Customer Reviews

RCA Lyra RD1072 256 MB Personal MP3 Player

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I bought my Lyra when my Ipod broke (which by the way I thought the Ipod broke way to easily. A 3 foot drop onto a carpeted floor and it was toast). So far, I like it a lot better than the Ipod, but I can imagine tastes would differ on that.

The advantage the Lyra has over the Ipod is that the controls are simple and easy to use. If you're working out, it's sometimes hard or annoying to move through a bunch of different screens to get to where you want to go. With the Lyra, you just push a couple buttons and you're on your way.

An Ipod obviously holds a lot more music than the lyra does, and is better at letting you organize it. The Lyra is not your device if you want to put your entire collection on it and have all your music availabe whenever you want. However, if you're like me and don't really want to spend the time recording hundred's of CD's to MP3 format, you aren't going to do this anyway.

The only reason I haven't given the Lyra 5 stars is because I've had a couple issues with it. I've had one episode of it not working for about 12 hours, and then suddenly working again. Twice I've had it freeze in the middle of a track, which is no big deal with music but sucks if you're in the middle of a 90 minute radio program because the scanning through a track feature is pretty slow.

Update Nov 2006: I've now had this MP3 player for two years, and it continues to work well. A woman I carpool with has had 5 different MP3 players which have all broken down in this time. I don't know if this speaks to the Lyra's quality so much as the low standards of MP3 players in general, but it does seem like a reason to look at this model, if in fact it's still available.

I bought a Kodak 512 SD card and had no problems. I wanted

more room and bought a Sandisk 1 gig and issues arose. The player froze, meaning you had to remove the battery. Otherwise, it's been excellent, good price, good sound, easy to use. I'd say the internal memory is very reliable, and don't exceed 512 for the card.

I know zip about MP3 players and all the jargon that goes with buying one...256 MB, 20 Gig, etc, you-know blah blah. But I really thought it would be cool to get one and I got surprised with one as a Father's Day gift. This Lyra is small and comfortable with its armband and unbelievably easy to use. I ripped about twenty songs in less than twenty minutes ("Rip" being a word I learned in the past week). The thing runs on ONE (1) AAA battery and has held up during some pretty vigorous exercise on my part. Downloading songs is easy too and it supports at least Wave and MP3 formats. The only draw backs that I could think of are that the ear plugs will fall out when you get too sweaty and if you have huge arms, you will not be able to use the arm band (It stretches, but is at the largest possible girth and just fits my arm). But, like I said it is quick and easy, even for someone who knows nothing about trying to research and buy one of these things.

It has eight buttons: 1.on, 2.off, 3.volume up, 4.volumne down, 5.Skip ahead, 6.Skip Back, 7.mode (to get it to repeat all songs, to randomly play, to continuously randomly play, or to just play straight through and stop), and 8.Sound setting (preset sound adjustments for type of music: Jazz, Rock, Flat, Bass)

You can easily drag and drop your favorite music into the player as it connects as an external drive and you just set up the order of your playlist by putting a number in front of the name of each song. (I have a feeling there is an easier way to set that up, but again I am just learning how to use this thing).

Bottom Line if you know of someone who is clueless but you think would enjoy an MP3 player, this is a GREAT one to buy.

The RCA Lyra is by far a great mp3 player.Especially if it is the first digital music player you ever owned.It is a well built model that can withstand a lot of force.In other words,you can take it any place and will not have to worry about it getting damaged.Just be careful replacing the battery;the battery cover,unfortunately,is kind of flimsy and could break easily if you're not careful.But farther than that minor flaw,it is WELL BUILT.Speaking of batteries,the Lyra has an excellent battery life;it will play for TWENTY hours on one triple A battery!Not bad at all.As far as storage capacity is concerned,the unit will store about seventy to eighty songs(wna files encoded at 128 bites).But it has a memory expansion slot so you can add as much memory as you want using SD or MMC memory cards.This a great feature that most mp3 flash players do not have.The sound that the Lyra produces is definately first rate and the "clip-on" headsets included with it make the overall music experiance even better.Futhermore the player is easy to set up and use.Transferring songs from the computer to the unit is quick and painless.On closing,if you are looking for a simple but yet high quality flash mp3 player that won't put a huge hole in your budget,the RCA Lyra is just what you've been looking for!

I purchased two of these, one for a friend who is a big music lover, and one for myself. We have now had the device for around 6 months and so far smooth sailing. Both devices are used at least an hour daily, and no problems whatsoever! We haven't had any freezing problems, but then again have kept the card at 512 or under, so that may be an issue some others are experiencing with higher memory.

Battery life really is as long as advertised, particularly with name brands (off brands are predictably shorter). The device is light, easy to handle, and comes with an armband (which I never cared for, not an armband person). Friend uses the armband daily at work to attach to belt, works great this way. Computer song transfer is a breeze - simply hook with the usb cord to the computer, and copy right into the folder that pops up. I do agree with the poster who said the cord is a bit too short.

So far I've thrown over 400 songs at it, and it's still going strong. The downsides are no display light - this is annoying at night or in low-light areas. Could be why the battery usage is a bit better than some others? I haven't had any problems with the rubber buttons deteriorating, although the battery holder is a bit flimsy. Friends already fell off (laborer who abuses it), while mine is still attached, but can get loose at times. The clip allows it to easily attach to a necklace or keychain. As with most MP3 players, the surface can get scratched.

With the price, this is a remarkable little MP3 player. We both love it! I would prefer seeing a color menu with the album cover, but won't upgrade until another one comes out that takes the same format media cards. Combined with the cost of the player, I've spent nearly 200 or over with the cards, and don't wish to just throw that away when this is working more than 'good.' If I find an MP3 player with a bigger screen and album option that takes the same cards and is reasonably priced, I may eat the player cost loss, but for now this is ideal!

After checking out dozens of MP3 players this one was great:

1. Price was under 100.

2. Can add space with SD cards!!!

3. Easy to use!

4. No feature creap... Who needs half the features most of them sell you! This is a small easy to use music player.

5. If you want more space than it + SD card (1Gig is 60 dollars). Get something bigger I just resync to get new music.. What a workout mate!

5. It's a RCA too no brand you haven't heard of.

I received this as a gift from my wife. My daughter checked out all the MP3 players and found that this one delivers the most bang for the buck. I transfered music from my computer to it with no problems at all. I was surprised by the ease and speed of the transfer. It holds 76 songs (depends on length, of course) without an additional memory card, which I'm looking for now. I'm very pleased with the sound quality! The clip-over-the-ears headphones took a while to get used to, but one can always get other headphones if they don't like these. It came with a carrying-case that you can wear on your arm (with an adjustable strap).

I highly recommend this MP3 player, especially if you have a lot of songs on your PC that you'd like to transfer, or copy.

I got the 256MB RCA Lyra, and I am extremely happy with it. The price is excellent and the features are basically what you would get with a portable CD or Tape player.

It's a little "cheap" feeling in that it's very light-weight. Besides dropping it, just watch for the battery compartment lid - it could break easily if you're rough with it. Other than that, it's excellent.

The low-down, as I saw it:

(1) Inexpensive, but does what you expect a basic MP3 player to do.

(2) Runs for 20 hours on one AAA battery

(3) Connects to computer with USB 2.0 - NO DRIVERS NECESSARY (unless you're still running Win95 or Win98)

(4) Plays MP3 with bitrates from 32k to 320k

(5) Plays WMA with bitrates from 48k to 160k

(6) Comes with headphones that sort of clip onto your ear (like wire-frame glasses)

(7) Comes with an arm-band strap, so you can strap it to your arm while running, etc.

(8) Unit has a little metal hole on top so that you can string it to something else if you want.

(9) Function buttons on left side of unit: (1) VOLUME UP, (2) VOLUME DOWN, (3) DSP, (4) MODE ; Function buttons on right side of unit: (1) ON/PLAY/PAUSE, (2) OFF, (3) Track Prev, (4) Track Next

(10) Limited LCD readout, but absolutely fine for my needs. When you turn it on, it displays the number of tracks in memory, then starts play track 1.

(11) VERY NICE FEATURE: SD-Card slot. For about $70 you can add a GIG more of memory. If your music is encoded at 128k, with an average of 40MB per album, this unit holds about 30 albums.

For what it is, I give it 5 stars!

// CHRIS

BUYER BEWARE!!!

I'm not the only one with this complaint. The Lyra keeps breaking, jamming up in the middle of playback and nothing will make it play except to remove the battery and put it back in. Which is no good when you're in the middle of your workout or your hands are busy. Then it may play for 30 seconds or 30 minutes before it jams up again. Usually about 3 songs, it seems.

I sent it back already once. The customer service line is NOT toll free and they take forever to answer it. They took a month to get me another one, and the second one came with the cheapest, worst headphones ever made. The first one had great headphones. Then the second Lyra broke just like the first one. I'm about to go buy a different brand. Customer service won't respond to my request for the better headphones I payed for. They didn't fix their product. And I will never buy another RCA product again.

I've had my Lyra for almost two years and have had a great experience with it. Aside from some minor issues-- freezed a few times during the middle of a track or two, and would shut-off on a few occasions-- it's great. I also had dropped it in the weight room and dislodged something inside. It rattles sometimes but still works like a champ. The 512mb SD flash card is more than enough space to put together a good mix to keep you jammin during a workout, and the battery life isn't too shabby for a single AAA. For the price it's limp peter, you can't beat it.