Price Paid:  $179.00 from Comp USA. I think

Summary:
Here in Brazil we don´t have money to spend $700 in a cable, or $5000 in a cd player, so the mp3 player is good and usefull... E uma ae pros brazuca q taum no site: gringo fede mto... gasta $13000 num cabo eh mta forga, tem gente que vive com 4X menos anualmente. Abraço ae pra todos :)

Strengths:
FirmWare, LCD, Navigation in the cd, 8min anti-shock, FM tuner

Weaknesses:
Load time a little slow. The battery gets can get flat at any time. equalization/Sound not to good

Similar Products Used:
KOSS Porta Pro Headphone. It makes a big diference

Price Paid:  $155.00 from www.dabs.com

Summary:
After deciding I wanted Mp3, I weighed up the pros and cons of solid state and mp3cd. The ability to have 150+ songs on one cd (which costs about 35 pence) is what swayed me, considering that you can get about 34 songs into 128 meg (which costs £60+). Then I had to decide what player to get. There are a lot now, and a few have decent features. I narrowed my choice down to 3. The Expanium (Philips), the Havas imported one, or the riovolt. The price and battery life made my mind up. Price being the dominating factor. The riovolt is outstanding value for money, and is possibly my best purchase of 2001. The backlit display is very useful when you listen to your player in low-light conditions. However, much better use of the LCD display could have been implemented. The 'dancing figures and beat detection' could have been replaced with an exta line of text, reducing the need for the scrolling ID3 tags. Updating the firmware makes navigation very easy, and finding a track takes next to no time. The EQ is actually quite useful, and the ultra bass setting has found a place close to my heart. The remote doesn't feel as flimsy as it has been made out to be, it is just very light. Some of it's functions can be altered in the set-up menus, so it's easy to use. Battery life compared to other mp3 cd players is superb, and beats the pants off my old cd player. Now for the not so good: Loading times are quite long on this unit. When you first switch the unit on, it has to search through the whole cd counting all of the tracks and loading their names into memory so that you can find them. This can take up to 30 seconds (depending on how clean/new the CD is) and is accompanied by some rather loud mechanical noise from the drive as it spins up and down etc. This noise becomes quite common as you listen to the player, as it happens just before the end of each track as it loads the next track into RAM. Skipping tracks and jumping to other tracks can also take a while, but isn't quite so bad with the latest firmware. It would also have been nice to have an LCD display on the remote like on the SP250 enhanced remote (which is incompatible with the SP100). These problems are only tiny compared to the mammoth good of the player. I love it to bits and I would recommend it to anyone who can't afford about 700mb worth of flash memory for their solid state player.

Strengths:
Decent anti-shock, Resume, backlit display, decent battery life.

Weaknesses:
Loud mechanical spin-up noises, track loading can be lengthy on older CDs, inefficient display

Similar Products Used:
Pine MP3CD player, D-Link MP3 CD player, samsung yepp mp3 player, various sony walkmans

Price Paid:  $137.00 from Local Audio Shop

Summary:
GOD PEOPLE ARE SUCH NITTPICKERS, I own a true audiophile home entertainment center (no sony..even ES , pioneer,etc..... aka Crap) so I know what music should sound like and for the price and capabilities, this mp3 player sounds GREAT especially after upgrading the headphones (Sennhieser Mx-500, chosen specifficaly for size) and compared to other solid state mp3 players sound quality I think anybody that can tell a difference has a vivid imagination (in my opinion). As far as skipping goes I am farely physical with it and I have yet to make it skip except for one song on one cd that was badly scratched. The display is pretty good but the scrolling ID3 Tags are a bit annoying, the eq is also prety good. Also I have read complaints about the build quality but compared to others I was impressed (especially with the headphone jackand heat plate under the lid).People have also mentioned problem with the volume but I have only experienced that with big headphones. While it is ofcourse not an audiophile product I would recommend it to anybody but remember to upgrade the firmware and get better headphones.

Strengths:
11+ Hours mp3 playback(at 128Kbps), ID3 Tag Support, backlit display, wired remote, many many more....

Weaknesses:
nothing worth mentioning

Similar Products Used:
Genica, Creative Nomad 2, Original Rio, Phillips Expanium

Summary:
This is about the first decent CD-MP3 player around. There were others before this, but I can't believe some of them didn't even display the track name???!!! How are you supposed to know which track is which out of 150+ songs?

I want to correct the bloke who said it doesn't read >128Kbps MP3s... IT DOES PLAY >128k MP3s!!! I have many at 320k, and also high-quality Variable Bitrate encoded ones, all are fine.
Also, are you guys kidding that you can't hear the compression with 128k files? Put a CD in your computer, and encode it at 192k and to a seperate file at 128k and listen on headphones, not computer speakers. It's VERY obvious. So don't minimize your listening pleasure, you'll enjoy everything a lot more if you use at least 160k, and not use much more space on your CDs.

This is now called a Volt100 or something. There is a 90, which appears to have less memory and no remote contro, and a 250, which had FM Radio, and possibly more memory.

Strengths:
everything... too long to list
Sound Quality, when plugged into my Sherwood DD amp and Yamaha NS-200 speakers. Or my £200 Sennheiser HD580 headphones
Build quality excellent everywhere, nice smooth solid flap mechanism, all except the remote control, where it's a bit iffy.

Weaknesses:
Sound output not that loud if using big headphones.
Sometimes I leave it playing and the batteries go flat... okay so that's not a weakness but it's all I could think of..!

Similar Products Used:
None

Price Paid:  $169.00

Summary:
The features this unit offers is quite apealing. The lock-switch allows you to pack this away in its carrying-pouch while listening, without worrying that a button may be pressed inadvertently. I set the unit for random-play, hit the lock button, throw it in my backpack and ride my bike without concern of it switching modes, or turning off, for example. This player consumes relatively little battery power in the MP3/WMA mode. The disc spins for about 15 seconds, feeding the one to two minute memory buffer and then shuts down. The length of time between spins depends on the bitrate used in the CD-R recording. I use Windows Media 96K to 128K with very good results. MP3 quality isn't quite as good with comparable bit-rates. The sound quality on the RioVolt is mediocre. You are alowed to adjust the bass and treble in user defined mode, but what this unit really lacks is a decent mid-range. Vocals often sound muffled and distant. Rio needs to update this shortcoming in future firmware updates. I use Koss KTX-Pro headphones ($20) and the volume is more than adequate. The control panel could be used more effectively; too much wasted space! The unit could be of more sturdy design, but the price would probably have to be increased considerably, since most of the money probably went into licensing the MP3 and Windows media software. Overall, not a bad device, and the sound quality may not be an issue to most people.

Strengths:
Many nice customizable features, long battery life, Windows Media compatible, Good price

Weaknesses:
Sound quality, display panel, durability

Similar Products Used:
1996 Magnavox portable CD player with DDB