The MPTrip was the only cd player/mp3 player available for Christmas 2000, which is why my brother got one for me. I tip my hat to them for being the first to market with this innovative product. However, today there are many better players.

The MPTrip, at around 80 bucks now, isn't a bad deal. It sounds ok, but no great (and I mean with CDs, not just MP3s.) I test all audio products with my Denon AH-D210 head phones. These are high quality head phones. If it sounds like crap on these head phones, then the player simply sounds like crap. I was able to get a decent sound with my denon head phones on one of the eq settings, but it still sounds like a cheap CD player.

MP3s. Well it plays them, and it even plays my MP3s encoded at variable bit rates. I was impressed. Although it plays them, the display had trouble dealing with the VBR mp3. Every second the track time jumps around as it constantly re-calculates the track time based on the bit rate for that second. The MP3s were encoded with Xing Audio Catalyst. Musicmatch encodes VBR a different way, I suspect it would handle VBR from music match much better. I can't test it since my MPTrip is now broken.

Reliability. My MP trip worked for 5 days. It was sitting on my desk at work. 5 days in a row I played a 5 hour MP3 cd straight through. The 6th day it just wouldn't read any CDs or CD-Rs. The laser moves around but can't find the cd. The MPTrip didn't move from it's location from when it was working to when it wasn't, so I didn't break it by jarring it or anything. Maybe I just got a bad one, but don't expect it to be rugged at all.

Over all, if you don't mind a cheap player, then this one isn't bad, but you can do better for a little more money.
I recently got a RIO Volt which is excellent and worth every penny. The RIO Volt cost about twice as much, but it's sound quality is very good.



Recommended: No