Customer Reviews

Memorex MPD8505CP Personal CD/MP3 Player with 45 Seconds of Anti-Skip Protection

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(50)
3 star:		(30)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

After using this CD/MP3 for over a week and reading some of the posts here regarding this player let me make some recommendations regarding using this playe, especially for people who are having problem with this player.

SUMMARIES OF THIS PLAYER PROS 1. Price it's an incredible price for what you get 2. Battery life - play at least 4-5 hours of MP3 with a pair Rechargeable Ni-MH batteries (not supplied by Memorex) 3. Read ID3 Tags and supports sub-directories 4. 45 second ESP shock protection 5. Reads CDR and CDRW 6. Acceptable sound quality 7. Read MP3 files up to 192 kbp (even though the manual says up to 128 kbp) 8. TRUE random file play

CONS 1. Awkard user interface 2. Even more awkard manual (I am ashamed of its English - Chinese is my first language too!) 3. No backlight 4. Resume doesn't work if the player powered down 5. Does not support 256 kbp files

MUST READ SECTION 1. If you are having problem with frequent clicks, skipping in the middle of playing, or skipping with MINIMUM shaking - return the player - it's defective. That's what happened to my first player. I returned it and get the second one which is a REVISED edition (if you flip the player over you will see a little sticker that says Suffix A which means it's a revised edition). Skipping while shaking is all eliminated and clicks/skips while playing is greatly reduced (though not 100% gone) 2. Thoroughly test your MP3 files on your computer first to make sure they don't contain pops and clicks. 3. Make sure you DO NOT use DIRECT CD to burn your MP3 disc - this has been mentioned before many times 4. EasyCD Creator is simply NOT a good program to use to burn MP3 because EasyCD only supports ISO-9660 Level 1 format which only supports 8 characters. Burn your disc with NERO 4.0 or NERO 5.0 which supports ISO-9660 LEVEL 2. Basically ISO9660 level 2 format supports file name longer than 8 characters. With ISO-9660 Level 2 my MPD8505CP displays the first 12 characters of the file name w/o any file name artifact associated with ISO-9660 level 1 + Joliet. This is the solution to file name problems people are having. 5. Currently I have not have experience with 700MB CDR or CDRW; once I test that I will post my thoughts

This player is excellent. By using CD format, this makes memory/playtime very affordable. This player supports ID3 tags, which makes searching great. It allows you to randomize MP3 playback as well as repeat within MP3 directory! I also like that it comes WITH the car adaptor as well as the home power adaptor-- it is ready to go right out of the box. They give you headphones to use with the headphone jack and have a separate line-out jack to connect to your existing stereo or even computer speakers. This product does not skip! ... .

I have been thinking about getting Phillips Expanium MP3-CD player (..) . Then I found this product from this website.I was just about to order when I saw an ad in the Sunday newspaper yesterday. ... at the Target Store. Not bad . So I bought one from there yesterday.

It comes with a car kit as well as AC adapter and headphone. When I got home, I inserted one of my MP3 disks. Sound was great but the player could not read all the files and it skips some files. I tried the other disks and did the same thing. Disappointed, I was ready to return it. But I stopped by Good Guys first and have them try my disks with their Phillips Expanium demo unit. Expanium did the same thing ! It could not read all the files (read only 91 MP3 files out of 190 files). So I thought hmmm.. maybe the disks not the players that make bad reading.

So I came back home without returning it. Instead of 10X speed burning, I tried slower 4X this time. Still same errors. Then I remembered someone saying some of those MP3-CD players do not work well if the MP3 disks are prepared with "Direct CD" software. So this time I used "Easy CD Creator Ver 3.5" with 10X speed. Hey !! All of a sudden, my problems were all gone. This unit read and played all the mp3 files. NEVER USE "DIRECT CD" SOFTWARE FOR THIS PLAYER !! It won't work.

It reads sub directories and can do file search, directory search, fast forward and reverse search. Random, repeat (within subdirectory or entire files), 10sec introduction for each song, program play. And it's very easy to use with those nice little buttons.

As I said, sound quality is good. Get a better headphone. It will be better. So far I have not tried with batteries. It says 4-7 hours. I connected the line out jack to my Sony Home Theater Receiver. Sound is great. I also tried it in the car. It just works great too.

I dropped it on the floor( not on purpose ) . The disk popped out. I put it back and no problem. I think even ... is still a good buy !

I would strongly recommend this product.

Bought it on Friday, January 26th, and loaded it up with 'used' alkaline batteries for the road trip back to Canada. Did not skip once. Used fully charged 1600 mah NiMH batteries on the 27th, and so far have had it play for 6 hours.

When I bought the unit, I was glad to see that I had the suffix A or revised unit, manufactured in October 2000. I was worried that I would have purchased the earlier model, which is purported to have severe skipping problems.

So far; a) flawlessly plays all of my old time radio shows (32 kbps encoding at 44Khz), b) flawlessly plays all of my personally encoded music CD's from 128-192 kbps. I've not tried encoding with VBR because I don't use that and believe that the unit might have trouble with it. It seems to have about a 95% + success rate when playing files downloaded from Napster. The files that choked were VBR or had other problems.

Before burning tracks, I check the integrity of the file with a program called MP3Utility (at least now I do). If a file has a problem, I re download it. It appears to read directories alphabetically and/or numerically, although I do not know which takes preference. I alphabetize my directories and number my songs/tracks.

A couple of interesting points; when using the 'previously used' alkaline batteries, I saw a low battery message appear on screen. Ignoring it, I did start to have skipping problems, which were cured by using the AC adapter.

For $99.99, the package included the player, an AC adapter, headphones, a cigarette lighter adapter, and a car cassette adapter. I'm happy with it, and would not hesitate recommending it.

If you buy it, I suggest using 1600 mah NiMH batteries, not burning with VBR, and numbering your songs (01 - filename, 02 - filename, and so on). Put whole albums into separate alphabetical directories. I use EZ CD Creator 4.02 and use ISO 9660 with long filenames as options.

Hope this helps.

Okay, After toasting nearly 10 discs, reading all the message boards, and trying many different writing modes and speeds, here's the way to geet around skipping problems:

1. Make sure your CD is written in ISO9660 format with 30-char long filenames as and option. 2. Make sure your CD writing mode is CD-ROM (Mode I)and NOT CDROM-XA mode (Mode II). 3. Use no greater than 128-bit MP3's.

The key is in the way your burn your CD, not the MP3 encoder you use.

That's it!

-gpg

Ok, I have been testing this over and over with CDRWs, and found a system that works fairly well. Well enough for me anyway. First off, let me point out some things. I *think* it only has enough memory for 200 songs. It WILL NOT recognize the rest. It may be that it only has enough memory for X number of characters in the filenames, thus when the limit is reached, the rest won't play. I'm not sure which. If this is true, it has come out to about 200 songs each time. The CD will have the rest on it, but it won't play them. To compensate for this, you can either: encode at a higher bitrate (don't exceed 192. You won't be able to fit any more of course, but you'll have better quality), or you can combine songs. If you are encoding your own albums, you can set it to encode more than one song in the same track. Remember, you won't have the ID3 tags for the second song. You might think that you'd be able to write in the ID3 tag "track 1 name/track 2 name," but it only displays 30 characters, including dashes and spaces. If you can fit it, good for you, but you won't be able to skip directly to that track of course. To scroll through the folders, stop the CD so it's at the "main screen" ("Welcome MP3") and then press the "display" button (second button on the left). You can then press the "+" and "-" to move through the folders. Pressing "display" again will move the cursor down to the song listings. You can scroll through the songs on each album this way (once you get to the end it will automatically go to the next album). Pressing display again will return to the main screen. Don't ask me about the "search" feature, I've heard it doesn't work, and even if it does, it's probably more trouble than it's worth.

WHEN ENCODING YOUR SONGS: For each album, artist, etc. make a folder. I have a folder for each band, and then folders for each of their albums inside those. Name the folder "1 AlbumName," "2 NextAlbumName," etc. Of course, if you have more than 9 albums for each artist, you'll want "01," "02," etc. This way, you can have your albums in the order you want them (it alphabetizes EVERYTHING). You will never see the band folders, but it will put them in the order you want them on the CD. Next, title your songs "01 SongTitle," "02 NextSongTitle," etc. Don't put dashes in between. You *can*, but when you are scrolling through songs/albums, it only displays the first SIX characters of the name. That is including the number (assuming you are doing it the way I am explaining). It ignores spaces, so it doesn't matter if you use them. When you are actually PLAYING the song, it displays artist, album, and song title. That is read off of the ID3 tags, so make SURE you have those correct. People have posted problems they have had, but I haven't had much trouble with it. I think it's a good price for an mp3 player. They are so new, you can't expect much better. The interface is annoying and confusing (and doesn't work very well), but right now at this price, you can't beat it. If you have any questions, comments, or info, email me at obscure-mind@excite.com

I've had mine for about a month now and this is what I've found. The sound quality is very good, especially with the bass boost on. Every MP3 CD I have burned so far, whether it be a collection of songs from Napster, personally burned albums to CD (using either Audio Catalyst or Music Match) or some mixture of both seem to have skips or pops in them. I have used 128kbs for my speed as suggested by most reviews on here. I have also tried burning in both joliet or ISO9660 with similar results using either Just Burn or Adaptec. I usually listen on the bus, so I thought that most of this was caused by movement, but I have heard the same types of things lying still listening in my bedroom. These MP3s play flawlessly on my PC. That said, for ..., you can't beat having 150 to 200 songs on one CD at a time, and it includes the car adapter. Battery life is acceptable, probably around 6 or 7 hours with alkaline and about 4 with new rechargable NiCad. Audio CDs play flawlessly, including audio copies. I am sure that the RIO is a better unit, but it is A LOT more money and for those of us on a tight budget, the Memorex is more than acceptable if you could but up with the pops and skips in just about each song (I can, many people can't).

Yes the mp3 decoding does help a lot. I've used at least 3 cds worth of tracks and have yet to use half the memory of a cd - meaning long playing times, so having a cd player that does run MP3's as well as it did was very nice. Plus, it doesn't drain batteries as fast as some players do, so you can continue to enjoy your large collection of music in one sitting without carrying around a spare sac of new batteries - just in case. But what did cut down on my playing it time was skipping. Sitting down or moving, new or old cd... skip or anti-skip protection it really does skip A LOT. After a while I get really aggrevated. So for the functionality it does very well... but for the quality, I'd have to say it's gotten me to the point of not wanting to put up with the constant skipping for the amount of Mp3s I have on there.

This thing has a quite good anti-skip protection (45 seconds) and is quite handy if you have a CD burner. Although you can't play MP3's without burning them on CD, it's still a great product. You don't see any equally priced Sony CD players that have MP3 ability or anywhere near as much anti-skip time. Even if you use a jack-hammer you don't get many skips.

This is a good buy!

I should have known when I bought a MP3/CD player from a manufacturer of audiocassettes for (dollar amount) it would be kinda chincy, well that's what it is. Don't get me wrong, for the price, you can't find a MP3/CD player that has more features and accessories, but don't expect quality workmanship. I bought the Memorex for a trip to Vegas so I could have music in my room while I was there and if it survived that, I would use it in the gym, so I was not expecting anything amazing. My biggest problems with this unit is that even sitting still it skips on the smallest smudge or scratch on your CD's. I do have to say that the ESP works well if the unit is being jolted but small imperfections on a CD can make it skip like a 10-year-old girl. One of my favorite things about the CD player is the title, artist and album listing on the screen. When you put a CD of MP3's in, the title and artist scroll on the screen. It's a little hard to read and it's not back lit, but what do ya want!?! It cost (dollar amount)!!! I also love the song title/artist search feature. When you have over 150 MP3's on a CD and you are looking for Viva Las Vegas at 3am after a hard day of drinks, gambling and drinking (did I mention drinking?), it's a little hard to remember track numbers, so this can be very handy. Memorex was also kind enough to include a car kit, cassette adaptor & cigarette lighter power adaptor (the power adaptor is HUGE, so watch out if your lighter is in a tight spot) and a home power plug. Everything a boy could want! So basically if you want a really cheap MP3/CP player that will last about six months this is the one for you, but if you are looking for one to last you a long time (year +) look elsewhere.