Rating: 
Summary: is that true?
Review: .
Is that true about the track name not erasing the previous characters at the end of it? like that guy said in the other review???
Rating: 
Summary: Ah, if only...
Review: Before I complain about this unit's shortcomings, I'd like to point out what it has going for it. The Expanium 503 is like Marlon Brando -- "I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody!"This unit has GREAT sound quality. Rich, warm sound. The build quality of the unit is great, compared with others like the Rio Volt -- very sturdy. It supports AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) files, of which I made quite a few with the Psytel AAC encoder. AAC sounds FAR better than MP3, even at low (128-160) bitrates. I was really shocked and surprised. It's also a rather attractive unit -- nice deep burgandy color. Folder and file navigation is also very easy and intuitive. Now... what's wrong with it? Resume doesn't really work. With MP3 CD's, it only works if you turn it back on within about a minute of turning it off. And it does work -- it goes back to the precise spot in the song you left off at. However, if you turn it back on longer than a minute after, it starts back at the first song on the first album. With AAC-CD's, it goes back to the same song, but at 0:00. And after a minute it goes back to the first song on the first album. This is a fatal flaw, as far as I'm concerned. Between-track gaps: with AAC CD's, it's actually quite minimal, like 1 second or 2 between songs. With MP3 CD's, especially if you have 200+ songs, it can be as long as 5-8 seconds. Completely unacceptable, as far as I'm concerned. Seek times: with fewer than, say, 100 files, it's quite quick. After that, though, it can take forever to find certain folders. Filename display is very buggy. I rarely use ID3 tags on MP3's I make myself, so I've not seen the "overwrite" error that a lot of people talk about in their reviews. But the filename display is buggy as well -- let's say a track is called "01 - Five years.mp3": the Expanium will display "01 - Five years 3456789012345678901234567890". Even if you have, like the manual suggests, short filenames (even DOS 8.3 names!), it will still display the numbers. Not a big deal, but it does detract from the aesthetic appeal of the unit. In short: I think this unit has too many shortcomings to be recommended. I give it 3 stars simply because of its potential (AAC support) and the superb sound quality. Sonic Blue/iRiver: are you listening???
Rating:
Summary: Ah, if only...
Review: Before I complain about this unit's shortcomings, I'd like to point out what it has going for it. The Expanium 503 is like Marlon Brando -- "I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody!" This unit has GREAT sound quality. Rich, warm sound. The build quality of the unit is great, compared with others like the Rio Volt -- very sturdy. It supports AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) files, of which I made quite a few with the Psytel AAC encoder. AAC sounds FAR better than MP3, even at low (128-160) bitrates. I was really shocked and surprised. It's also a rather attractive unit -- nice deep burgandy color. Folder and file navigation is also very easy and intuitive. Now... what's wrong with it? Resume doesn't really work. With MP3 CD's, it only works if you turn it back on within about a minute of turning it off. And it does work -- it goes back to the precise spot in the song you left off at. However, if you turn it back on longer than a minute after, it starts back at the first song on the first album. With AAC-CD's, it goes back to the same song, but at 0:00. And after a minute it goes back to the first song on the first album. This is a fatal flaw, as far as I'm concerned. Between-track gaps: with AAC CD's, it's actually quite minimal, like 1 second or 2 between songs. With MP3 CD's, especially if you have 200+ songs, it can be as long as 5-8 seconds. Completely unacceptable, as far as I'm concerned. Seek times: with fewer than, say, 100 files, it's quite quick. After that, though, it can take forever to find certain folders. Filename display is very buggy. I rarely use ID3 tags on MP3's I make myself, so I've not seen the "overwrite" error that a lot of people talk about in their reviews. But the filename display is buggy as well -- let's say a track is called "01 - Five years.mp3": the Expanium will display "01 - Five years 3456789012345678901234567890". Even if you have, like the manual suggests, short filenames (even DOS 8.3 names!), it will still display the numbers. Not a big deal, but it does detract from the aesthetic appeal of the unit. In short: I think this unit has too many shortcomings to be recommended. I give it 3 stars simply because of its potential (AAC support) and the superb sound quality. Sonic Blue/iRiver: are you listening???
Rating: 
Summary: 'Nother one bit the dust
Review: Below is what I wrote BEFORE my Expanium finally died after very light use over 16 months or so. With CD-Rs or regular CDs, it would play for five seconds and then the power would go off. I tried it with both fresh batteries and the adapter, but no go. Fortunately, it was on extended warranty, so I got all my $ back, and ordered a Panasonic SL-CT700 (with an extended warranty, of course). I'll give it a review when it arrives... I turned to the Expanium 503 after having a Rio Volt 250 give out on me after a month of use. I'm happy with the Expanium, whose sound is better, and whose controls are much simpler and logical (though not having as many bells & whistles as the Rio Volt), but there are some problems. As you've read earlier, the MP3 labels get garbled in the readout window, but this is something I can live with. What's more serious is its erratic inability to recognize certain MP3 discs. The discs I've burned myself are sometimes played by the unit, but at other times it will grind away and the readout window will say only "DATA" and refuse to play. If this happened all the time, I'd blame my method of burning, but sometimes it fails and sometimes it plays the same disc perfectly, so I blame the unit. I intend to return it for another of the same model under my replacement contract. After my experience with this unit and with the Rio Volt, I strongly advise you to spring for the extra bucks and get an available maintenance/replacement contract with your retailer. Once bitten, twice shy. Twice bitten, very very cautious. This is relatively new technology, and there are going to be a lot of failures before some manufacturer finally gets it right. Good luck.
Rating: 
Summary: MP3's Freeze up??????????
Review: Considering the massive amounts of music i download daily, this unit has become something i can't live without. This is actually the second one I've had after sending the last one back because while playing longer sets it always freezes up about 26-27 minutes into the set. I just got this one a couple of days ago and guess what????? The player is freezing up once again. I've tried different media and I'm always playing mp3's with a high bit rate. Anyone else having similar problems or have suggestions to this annoying problem.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good MP-3 but NOT the best for Audiobooks!
Review: I bought this MP-3 player to use to listen to audiobooks that
are being transferred from tapes or CD's to this format. This
allows the publisher to put up to 14 tapes on one MP-3 recording.
When you use this player to listen to these audiobooks, there is
a slight hesitation between tracks even if it is in the middle of
a sentence. By a slight hesitation, I mean up to 3 seconds. Some
of these recording have as many as 70-80 tracks! So this can be
irritating! Obviously music isn't a problem as each song completes a track!
Rating:
Summary: Very Good MP-3 but NOT the best for Audiobooks!
Review: I bought this MP-3 player to use to listen to audiobooks that
are being transferred from tapes or CD's to this format. This
allows the publisher to put up to 14 tapes on one MP-3 recording.
When you use this player to listen to these audiobooks, there is
a slight hesitation between tracks even if it is in the middle of
a sentence. By a slight hesitation, I mean up to 3 seconds. Some
of these recording have as many as 70-80 tracks! So this can be
irritating! Obviously music isn't a problem as each song completes a track!
Rating:
Summary: All the way from Ireland
Review: I bought this player 2 weeks ago, I had spent alot of time looking a practically every player on the market and this one appealed the most. I couldn't get it in Ireland or Europe for that matter. So I ordered it from amazon, and got my friend to post it to Ireland. Its features are excellent.... the first thing I did was download an MP3 ripper and an ID3 Tag creator. All freeware. I ripped the entire collection of U2 Albums and put them onto 1 CD. When you run the player it tells you each album name and when the track is playing it displays the artist and track name on the screen, if they fit otherwise the track name.
The quality is average maybe slightly above, but I have heard better. They ship Philips headphones with it.... they are [bad] buy new ones. The only negatives:- headphones [bad], screen is hard to read in poor light (excellent in the dark and bright light) and the resume function doesn't work on Mp3 discs only CD's. Buy it its worth it!
Rating:
Summary: Great for OTR
Review: I bought this so I could listen to Old Time Radio shows on MP3 CDs. Thus far it has been able to recognize and play every different CD I tried. The sound quality is excellent. I only rated it 4 stars because there are several annoying shortcomings that quickly become apparent. Probably the biggest is the peculiar way the "resume" feature works. The problem is this feature only works when the power is on. So even though I have the car kit which lets the player run off the car's power, I still need to remember to stop play and then turn the unit off. Were I to simply turn the car off, the resume feature wouldn't work. The other big annoyance is with fast forward or reverse. They are simply too slow to be of much use.
Rating:
Summary: Great for OTR
Review: I bought this so I could listen to Old Time Radio shows on MP3 CDs. Thus far it has been able to recognize and play every different CD I tried. The sound quality is excellent. I only rated it 4 stars because there are several annoying shortcomings that quickly become apparent. Probably the biggest is the peculiar way the "resume" feature works. The problem is this feature only works when the power is on. So even though I have the car kit which lets the player run off the car's power, I still need to remember to stop play and then turn the unit off. Were I to simply turn the car off, the resume feature wouldn't work. The other big annoyance is with fast forward or reverse. They are simply too slow to be of much use.
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