Best on the market... right now
Written: Apr 10 '01
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Pros: ID3 Tag, Upgradable, MP3/WMA/ASF, Cheap Storage, Durable, Easy navigation, Remote control, Backlit LCD Display
Cons: Wasted LCD Space, Only 2 line 12 character display
The Bottom Line: This is the best MP3 CD player avaliable today. It's ability to be upgraded may possibly make it the best for a long time.
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| jun123's Full Review: Rio Volt SP100 Personal CD Player |
I just got my Rio Volt the other day and it has yet to disappoint me. The Volt is an MP3 CD player that plays not only MP3s, but can also play WMA and ASF audio as well, off a CD. FYI, the Rio Volt is based on the same OEM of the IRiver MP3 player (www.iriver.com) and is a direct descendant of the AVC Soul MP3 Player (www.easybuy2000.com)
Media:
Standard MP3 players use smard media cards to store MP3 files on. These cards are quite expensive and don't hold nearly as much info as a 650MB CD-ROM. That's where the Volt comes in. It is able to play MP3s off a CD-R or CD-RW disc. I thoroughly tested this and got 100% success with CD-R and CD-RW discs. The volt also played multi-session discs and discs made with adaptec/roxio direct CD (with the latest firmware upgrade). I was able to fit 180 MP3s on a single disc, you would need to get ten 64MB smart cards to get that much on a standard flash player.
Remote Control:
The Volt also includes an 8-function remote control. Functions include: Play/Pause, Next/FF, Back/REW, Stop, Equalizer, Volume +, Volume -, and Hold. Holding the play button will also turn the unit on, as holding the stop button will turn it off.
The remote is a nice to have while the player is in the included carrying case. However, it could have been made better as it feels a little cheap. Overall, it gets the job done and does it great.
Earphones:
The "high quality earphones" that they include are anything but high quality; that is no surprise. The lack of low frequency and flood of treble is more than annoying. Like most reviewers recommend, go out and get a pair of good 3rd party cans.
ESP:
The Volt features a switch that lets you toggle between 40 and 10-second anti-skip. Of course 40 uses more battery life. This setting only effects regular CD play and not MP3/WMA/ASF, which has a locked 120-second anti-skip.
I've read reviews on other sites that say the Volt has poor ESP and skips a tremendous amount when in a position other than horizontal. I really think that their testing has been with normal audio CDs as I have not experienced one instance of skipping in any position while playing an MP3 CD (the main purpose of this player.) I have had some skipping with normal audio CDs in the vertical position. Using an MP3 CD, I shook the player for 3 minutes in both positions and another 3 minutes alternating positions and received no skipping. With a normal audio CD skipping occurred (on the 40sec setting) within 40 seconds in the horizontal position and within 30 seconds in the vertical position.
File Navigation and features:
Navigating the volt is simple and straightforward. Pressing the "Navi" button will toggle you into the current folder you are in, the "play" button will scroll up the list, the "stop" button will scroll down, the "next/ff" button will make your selection. This system is very effective and is only hampered by the LCD screen, which will be covered later in the review.
There are 5 different audio presets: Normal, Rock, Jazz, Classic, and Ultra Bass. The settings aren't anything special, jazz exaggerates the treble, ultra exaggerates the bass, classical sound drowned out. Rock and normal are probably the most balanced settings to use, IMO.
The mode button gives you the option to repeat one song, repeat all songs, repeat all songs in a directory, shuffle all songs, or shuffle all songs in a directory. Simple.
A +10 button allows you to skip forward 10 songs. While in shuffle mode, it skips 10 songs on it's randomly created playlist. Elementary.
The program button is a little trickier. While the player is stopped, you press this button and use the ff, rew, and +10 buttons to scroll through tracks, you press the prog button to add them to your playlist. This process is very time consuming for larger playlists. A little tricky, but not exactly rocket science.
Power/Battery Life:
Included with the player were 2 AA Duracell batteries. After about 13 hours 28 minutes of continuous play, they were dead - not quite the 15 hours advertised. I would assume that more searching and track skipping would make the battery life considerably shorter as the disc would have to spin more. However, 13 hours is pretty impressive, not the best for CD players, but very good for an MP3 CD player as most players I have used have barely made 10 hours on fresh batteries. The unit also includes a 4.5v AC adapter.
To warn you of low battery life, the player flashes and indicator on the top right of the LCD screen. A battery with one zero means your battery is dying. A battery with two zeros means it's running on reserve. A battery with three zeroes means "go buy some new cells, you cheapskate" - hehe.
LCD:
The liquid crystal display on the volt is a 2 line, 12-character backlit display. While the display is large, it doesn't display many characters at a time and requires most ID3 tags and filenames to scroll. This is only a problem in file navigation when your files are named "artist - song title.mp3." Since the file navigation uses filenames, you have to wait for the name to scroll across to see what song it is - not fun. A solution to this would be to rename songs in reverse i.e. "song title - artist.mp3" and place them in folders with the artist name.
Above the character display are the indicator symbols that tell you if there is a disc present, what mode you are in, if your buttons are on hold, and if your battery is low. Below the character display is some of the most useless stuff I've ever seen. - I won't even mention what it specifically is because it just doesn't deserve to be discussed.
Firmware:
What really sets the Volt apart from other MP3 CD players is the ability to upgrade firmware. My player shipped with version 1.09f, but by upgrading it to 1.12f I gave my player the ability to Resume, to detect up to 999 files (previously 255), to toggle extensions and ID3 tags on and off, Back light options, and increase track scanning speed.
The process of upgrading is also very simple. Download the upgrade file from Sonicblue's website, burn it on to a CD, put it into your Volt and press play. You can access the features buy holding the EQ button and navigating through them by using the next, back, play and stop buttons.
Firmware upgrades are also beneficial if or when MP3 is replaced by a more efficient audio format **cough** AAC **cough**
Note: The Volt and IRiver can use each other's firmware, but neither can use the AVC Soul's firmware.
The Player:
The Volt itself is not too big, but it is fairly larger than most average CD players are.
Though it doesn't feel like it, the Volt is pretty durable, I’ve dropped it a few times (on accident and on purpose) on to a thinly carpeted floor from a approximately 3.5 feet high and no damage or broken off parts (didn't skip either).
The design consists of a dominating flashy metallic silver base and face with deep blue accents. The button layout is decent and gets the job done.
Three ports on the side of the player are the headphone/remote jack, ac adapter jack, and a semi-variable lineout jack.
On the underside of the unit is the holder for the two AA batteries the player requires to operate when not using the ac adapter. The ESP switch to set the anti-skip for audio CDs is also on the bottom.
Overall, this is the best MP3 player on the market right now. I would choose the Volt over the IRiver simply because Sonicblue's product support is tried and true (their customer support could use some improvement, however.)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 169
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Epinions.com ID:
jun123
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Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 1 member
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