MitchellSmall's Full Review: Rio Volt SP250 Personal CD Player
I don’t have much experience to base my opinion on, but I have a hard time finding fault with the RioVolt SP250 CD Player. Previously, my experience with portable CD players was limited to the one I occasionally managed to pry away from my pre-teen daughter. I have a long distance bicycle event coming, so I decided I needed one of my own.
In addition to playing CDs, I did not want to give up the FM tuner my present venerable Walkman Sports offers. That immediately cut the selections down quite a bit. At present, only a handful of portable CD players offer a radio tuner. My selection was narrowed even farther by my desire to have a wide range of formats available, including compressed formats.
For openers, SonicBlue has produced a CD player supporting store bought audio CDs and copies produced on popular recordable disc formats. It also supports MP3 and WMA formatted tracks enabling you to pack multiple conventional discs onto a single CD. The SP250 has a built in FM tuner that allows up to 20 preset channels.
I’m still in the learning mode with his toy, so I’ll just highlight the big plusses I’ve discovered. In as few words as possible, reproduction quality is evident. I had thought digital music is digital music, so there should be no difference. Not so. The same CD played on my daughter’s player sounds good, no doubt about it, but it sounds great through the SP250, even when using the same headphones on both players. Conclusion: There are quality components inside. A set of rechargeable batteries are included, which is nice, but I’d still keep a set of AA batteries handy for a long weekend. The unit also came with an AC adapter / charger, a very nice plus as I intend to use this as a stationary personal player as well as a mobile music source. There is a remote control that you can clip in a convenient spot while the player is in a fanny pack or the provided carrying case. The remote allows access to all the functions provided on the surface mounted interface. Real sweet. Also a nice touch is the inclusion of two styles of headphones: earbuds and classic over the head style.
On the negative side, there are a few things that really irritate me, but in no way detract from the technical performance of the SP250. There is a carrying case included, but holds only the player. There is no place to store the remote or a set of headphones. Given a choice, I’d sacrifice the included rechargeable batteries for better designed case. Setting the FM tuner’s presets is a breeze… unfortunately, the directions don’t match the actual process. Once you realize it’s automatic, you get over it. If you’re buying a portable CD player, you’re not buying the tuner as a primary music source, so this is a minor quibble.
I have not opened the software that came bundled with the SP250, so I have no opinion of it. I’m using my existing CD burning software to create music CDs by copying existing CDs and creating my own mixes with either WMA or MP3 files. There are no apparent compatibility problems.
The last factor is the price. I consider this a very good price / performance ratio in that it appears to be very well made, it does provide excellent sound and the cost is in the upper mid range, but not really excessive. I saw a lot of units advertised that offered fewer technical features for more than the US$180 MSRP of the RioVolt 250. Nonetheless, I do consider the RioVolt SP250 to be slightly overpriced because of my complaints about the carrying case. Technically, I find it very hard to fault and I highly recommend it to portable audiophiles. Shop around for the best price you can find.
As a side issue, if you want to hear how good your recorded music can really sound, hook the SP250 up to a set of high end headphones, like the Bose QuietComfort Headset. You won’t believe it!
Addendum to my report (6/12/2002)
Over the weekend of 6/8 – 6/9/2002, I spent 150 miles on a bicycle with my SP250. All I can say is the trip reinforces my original posting. On the entire bike ride, over some of Pennsylvania and Ohio’s nastiest back roads, I did not have a single skip of any duration. The CD player resided in one of the compartments of my Camelback hydration system and I used the factory supplied EarBud type headphones. The playback quality through my headphones was acceptable for what I was doing, bicycling long distance, but was not the ultimate in quality many people demand. For what I was doing, however, it was indeed great. I listened to a mix of store bought audio CDs and WMA encoded compilations and had no problems during the entire weekend.
My complaints are the rechargeable batteries and the provided case. The rechargeable batteries did not last between one rest stop and the next, about 15 miles. I switched to a set of Lithium batteries and they lasted for the remainder of the tour and finally had to be replaced today, almost twelve hours of play after I first inserted them. What more need be said?
The trip also reinforced my complaint about the factory supplied case. I wish I had a single place to store the headphones, remote and the SP250 itself. I’d be wiling to feed the unit Lithium batteries in exchange for a better factory issued case for everything.
The OEM remote is good enough that I doubt I will want the optional remote featuring the track info display. Again, however, I’d trade the batteries for this optional feature, but I’d still want the improved case.
Overall, my rating stands as originally published. I hope this clarification helps some people in deciding on what features they really need or are willing to pay for.
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