Rating: 
Summary: Everything I Was Hoping For
Review: It's very important to do the (SP100 v2.10)firmware upgrade on the SP90. With it, the unit becomes a small miracle. Without, it's just another piece of electronic gadgetry that sort of works.I'm using "Easy CD-DA Extractor" (v 4.6.9, shareware) to create MP3 files from my CD's, using variable bitrate (VBR) with a maximum bitrate of 256. These files are 99% audibly indistinguishable from the originals. I'm burning onto Imation 12x CD-R's on a Sony CRX 140E with Nero 5.0.4.4. This yields roughly 8-hour CDs which the Rio handles without a hiccup. No trouble reading the VBR files, no problems with the high bitrate. The disc spins up and loads the first song, during which there's a few seconds' delay while the memory buffer fills up. After that, the unit plays flawlessly and without pause or hesitation. It's easy to navigate through folders and choose to play that folder, a particular song in the folder, or just randomly shuffle through the folder or even through every song in every folder on the disc. In all of these modes there's no delay or glitching between songs. The sound quality is excellent, using my own headphones. (The included earbuds are not really worth unwrapping.) Sufficient level, user-programmable EQ curves (along with a variety of pre-sets), no audible residual noise. This is what I was hoping for from the player, and I'm well pleased. It's not often you get what you wish for and it turns out to be even better than you expected.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Unit for the Price
Review: I bought this player 3 days ago, and it worked incredibly well right off the shelf. I rip with CDex and burn with Nero and have not experienced a single problem. The one downfall with this unit is that it does not come with an AC adapter.
Rating: 
Summary: Headache
Review: I can only get the RioVolt SP90 to work one out of three times for my CD-RW filled with MP3's, otherwise it says 'No Disc'. When it does work, I timed a large 10-15 second gap between songs which is absolutely annoying. Audio CD performace is also nothing to brag about. I am disappointed in the SP90's performance and in a word I would describe it as flaky.
Rating: 
Summary: I must have a bad unit -- "skips" constantly
Review: I read all the reviews I could on this little gadget and most of them were quite favorable. Mine would be, too, if it wasn't for one thing: when playing MP3s AND CDs, the thing "cuts" out constantly. I think many people describe this as skipping, but I think what is really going on is that the device is trying to read data into flash memory and is just running into some problem. I've tried burning CDs on different brands using different burners, and the result is always the same. Needless to say, it is very annoying to be in the middle of a song and have the music stop for up to 60 seconds, play again for a few seconds, and cut out again. This happens even when the player is sitting motionless on my desk. I've seen only a few other posts here and elsewhere where this same problem is described, so I'm guessing I got a bum player. I'll exchange it and hope the next one doesn't have this problem. If it weren't for this problem -- admittedly, a big one, because it makes the player virtually unusable -- I would agree that this is an excellent value.
Rating:
Summary: Please Read...
Review: This is a great idea, combining the ease of cd's (vs tapes) with mp3 technology (which is rapidly growing). There are a few major flaws with this cd player; 1) It CHEWS batteries (i cannot stress this enough) 2) The "anti-skip" doesn't work when the cd player is creating the buffer for the song you are playing. Therefor don't expect to be running with this (sometimes it even skips while it's in your hand.) 3) Takes FOREVER to load the "v1.00", sometimes even up to 2 minutes or more until you can actually listen to your music. 4) Doesn't get nearly loud enough, sometimes i find myself holding my hands over my ears to keep all the music by me. 5) "Sample rate 48" blocks some of my favorite songs, making me not be able to listen to them. 6) When listening to a 74/80 minute cd (not mp3 cd) the Cd Player doesn't create the buffer, so you cant jog or even walk with it. Aside from these flaws this is the best cd player ive ever owned (hands down) the new mp3 technology in portable devices is hitting the market at an incredible speed, i think that if Rio would slow down and take 2 more months to fix the flaws that are EXTREMELY obvious to everyone, this could be the best cd player of all time One last thing, here are all the unique features that i really enjoy; -Equalizer settings for "Ultra Bass"
-Folder style settings allow to skip around and find the song you want when you want it.
-"+10" allows you to skip through your LARGE mp3 collections on the cd(s).
-Ease of use and a beautiful system.
Rating:
Summary: Received ...[a few days] ago...
Review: First of all, I didn't need the firmware upgrade, but I did it anyway. When I just got it I played it with an adapter I had, had some problems with it, it would skip, stop playing, intermittant skipping, this was with a WMA Disc. I did burn at 4X. Then I played it in my car with the included batteries, it all went smoothly with the same WMA disc! Batteries lasted for about 10 hours, then I played it home with the adapter again, the WMA disc didn't skip anymore!!! I used navigate because that's where I had the most problems It turned out to be a gem. It reads ID3 in MP3 and WMA but I have yet to see it read titles from audio CD's. I'm still learning the advanced features in riohome.com. I want to create playlist's which I'm not sure how to use yet. Today I went out to buy a pair of Maxell Headphones to go with this to improve the sound from those tiny earbuds. Going to try program on my MP3 disc next. Overall I think this is a very good product so far, I'd recommend it to anyone who might not be able to afford the SP250 and another great thing is it's gone down in price since I ordered it....
Rating:
Summary: Good luck getting it to work
Review: I burned MP3s at 256 kbps, 128 kbps, j-stereo, stereo, I burned on Verbatims, Kensiko, and some unnamed CD-R brand. I tried burning MP3s by different bands. I used Nero, Adaptec, and MusicMatch to burn. This [player]would NOT play ANY MP3 CD I tried to make. My DVD player, which plays MP3s, could play them fine. My computer could play them fine. The product will play regular CDs, but not CDs with MP3s. The product contains minimal documentation, a small unfolding sheet of paper...Overall this product is a giant headache...
Rating:
Summary: The best I've owned!
Review: ...Although this is my first MP3-CD Player :) . I think that this is a very great product. I have read a few reviews where people don't like it at all, but I disagree with them. To make things a little easier for you, I will list some pros/cons of the SP-90 (keep in mind that I have upgraded it - I don't have any experience with the product's performance before upgrading):
Pros:
1. Great Audio CD and MP3-CD playback
2. Great folder-style user interface
3. Long battery life
4. Simple controls that get the job done great
5. Lineout jack
6. More bells and whistles than normal MP3-CD Players
7. Great included earbuds
...and many more! Cons (mostly small things - not many people would even care):
1. Little dancers on the screen. I need to say something about this - some people were saying that a new firmware upgrade could change this to a line of text, but the dancers are permanent displays on the screen. The most that could be done is probably stopping the dancers. 2. Loose battery cover, but it stays closed fine for me
3. The latch to open the lid is a little wobbly or loose
4. The instructions included aren't very detailed. Try going to [there website] for better ones. That is about it I guess. This is another great hit from Rio that I am going to love even more in the future! If you have questions about anything, including the upgrade...
Rating:
Summary: simply.......AMAZING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: I went to [local store] today and purchased this unit, RioVolt Sp-90, mainly due to its amazing price[money] with [money] mail-in rebate. Then I returned home and tested this unit with 167 songs burned into a CD-RW disc, and the result is outstanding & impressive!!! This player is skip-free(I banged the player a couple of times while it is playing to see it skips...not a single time!), fully functional, has killer sound-quality (almost the same quality as my computer speaker), aesthetically pleasing design, and comprehensive/self-explanatory controls. Some things I am upset about are that it does not include AC-Adapter, so I spent another [money] on a battery recharger. The loading time is relatively long, almost 15 seconds(I don't know about SP-90 version 1.00 firmware because I upgraded to SP-100 firmware immediately.), the switching time between songs while CD is not moving is kind of long, about 2-4 seconds..but when the CD is moving, it's only 1 second. However the excellent functionality of the player makes these cons look not as bad. Overall, I am very pleased to own this unit and it sure worths my [money](after rebate). I encourage anyone who's interested in buying MP3/CD player to buy this unit!
Rating:
Summary: Sp90, brilliant.
Review: This player is a great buy. the hack works perfectly, but even without it this player is perfectly functional. I am still a little confused about filenames and stuff though. I think this player has a limit of a certain amount of characters for filenames. Some players don't actually read long filenames, this one does though :). the directory option is Great, it makes everything so organised and much easier. the main features of 2.10 upgrade are, faster everything and more organised everything. You have to experiment writing stuff, i'm still not sure how the long filenames work, but i've only had it 2 days. ...The sound quality is great, the headphones that come with it are great, but i bought some koss plugs which should arrive within the next few days. the dancing men are a little annoying...but hey, its something to watch when ur bored...really really bored. This player is DEFINETLY worth the money, [price] is not much for such an advanced player.
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