of the song. No crackles, pops transitions at all, totally seamless. This is how they get the extended battery time too, CD is not always spun up for the MP3/WMA tracks

-EQ spices music up

-Navigation through files is very easy

-Ability to upgrade software in the unit by downloading update, burning to CD, then loading it in the player

-Sound, the most important thing, is great on the MP3/WMA files

Not so good-

-The unit plays CDs fine, but it has skipped while sitting on the table with the 40 second buffer turned on - bizarre

-Would like to have capability to make up my own EQ setting

-Dancing characters on the bottom of the LCD

-Case needs more padding and a window to see the LCD (Can't figure out how that got overlooked)

-Cheap earbud headphones

Bottom Line - I threw many different bit rates both MP3 and WMA at it and it worked perfectly, every one of the several hundred tracks I have played have worked. I shook the unit during the loading of the tracks and no skipping during the playback at all. I bought the unit as a MP3 player, I have several other portable CD players so the couple of times it has skipped while playing a regular CD isn't an issue for me. I am extremely pleased with this unit and would highly recommend it!

Rating:
Summary: Superior Value at Reasonable Price
Review: Before settling for Rio Volt I tried both Archos portable HD and player and Creative Nomad Jukebox. The value that Rio offers is incredibly superior to the above mentioned competitors for the following reasons: It can play on all types of CDs; music, CD-R, and CD-RW, which ads a lot of mojo for those people who like to have the option to change some of the files on a CD from time to time, instead of burning new ones. The quality of sound, a deal breaker for me, surpassed expectations. Rio has a preset equalizer to chose from several settings such as pop, jazz, concert, and extra bass...yeah baby. By comparison, Archos priced [a little higher], offers a [bad] sound quality and a volume at only half the power of the Rio Volt player. Nomad was not much better and despite its whopping 6GB of storage capacity it does not live up to sound quality expectations. The Rio also has a neat "remote", a tiny navigation device for track, volume, and equalizer, which makes it really convenient to operate while carrying this device around at your belt or in a bag. Rio has a neat design; slim and light and it is very maneuverable. It is powered by 2 batteries with a decent life expectancy as opposed to the Nomad rechargeable batteries that last for only 1.1 hours and require 6 hours of recharging. Last, but not least, Rio is priced at half the

Rating:
Summary: Stands to the test of time
Review: Bought in 2001, runs like it was brand new. Has stood up to running abuse & being dropped multiple times. Key point: Plays anything you throw @ it, cd, cd-r, vbr mp3, mp3 encoded to cd-rw...etc. Remote is worthless. Battery cover opens easily. Eats batteries (you should have some good rechargeables anyways). Excellent sound that can be tweaked w/ the equalizer. Button placement could be better as you can hit the stop or play button instead of FF/RW especially if inside your pocket.

Rating:
Summary: its ok
Review: It does everything it should although the volume is weak (hard to hear in NYC subway) and batteries run out fast.

Rating:
Summary: a great gadget - the best available
Review: I used this player for about two years. I would highly recommend it. Sound and support is great. The only problam: after using it well for a couple of years it mysteriously died. I am now using the 250 model but I bought the extended warranty.

Rating:
Summary: So far, so good
Review: I have had my player for over a year and so far there have been no problems. I always use it when I drive and it has played pretty smooth thus far.
I really love being able to make a CD with over a hundred songs. Works great for roadtrips. The little controller that comes with it is very convenient to use. Great player so far!

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