Pros: Small and Stylish Design, Good Price, Easily Expandable, Long Battery Life
Cons: only 32MB memory
The Bottom Line: In summary, the RCA Kazoo! Player is at the forefront of inexpensive MP3 technology. If you are looking for a compact MP3 player, this is the one to buy.
aploeger's Full Review: RCA RD1000 Kazoo (32 MB) MP3 Player
From the same company that brought the world some of its first audio systems comes the world’s first small, cute, great-sounding, and inexpensive MP3 Player. The Kazoo! MP3 player is probably the best product I have purchased from RCA.
FEATURES
This MP3 player has some cool features. It comes standard with a USB cable, Xmusic headphones, and MusicMatch software. Also included is a transparent plastic sheath to protect it from damage, and a lanyard to tie around a loop on the back, so you can wear it around your neck.
The actual player is completely digital-- the volume, play, bass, stop, and every other button is electronic, not mechanical-- all you have to do to turn the volume up or down is press either the ( ) or (-) button; no scrolling required. Kazoo’s necessary buttons-- the play, stop, forward, and back buttons-- are located on the front, conveniently under the LCD display, which allows easy access without having to fumble to try to find the buttons.
The actual sound is awesome. I couldn’t believe that this little MP3 player produced a better sound than my $500 CD player. The Xmusic headphones that are included are good, but hardly express the sound as well as my Phillips headphones-- but the Xmusic headphones do the job, and quite well.
The Kazoo is also great-looking, with its small and compact design, its pseudo-chrome buttons with glow-in-the-dark borders, and its all-over “look at me!” appearance [A lot of my friends think it is the coolest thing that I have ever bought].
SOFTWARE
The software which is provided, Musicmatch, is very easy to install and use. The cool thing is that the software alone costs $30, but comes included free with the player. This version of Musicmatch is specifically tailored for the Kazoo player, with functions such as “Send to portable device” and “Create CD”. The software also has a function called “Watchfolders”, which scan the folders that you save your music into, in order to update your Music Library automatically. Also included for the bored-at-heart is a visualization editor, where you can edit your very own cool visualizations that correlate to the beat of the music.
TECHNICAL FEATURES
The technical features of the player are 32MB of memory [which basically means 32 minutes of songs], which is expandable with a compactmedia flash card [if you really want double the internal memory, which would be less expensive than purchasing a mediacard, RCA sells a higher-end model, the Kazoo 64MB-- for only about $25 more], a USB slot for downloading and uploading songs into your computer [I frequently use it as a traveler, to trade songs with my friends from their computers], the usual shuffle/repeat/repeat all functions, an option to calibrate which bass to use (DSP button) by selecting whether the music is Flat/Bass/Pop/Rock/Jazz. It comes with an LCD panel which displays Flat/Bass/Pop/Rock/Jazz, the track number, the minutes and seconds, remaining battery power, the sampling rate [number of samples taken of a particular signal per second] and the volume.
The best thing about this MP3 Player is that it gracefully incorporates two important features-- style with functionality. You get a lot of sound in a small space. It is easier to carry than a portable CD Player. It produces better sound than a Portable CD Player, Tape Player, etc., because it has no moving parts. It conserves the batteries more efficiently than my CD Player-- a quality that can only be matched by my walkman.
SUMMARY
To summarize, the Kazoo! 32MB MP3 Player is a great audio system. It is small, discreet, and within all of this produces some tremendous sound. It is hardly expensive, costing only $50-$65, and can be used for a variety of things, such as uploading songs to a different computer, or simply for the neophilic value of purchasing for the sole reason to have something to brag to your friends about. This is one mean little audio player.
32 MB flash memory for skip-free playback Plays MP3 audio format USB connection for fast downloads Additional memory slot for MMC cards Windows compat...More at Amazon Marketplace
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