Customer Reviews

Creative Labs TravelSound MP3 (1-Piece Portable Speaker with 32 MB Memory)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was looking for an active speaker system that would fit in my pants pocket and produce enough sound to practice dancing. I purchased 3 units to try - the Creative TravelSound MP3, the Sony SRS288 and the Panasonic RR-SPT70. After thorough testing, I've decided to keep the TravelSound and return the others. For me, the most important feature is that it fits well into my pants pocket and can connect to a sound source in my shirt pocket, such as my Palm Tungsten T3 (MP3 player) or Sony NetMD player. I rejected the Sony because it had a 16 inch cord, which was too short for pants with deep pockets. The others had 22 inch cords, which was adequate. I rejected the Panasonic because it was too long for my pants pocket when unfolded, and too fat when folded. The TravelSound fits into my pants pocket the best. Some other advantages of the TravelSound are (1) it doesn't have a grill over the speakers, which the others have. Hence, I can clean out grit that would get behind the grill of the other speakers. (2) At high volume the sound is less distorted that the Panasonic. (3) Although the MP3 player is a plus, it really needs an LCD screen. I control what I play using the Pocket Tunes MP3 player in my Palm, or from my MD player. Nevertheless, I still use the TravelSound's MP3 player for my favorites. One caviat, anyone planning to run the speakers from house current needs to be concerned about hum (reported by other reviewers). Since the TravelSound doesn't come with a power supply, to use house current, you should either get the power supply from Creative (sold separately), or get the Sony, which comes with a power supply that can be used world wide. If you buy a cheap power supply, it probably won't have enough filtering, and you'll get AC hum. The Sony has no hum when run from its power supply. I haven't tested Creative's power supply. With the TravelSound, I'm now a "walking boombox", and there is enough sound to fill a small room that allows several couples to dance along with us. This is a really great way to share music.

These are fantastic speakers. The quality of sound compared to the size is simply incredible, and I'm speaking as someone who once did Sonar in the Navy. I listen to it at the office with the speakers set up in front of the monitor (no problem) as it plays either direct from an attached MP3 player or from it's own memory. They are about the size of a campbells soup can but at 1 1/2 times the height, easy to travel with. The sound fidelity and reproduction is astonishing. It won't fill a room, but it will fill your face if you set it on your desk and just listen. Simply superb.

My only complaint is with the installation software. Very slow and confusing, I am a programmer but I messed it up. Don't accidentally plug the unit into your XP system before installation is finished and you have rebooted, you will never be able to read the player from your main user ID. I wound up making a special "MusicMan" ID, sharing my music files and rebuilding all my playlists just for the sake of copying music to the player.

The Creative Labs TravelSound MP3 has surprisingly good sound for such a little unit. It's a "palm-sized)" one-piece stereo speaker system, little larger than an eyeglass case (WxHxD 6" x 2" x 2.5") but the sound is nearly as good as a small boombox. This unit does a great job in smaller rooms but you'll be disappointed if you try to fill a large room with sound. You do lose most of the low end so the bass is a little anemic. But the mid-range and the high end are crisp and clean.

You can hook up your portable electronic audio equipment like your CD/MP3 player, portable DVD player, even your laptop computer but being able to download MP3/WMA files directly to the unit is a definite PLUS.

It is a little $$$ but it is still a good value. I recommend it to anyone who travels a lot but likes to have decent tunes in their hotel room.

Length:: 2:22 Mins

These speakers are the best value for the money, I mean 11 dollars for sound quality that rivals much larger speakers is a steal. These speakers have great sound quality (loaded with bass, treble and highs) they almost sound as if they have a sub woofer built in (you can hear deep bass even with rap). The speakers also get loud enough to entertain a small group of people and they have a surround sound button that you can activate to create virtual surround sound.

Pros: Cost, quality, sound,

Cons: weight, size, 32mb memory, smart card only expansion slot and batteries were not included.

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When these speakers arrived they were smaller than I was thinking. Fortunately the sound they output totally surprised me. The line-in allows you to play music from iPods, walkmans, anything with a headphonejack. I'm glad I bought the model with 32mb built in; I also puchased a cheap 128mb card that always remains in the speakers. While this isn't a ton of storage for songs, it's still comes in handy when you want to listen to your favorite songs and don't have a music source on hand.

If you are looking for speakers exclusively for the iPod there are other options out there, for around the same cost, which have a "dock" just for the ipod (iMotion series)

Overall I'm very pleased with this purchase and would recommend to others.

nearly indestructible speakers! Use battery, or (not supplied) a/c adapter. On batteries the device lasts a long time and is loud enough to fill an entire room. The included carry pouch is padded and does a wonderful job of protecting the speakers and the patch wire. I would recommend this to anyone who needs to add some volume to their laptop or mp3 player. The 32 megabytes of included memory is-nice? however, in today's day and age, not that useful; although, it is nice to have one or two songs loaded onto the speakers that you can play anywhere, anytime without hooking anything up to them. Overall, excellent product.

This speaker is small and lightweight. The sound is really impressive. It is great to use on your computer as well as use for travel.

A bit obsolete, yet tremendously useful gadget. Small, portable, expendable.
Sound is surprizing "big" given the size of the drivers.
Splendid add on to a good Mp3 or a laptop, but not to be seriously considered as a stand alone MP3 player; built in MP3 player lacks adequate controls, the built in 30 mb are just insignificant and the supported Smart Media memory cards are obsolete, large and hideously expensive (hence the four instead of five stars).
Battery life is good.
Shop around, you should be able to get one for about $20 (S/H included)

I love the design of this product I just wish they were a little louder.

I got this particular unit because of the embedded recorder and media reader. I have a voice recorder that I'm not crazy about because I dont love its proprietary file transfer software. With the TravelSound I thought, hey cool, I can stick in a memory card and have as much recording capacity as I want.

Not true -- you can't record to the card. Only to the 32meg of memory. So now instead of being able to pop the card and take my notes with me to some device that can generically read them, I have yet another device that I have to cable directly to my PC. I'd much rather leave the unit itself in my laptop bag and just stick the card in my pocket. The unit may be fairly small (though well over double the size of an ipod), but once you factor in the cables and such it's just a big inconvenience.

My sounds are apparently not going to be travelling with me the way I thought they would.