Rio CD player-Great Product for a decent price
Written: Jun 02 '01
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Pros: Affordable, 150-170 songs on 1 CDR-RW, interesting conversation piece, fun to create your own CDs
Cons: Cheap feeling components, lack of documentation, annoying dancers on LCD.
The Bottom Line: Has its flaws but worth every penny in my eyes.
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| shazzam90's Full Review: Rio Volt SP100 Personal CD Player |
Having just purchased the Rio Volt for my girlfriend I figured it was interesting enough of a product to warrant an owner opinion. She decided it would be something she wanted when we were at new Macintosh retail store, we had seen one earlier at a Costco (Where we ended up getting it from). She thought it was a good idea since she had been using my Diamond Rio 300 but was disappointed by the limited amount of storage space for songs, 14 being the maximum. It was a refreshing idea that she would be able to store roughly 150-170 mp3 files on a CD, and subsequently play them via the Rio Volt player.
The retail price of the unit is $169.95 however they can be had online with discounts for roughly $120.00, however as I stated earlier we choose to take the “instant gratification” route and purchase it through a local warehouse club, namely Costco for 149.99.
The unit includes ear-bud earphones, a remote control, all the necessary software to burn CD’s so that they can play on the Rio (Adaptec EZ CD Creator 4), an AC adapter so that batteries are not put to waste, and two double A batteries. Along with all of the necessary documentation to get you started it is quite the complete package, more than what you get with most portable CD players.
The unit itself is what you would expect of a standard disc-man. It is silver and blue in color with the earphones matching in their color scheme. The plastic casing of the unit however is less than desirable, especially when compared with other disc men in the same price range. The plastic feels a little flimsy and the buttons a little weak. The Earphones and the Remote that are packaged with the unit are also quite substandard, earphones sound quality and levels are weak and the remote feels as if it is going to break. There is a large LCD display on the unit that indicated what track is playing and whom the artist is, however in the bottom portion of this display there are animations of rather annoying people dancing, something you have to see to fully understand. None the less nothing to warrant your not purchasing the unit, as this is a minor annoyance. The buttons all are quite effective in executing commands to the player, at least no more or less effective on other players.
In terms of software and documentation, the software package is quite complete however the documentation is lacking. Bundled with the unit you get some mp3 player software (Music Match I believe) as stated Earlier EZ CD Creator 4, and some other various applications. In regards to the documentation you receive a warranty package, and then a fold out sheet detailing each component included in the package and then basic operating instructions, no mention of how to upgrade the unit.
After using this unit for a day and noticing rather poor playback with “standard” audio CDs (Skipping and long seek/load times) I decided it was best to upgrade the firmware of the unit, the one we received was shipped with revision 1.5 firmware with the latest being 2.0. Upgrading the unit was quite simple, just download a file from Diamonds site, burn it onto the root of the CDR (I used an RW as not to waste the disc) and insert the disc, the player does the rest. Needless to say the upgrade was a major improvement, shorter seek/load times, much less skipping (none when MP3 CDs are used) and greater readability in terms of number of songs recognized on a Disc.
I was a little skeptical at first after reading a few not so nice reviews of it on her. However after her owning it, and my using it, I personally think that while it is not perfect it is much better than any other option out there, especially for the price that you can get one for. There is nothing better than only having to carry One or Two compact discs with you, having the ability to upgrade the firmware on any product to enhance performance, and getting a quality bundled product for a decent price. Regardless of it being a first generation product or not I think that one can not go wrong with purchasing the Rio Volt and I happily recommend them to all of my friends.
Good luck in your decision, IMHO this one is worth it.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 149.99
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Epinions.com ID:
shazzam90
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Location: Massachusetts
Reviews written: 15
Trusted by: 5 members
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