Rating: 
Summary: For the value, the best, period.
Review: I have had this for a week now. With a ($$$) rebate, this is absolutely the best you can get for under ($$$). The sound quality is good enough both via my home stereo amplifer/speaker and with the accompanied earphones. It plays every single brand CD-R and CD-RW media type that I have. It plays regular audio CDs and my mp3/wma data CDs without any problem -- doesn't skip on either kind CDs while I am jogging or driving in the car. I am so pleased with its ability to play all kinds of digital audio format that I have. For mp3, it played all my collections encoded from 32 kbps up to 192 kbps. For wmas, I tested with Microsoft wma 8 encoder with bitrate settings vary from 64 kbps to 160 kbps. This unit plays all of them with very good quality and I really doubt for normal entertainment you will ever need to encode outside the bitrate range that I tested. With the firmware upgrade which you can hack from its higher version sp100, it can now play m3u playlist, loading time is very quick and track transition is superb, plus, now you can have up to 40 volume level adjustments as opposed to 20 adjustments from open box. Even before the firmware upgrade, loading a full mp3 data CD only took 20 seconds for me, and track transition took 5 seconds, not bad at all for such an economy version. So far, I have played mixed audio CDs and mp3/wma data CDs for more than 10 hours and my two AA batteries are still in good shape. I use my old Panasonic cassette adapter to hook to my car audio, and it works great.
This said, I do have some complains about this unit:
1. As some users have pointed out, the battery door is quite loose.
2. It doesn't come with an AC adapter or car power adapter, and the size of its DC power plug is kinda stange that most AC adapters for other CD players won't fit, you will have to get a universal AC adapter with a set of different plug tips from (local store), which will cost you another ($$$).
3. The display screen has a little goofy looking figure dancing which occupies one line of text -- I really hope this can be turned off with their future firmware upgrade.All said, for ($$$) (after the rebate), this is the best value out there -- I don't see any other players in this price range that can play regual audio CDs, mp3, AND wma files. I have never written a review for anything but this unit really deserves an exception.
Rating:
Summary: Great product, well worth the money
Review: If you need the best bang for the buck in a MP3 CD Player, this one is the one you want to own! Excellent job playing MP3's. Doing the firmware hack makes it even better! Pros:
1. Great features for the price
2. No skipping while driving a car
3. Plays all my MP3's, including VBR (Variable Bitrate) MP3's flawlessly.
4. Sounds great.
5. Can upgrade the firmware unofficially. Cons:
1. Skips if battery level is too low, don't know if therre is anything SonicBlue could of done to prevent this (I suggest buying a car adapter for using it in the car and rechargable batteries if you want to be truly portable).
2. Didn't come with AC adapter or car adapter.
3. No officially supported firmware.
4. Included headphones stink, spend the money to get a nice pair, it does wonders.
5. Why is the highest volume setting still sound low? For those of you out there that want to make MP3's that sound so much better then all other MP3 programs out there (plus much much better then WMA files, don't believe Microsoft's FUD)...look around (or ask) about how to start making great quality MP3's. You'd be amazed how much better your MP3's sound.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost 2 years and still tickin!
Review: I bought this product from a local Best Buy after returning a couple of solid state mp3 players conked out on me. I was fed up with mp3 players, and decided to give this guy a shot: the ability to play mp3 CDs was appealing. I have had this product for almost 2 years, and take it to Gym often. The good thing is that I have dropped this sucker many times and it still works. It certainly seems durable, at least with my experience. The bad thing is this player is not motion friendly while skipping often. You can walk with it, even fast, but the minute you start running: skip, skip...Thus not very good on treadmills either. However, if you just want to read in coffee shop or stroll on the beach, this CD player works fine. The battery life is ok. Finally, I have noticed that ever so often (very rarely), the player has a tendency to keep spinning while not playing the song. However, I don't know if it is because I have dropped it one too many times or it's just a faulty CD (even though it happens has happened with more than one brand of CD's). All in all, this CD player is a decent product for its price, but it does have its faults.
Rating:
Summary: A no brainer. At 65 bucks it is worth every penny!
Review: My younger brother gave me a gift certificate for my birthday and I knew I wanted an mp3 player. This is a workhorse. The fist and most important thing I found out is that you need the correct CD ripping software. If you have a sound blaster 5.1 and are running windows 2000 or windows XP then download the Creative Play Center. Using that software will allow the mp3 player to display the ripped cd's title, artist, song and track number to be displayed in the LCD screen. Nice feature! The battery life is not 15 hrs as said but closer to 10 or 11. That was not important to me because I use it in the car when driving. I also purchased the KOSS car adapter kit and that elements the battery problem for me. The sound quality is excellent and the controls are laid out nicely. It is a light weight unit which is also nice. I do wish the LCD was backlit but for the price, who can really complain. It has had no skipping problems when driving on a bumpy road. I am very happy with the unit and think that the price is ridiculously low. It is a GREAT BARGAN! Buy one today, you will not be sorry.
Rating: 
Summary: Too hot=no play.
Review: I received this CD player as a hand-me-down from an older sibling, and, at that point, it was in seemingly perfect working order. Turns out, it was in perfect working order, but only some of the time. It skips more often than Michael Jackson gets a plastic surgery and will short out if it is too hot/cold wherever you are using it. Furthermore, I timed how long it takes to load a cd, when it was working, and it sometimes took over a minute and a half. The buttons are too sensitive and the equalizer settings are less than grand. Overall, a great paperweight, but not a good cd player.
Rating:
Summary: BY FAR the Most Amazing CD/MP3 Player for Less Than $100
Review: I truly have not seen anything better than the RioVolt SP90. And trust me, I've been researching these things for the past two weeks trying to find the best portable audio system for my needs. The SP90 has one of the coolest designs in the world. It has very nice features, including five EQ settings (Normal, Rock, Jazz, Classic, and Ultra Bass), all of which make a considerate impact with good headphones. It has a multitude of replay modes, and an easy to use Program function. The most important functions on all MP3 players are here too. Navigation lets you check out the songs without changing your current one, and the +10 button skips ahead 10 tracks, in case you need to go from song 100 to song 200. The sound quality is... average. Nothing too fancy. 20-20K Hz is pretty basic. I highly suggest buying anything from the Koss KSC or S/PortaPro headphone galleries. They're mucho powerful. Now, the bad. Really there are two types of bad when it comes to inexpensive electronics: the bad for the average man and the bad for those individuals like me who are technology driven. The bad for the average man: I honestly can't think of anything. It plays perfectly and has very nice features. Unfortunately, for those like me, there is a problem: the tracking system. Since the LCD screen sports the hilarious dancing dude at the bottom, it only permits two lines of text. (i.e.)
| |2 |5 |5| | | | | |0 |2 |:|3|0|
| |M|a|r|v|i|n| |G|a|y|e| | Notice how the track listing always starts with the artist first, and if the name is too long, the SP90 will need to take some time to scroll the name to show the track title. I personally like to put many songs by the same artist on one CD. My Progressive Rock CD has about 40 ELP songs, 30 Tull, 30 Yes, some Moody Blues, Gentle Giant, and Deep Purple, and if I want to groove to The Gnome and skip ahead to Lucky Man, I'll have to look through every ELP song until find it, or memorize the listing of 40 songs. The other problem with the navigation system is the lack of organizing your songs by Title, Artist, Genre, Year, Album, etc. Of course, this option comes with only very high-end CD/MP3 players, so I really wasn't expecting this from the SP90. But if you're the type of person who needs this option, look elsewere (I have a few recommendatinons for you guys at the bottom of this review). The Good:
- Supports MP3, WMA, Wav and CD files
- Supports ID3 tags
- Nice looks
- High quality sound and EQ settings
- Many features
- Big LCD screen
- Hilarious dancing guy The Bad:
- No real tracking system
- Takes a long time to load the CD and a few seconds to load individual songs The Final Deal: If you're looking for the best quality for the lowest price, there is NO OTHER OPTION. I can't state it clearer than that, for 60 bucks I don't even expect the thing to work. If you're looking for something a bit more advanced in the navigation system, you might want to invest a few extra dollars into the SONICblue RioVolt SP250 or an iRiver SlimX iMP-350.
Rating: 
Summary: Good deal at first....until it breaks
Review: I got this player about a year and a half ago, used it mainly for travelling at first, then around the apartment instead of stereo (nice especially when you want to listen privately or not wake up neighbors). BUT, after fairly light use during this time, it now doesn't work....most of the time I'll pop in an mp3 cd, and it will 'choke', and display will read "no disk" error message. Sadly, this appears to be a common problem with this model (search the net and rio forums). So, until it happens, it's a great player for the money...but be aware, it's NOT a long-lasting player...moderate usage will get you 12-18 months, I think, and heavy usage, mmmmaybe a year.....me, I'm replacing with a Sony ;) If you do buy one, batteries in mp3 mode last about 10 hours in my experience, and only a few hours for normal cd's (2-4hrs). I used NiMH rechargables with no problem. ALso, there is a 'hack' on the web where you can update the firmware of this model with a version 2.10 which gives you more options....intended for the SP-100, I think.
Rating:
Summary: good for about 3 months
Review: I got this mp3 player last christmas..... about 2 months later, the anti skip barely worked, it would wit perfectly still on a table and skip.... after another month of putting up with that it broke down completely and I just gave up at trying to fix it... now I'm getting a new mp3 cd player if your rich and can afford to replace it every 3 months then go ahead and buy it, it was great while it lasted
Rating: 
Summary: Somtime a change is better...
Review: I like my old CD player it was nice (way back then) but the new
RioVolt SP90 is good it has nice navigation system,good CD tracks
(just don't jack it in a car deck it will slow down), Not many like it some people do so pretty much it has the same standards as sony and panasonic so just go out and buy and see what i mean.
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy it
Review: Sound is bad (too much treble, too little everything else). Interface is annoying to use. MP3 and CDRW play back is horrible - it stutters non-stop. Regular audio CDs seem to work fine but the sound is pretty weak so ... punt. Waste of money.
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