Customer Reviews

RCA Lyra 128 MB MP3 Player

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

The RCA Lyra 128MB for [this price] is an incredible deal.

Here are my experiences with the four different MP3 players that I have owned:

Rio 64MB:
Not enough memory
Terrible Earphones
LCD Froze when snowboarding
No armband
Clunky controls and PC interface

Nike/Phillips 128MB:
USB Drivers wouldn't load on WIN98 SE PC
Impossible Technical Support
Terrible instruction manual
No expansion slot?
I never got to play with it but being rechargeable sounded cool

RCA Lyra 1080 128MB [Blue Unit]:
Belt clip is a joke
Personally, I don't need an FM tuner
Clunky Controls
Great headphones

RCA Lyra 128MB:
Great armband
Small, light, compact design
Simple controls
Windows based drag and drop loading or Musicmatch software
Good headphones
Simple 'Key Lock' mechanism
Great Price

My Rio 500 kicked the bucket recently, and I was in the market for a new MP3 player. For me, I wanted the smallest MP3 player with the largest memory, and also an ability to expand the memory.

I selected the RCA Lyra 128mb player because it looked like a perfect match to what I wanted. I just got it, and I am totally AMAZED by this player.

The Lyra measures about 2" x 2" x 0.75". It is incredibly light, even with the single AAA battery inside. The AAA will supposedly last about 10 hours of playing. The buttons are very nicely placed, with the volume set as up/down buttons on the side. The earphones that come with the unit are suprisingly good in terms of sound quality.

The front screen has a very large LCD screen that displays the filename and time elapsed.

I use Windows XP Home Edition, and literally just plugged the USB cable in, and XP did the rest. It saw the RCA Lyra as a 128 meg removeable drive! I simply dragged and dropped my favorite tunes into the RCA Lyra with Windows Explorer, and that's all I had to do. I was blown away by the ease to transfer the music files! The player does come with Music Match manager, but if you use XP, you won't even need it.

As if that wasn't good enough, the Lyra comes with a DSP button on the top, which lets you adjust the sound of the music. The possible settings are: flat, bass, pop, rock, and jazz. The sound quality is crystal clear also on this player.

The Lyra accepts SD memory cards, meaning you can pop in a 256mb card, to get a whopping total of 384 megs of storage space.

For this price, this player is an absolute steal! This is absolutely one of the best purchases I've ever made.

I didn't think I'd need a new dedicated MP3 player since I already have a few Pocket PCs, but as I took up jogging, I needed something small and wearable. Then one day I saw a guy jogging with the Lyra, so I said what the heck, it was on sale at CC, so I bought it. What a good decision! The French designed Chinese made MP3 player has very good sound, which is probably the most important thing with an MP3 player. Of course, getting the files in is probably even more important, otherwise what's the point, right? Here I use it with my Fujitsu laptop running XP. I used Windows Media Player to load the internal 128MB with almost 3 hours of my all-time favorites (some in WMA and others in MP3), then I bought a Panasonic 256MB SD card which I'll use to store music that I'll change often. I haven't tried any MP3Pro files, since I don't have any encoded in that format, but with WMA you can save 50% in storage vs. MP3 and get the same quality music. I just don't want to convert my MP3s to WMAs, plus storage is cheap. But it's good to have a player so versatile and having such good sound. I also like the buttons "last" and "next"; finally the French are doing something that makes sense! Like I said, it's made in China, so don't expect the Japanese kind of high-tech finish, but the player seems durable enough for my newly started jogging career. Best of all, as many others have pointed out, a totally great price for an expandable MP3 player.

I've been using it for 2 months, and am VERY pleased. The player installed flawlessly with my XP Professional systems, and the Music Match software works OK, but has some bugs. I'm using MusicMatch 7.5, the newer versions might be a little better, but haven't tried them. Some of the other critisims -- such as played songs out of sequence is due to the music match. The trick is create a playlist, save, send and then do not reorder the tracks, or the songs may play out of order.
The only weak part of the unit is the headphones, but decent headphones cost $20. I like the Panasonic RP-HS40. I havent't use the SD cards much (I use them for my digital camer, and pocket PC) because I heard they suck up the battery. With the install 128MB memory I've been getting the full 15 hours.
Use the MP3 Pro as opposed to the MP3 format. At 96kbps it sounds great!

Bought this product for similar reasons that other reviewers did - I needed a replacement for my cassette Sportswalkman. I opted for an MP3 player as I've ripped most of my CDs onto my laptop. The Lyra was the smallest player available and the price was competitive with other products. The salesperson also mentioned that RCA manufactures RIOs, so I felt confident that they'd also provide a good product under their own brand. I've Win2K, so I installed the respective software and was listening to music in short time. It also plays MP3Pro files, which are smaller than MP3 files.

Biggest problem I ran across is that the unit plays songs in alphabetic order, which was unacceptable. I re-read all the included documentation, then Mucicmatch's documentation, then the website's for both RCA and Musicmatch...no solution. I contacted RCA and received little support. After 5 business days, they gave me a number for their tech support, which I didn't follow up on.

That said, after toying with it for a few days, I discovered that you can simply number your tracks, i.e. before track name, append with 01, 02....10, 11, etc and the unit will play in increasing order. Musicmatch will automatically number tracks when you rip them; look under RECORDER/OPTIONS/TRACKS DIRECTORY. Further, if you have many albums on your Lyra, then the best thing to do is to create multiple directories, and number each in the same way, 01, 02, etc.

I upgraded to the RCA Lyra 128 from my old Rio 600. I'd had problems with the Rio breaking down (and also SHOCKING ME IN THE EAR!), and the reviews of the equivalent 128 mb Rio (the Rio S50) complained of the same problem (the breakdowns, not the ear shocking). So I switched to RCA.

Though it doesn't sport the huge capacity of pricier players, the Lyra is perfect for casual listeners, students, or bargain hunters. I did a lot of research on similar mid-range mp3 players before purchasing this one, and this and the Rio S50 were the only ones at this price range that got such positive reviews.

The RCA Lyra has a wonderfully compact and lightweight design. The interface is simple and user-friendly: the buttons are all in good locations, the feel of the player is good (in your hand, pocket, or in the armband), and operating it is about as simple as operating a discman. It's pretty no-frills, and I like it that way.

Obtaining tracks for the player is a bit tedious. Though it is easy to drag and drop tracks without compressing them (using MusicMatch or Windows Media Player), with only 128 mb of memory this will only get you around 2 hrs of play. Compressing files into wma format on Windows Media Player is more efficient, but takes time to master. I consider myself pretty computer-savvy but it took me a good hour to get the latest version of Windows Media Player, upload all my tracks, and then toggle the level of compression. Also, compressing the files takes time - about 20 minutes from computer to player. If you want radio-quality sound, you can compress the files all the way down to 32 kbps and cram in around 8 hrs of songs. I settled for 64 kbps and get 4 hrs of songs, and now it doesn't sound like silverware in the garbage disposal.

There are some minor annoyances to this player that weren't an issue with my old Rio (or the Rio S50). 1) the Lyra screen is not backlit, so it's harder to see at night or in the dark. 2) the LCD display doesn't scroll, so I never get to see the full title of my songs or the artists' names. 3) as a compromise for its tiny size the player runs on a single AAA battery, which is admittedly less convenient than the single AA that a Rio runs on. However, the thing is so lightweight and well-designed I can't stay mad at it for long.

Of the mid-range mp3 players, this one's definitely a good bargain for a solid player. I'm loving it (and the lack of shocks to the ear).

I just got one of these things at WALMART today because I was really fed up with all of the annoying plastic CDRs scattered all over the floor in my room. You don't even need to install the software that comes along with the player if you have a place to burn the music like windows media player..just plug it into the USB port and you're good to go. Now back to the battery issue. This player requires one AAA battery. Sounds good eh? Nice and lightweight. One prob. It only runs for eight hours of happy music playing time. I would just reccomend buying some GOOD quality rechargable batteries to save money in the long run. Trust me. You'll need em. If you're used to making cds and have a huge hard drive, i would reccomend making lots of playlists. That way you can erase songs from the player and put songs on easier when you need them. What I really like about this thing is it will burn FAST. Like 7 min for 30 songs. You'll like this gadget.

I am using and enjoying this mp3 everyday when going to the gym.
it is a cool product for the price and the memory can be upgraded by memory card later, it lets you know what song is playing and you have alot of choices how you want your songs to be played. it is very light and comes with arm strap and i dont even feel I have it on durning workout. head phones are great too!

After looking ay many different types of MP3 and WMA players, I settled on the RCA Lyra 128MB model. I liked it small size, 128MB of internal memory (most other models only have 64MB), and the fact that it is expandable with SD/MMC cards. I would have preferred that the unit use Compact Flash cards, but that would have made the player larger. My other choice would have been the Ipod, but I did not feel like dropping [the money] for a MP3 player.

My main intention when I bought it was to use it for running and general listening. I have read several bad reviews regarding the included armband, but I was surprised on how nicely designed it actually was. The main criticism of the arm band was that it was too small to fit around the upper arm above the triceps. Now I am a very big guy with big muscular arms, and I have absolutely no problem using the arm band.

I encountered some difficulties trying to get the music into the player at first. Windows XP recognized right away without having me installing any drivers, but the copying and pasting of files to the player through the My Documents application did not work. The player keep scrolling through the songs and would not play any of them except for the annoying "Under the Sea" song that was included with the player. I then used Windows Media Player to move the files, and then the player worked without any problems.

I have been running with the player several times, and the only problem that I have encountered was once I could not get the player started. I would hit the play button, but that would only just cause it to pause. After a few minutes of frustratingly playing with it, I increased the volume and Whala! It started working normally again.

Overall, it has been a good player, but with a few quirks. I think that you will find that all of the MP3 players have their quirks.

The RCA Lyra is cute and compact. It also sounds good. Unlike those multi-functions buttons on other models, the Lyra has separate buttons for Stop/Play/Forward/Backward; so they are easy to operate. As it's been mentioned in many of the reviews before, the battery door feels quite flimsy. I worry that it may break off each time I changed the battery. Battery life is very good using NiMH rechargeable.

One important point: It's great that this player accepts SD card for extra memory, but there is an undocumented limitation: I'm referring to the 128MB model. While the player can read from a 1GB SD card, however, a maximum of 184 songs can be recognized. The PC sees the SD card as an additional drive and you can stuff the 1GB card full with songs, but only the first 184 can be played! Say your typical song is 3-4MB a piece, then effectively, any extra memory above 512MB is not usable. That's a shame.