Philips EXP503 eXpanium Personal CD Player with CD-MP3 Playback and Car Kit

by Philips

Product Details

Product Manual [1.89mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 5 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches ; 8.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005ABEH
• Item model number: EXP50317
• Batteries: 2 AA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From Digital Living Today

Philips EXP50317 eXpanium Personal CD Player is one of the best personal CD/MP3 players on the market. Made by Philips, a leader in digital audio and video recording, the EXP503 supports pretty much any format you can burn onto a CD, CD-R, or CD-RW. In addition to ACC files (the standard CD encryption protocol) the EXP50317 supports a wide range of MP3 formats as well (32-320Kbps.) For those on the go, the EXP503 offers anti-shock for each of these formats, ranging from 45 seconds for CDs to 100 seconds on 128Kbps MP3s. Philips even throws in a free car kit to help you listen through your car stereo. But what makes the EXP503 so exceptional for a machine its size, is the LCD display which allows you to search through the tracks on a CD with clarity and ease. When you consider that a single MP3 CD can be easily encoded with more than 100 songs, the feature's necessity becomes abundantly clear. All in all, if you want your music with you in the car, at the gym, and on your hip when you're jogging uphill, the EXP50317 is the way to go.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent MP3-CD player, November 10, 2001

By 

"pyromanian" (Overland Park, KS USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philips EXP503 eXpanium Personal CD Player with CD-MP3 Playback and Car Kit (Electronics)

This is a well-designed, sturdy and versatile player. It can play MP3s encoded up to 320 KBPS (which was a major buying factor for me)
It has a relatively large, legible LCD display with good contrast and backlight. The headphones are OK if you like the in-the-ear design.

Display has three modes: album, filename and ID3 tag.
If you burn a CD with folders for individual artists (or styles) the album mode will display the name of the selected folder on your MP3 CD.
The filename mode will scroll the individual filenames but only the first 40 characters. I really like this feature since a lot of my MP3s do not have decent ID3 tag info and I was dreading the prospect of having to go in and update them all.
The ID3 tag mode is just what it implies but I found myself not using this feature at all since I can just look at the filenames instead.

I was impressed with the EXP50317's speed in reading and searching MP3 CDs; a friend of mine has an older Philips model which is a lot slower than this one. Also, I haven't experienced any skips or hangups during play or while changing tracks.

Sound quality of the player is very good for both CDs and MP3s and the car accesories make it a very nice addition to your car's stereo system. Plus now I can finally listen to all my MP3 while I'm driving.
The only thing I don't like about the EXP50317 is the fact that the control buttons have a chrome finish which makes fingerprints and smears on the buttons very visible. A matte finish for the buttons would've been better.
Overall, I think this is an exceptional player and, although it wasn't cheap, I'm glad I spent the extra money. It was worth it.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Philips Does it again, October 20, 2001

By 

Kevin F. Carbonneau (Colchester, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Philips EXP503 eXpanium Personal CD Player with CD-MP3 Playback and Car Kit (Electronics)

I've always liked the idea of an Mp3-CD player. I first bought one around 3 years ago back when the only modles were cheap no name brands, they played alright and were very durable but that was all to them. Then the market opened up and I bought a new Rio Volt... which broke the first two weeks I owned it. This verion made by Philips is much better then anything I've seen. The controls are easy to deal with, centering around a very nicely placed back-lit window that tells you the name of the tag of the song your playing (The real difference between this and the 300 modles). Another great feacher is the ablity to skip between folders in the CD, something I havn't seen in any player before the Expaniums. Before I played with Mp3-CD players I bought Philips CD diskmans and now that they have made a player that is up to snuff I finally don't have to resort to cheap noname player (or even worse, there more expensive cousins **Don't buy a Rio Volt**). This is a true Mp3-CD player, the difference is comparable to the first clunky diskmans for the early 90's to the sleek ones we have now. Thank you Philips.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! The one I have been waiting for..., December 6, 2001

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philips EXP503 eXpanium Personal CD Player with CD-MP3 Playback and Car Kit (Electronics)

When I first heard about MP3 CD players a year or two ago I knew that I had to have one. But as with all technology sometimes it's best to sit it out and wait for it to mature. Thank you Philips for the first grown-up player!

This thing is great. I am quite familiar with MP3 and I try to keep up on the latest technology and I must say that the one most important feature of this player - sound quality - is extremely excellent. All of my MP3s are "archive quality" (IMHO!) and the Philips does an admirable job of reproducing them. Most of my MP3s are variable bit rate, many with BRs ranging from 12 - 320, and I have had no problems there. Needless to say this was a big selling point for me. The ID3 feature (which recognizes artist & song info) is also excellent, as well as the interface, backlight, speed of song title recognition and startup, and included accessories. It is also very compact and light. About the only complaint I can come up with is that it does not include a case... personally I'd like to see a small case befitting this beautiful little player. Needless to say most of the CD player cases out there are bulky and ugly, so I had to create one out of a CD disc case. Ah well, one can dream...

As far as the color, as others have mentioned it is not black, but more of a purple color. However, I like it! Black is so... black. The purple is something of a pleasant change and has a nice iridescence to it.