Customer Reviews

RCA RD2201 Lyra 32 MB MP3 Player

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

After checking the prices and reviews of other manufacturers' MP3 players, I bought the RCA LYRA Model RD2201 Player a few days ago and believe that I have sufficient experience with it to share several thoughts that you will hopefully find helpful in your quest.

1.) I agree with virtually everything that is cited in the AMAZON.com review for the RCA LYRA RD2201 MP3 Player. Essentially, it is a thorough, objective, and accurate review. READ IT!

2.) Prices appear to be fluid-- effectively coming DOWN. The stores and the web cites are competing and running their specials. You can almost count on a price this week changing within the next week or two. This will make your choices harder if you are basing a significant part of your decision on price comparisons. Waiting for a "better deal" can be good, but there is such a thing as "waiting too long". Newer models are replacing those of today and are offering more features to confuse you!

You must be careful to compare "apples to apples". One of the biggest differences among players is the "amount" and "type" of memory. A player equipped with 64 MB will naturally cost more than one equipped with 8MB or 32MB. CompactFLASH or Smartmedia Cards serve as the storage media. Technically, there doesn't seem to be any discernable advantage of one media type over the other. However, there can be a price variation of about $10 between the two depending on where you buy them. In retail stores, the prices appear to be the same. However, SmartMedia Cards appear to cost a little less on internet sites-- possibly due to a growing preference for them. BOTTOM LINE-- the internet sites can save you $20 to $30 over retail store prices.

3.) There is a lot most of us will probably never understand or realize about "formatting" of the storage media that can cause disappointment when planning to use it with "other" products as well (i.e. Digital Camera, Multiple Media Reader/Writer, etc).

Each device seems to use its own format which makes the storage media incompatible with the other products. If you're lucky, you have two products that use the same format. How would you positively know until you try it? That's when the disappointment sets in! At least the RIO MP3 Player tells you this on their packaging if you know to look for it.

I believe that "formatting" will always be an issue since everyone is attempting to protect their technology or end-product. The music industry serves as a good example. As hard as it is to accept this fact, DON'T AGONIZE OVER IT!

4.) When comparing features of MP3 Players, remain REALISTIC about your needs and intended uses. It is easy to "try" to make the product do more than it is intended to do.

Until music is sold as less expensive CompactFLASH and SmartMedia Cards presumably compatible with your MP3 Player of choice, remember that the MP3 Player is not supposed to give you all sorts of versatility for hours of music listening pleasure and variety at a low cost through a simple change of the storage media. If this is what you want, then you should buy a compact Disc Player/Recorder!

The MP3 Player provides you with a portable, lightweight product that contains NO MOVING PARTS and needs minimal accessories (if any). This makes the product more reliable and offers SKIP-FREE music listening pleasure-- great for active people. It serves as a good stop-gap product to occupy your time while using public/commercial transportation or during lunch break. It is not necessarily practical for that long vacation automobile drive where you will have to listen to the same music over and over again until you can get to your computer and change the song list. If economy is not a priority, you could purchase multiple 64MB CompactFLASH Cards to take with you for easy changeout. IF YOU DO THIS, I SHOULD INVEST IN THE COMPANY'S STOCK!

5.) The MP3 Player should not be expected to be all things to all people. I suppose that a RADIO function or a VOICE RECORDER function would be useful-- neither of which can be found in the RCA LYRA Model RD2201.

How much do I really need it to store 300 telephone numbers and addresses? Isn't that what Electronic Pocket Organizers are for? Fortunately, the RCA LYRA Model RD2201 Player does not come with such a feature! Perhaps it would be more advantageous for the Organizers to include a MP3 player function for those that have the need (and the money) for such products!

6.) Contrary to the AMAZON.com review, I find the headphones to be one of the better quality versons packaged with the MP3 Players. In part, I suppose it depends on your preferences. I prefer the full, one-piece headphone that comes with the RCA LYRA Model RD2201 even though it is less compact than an ear-bud, foldable style.

As AMAZON.com stated in their review, you can always purchase another style of headphones or even use your favorites from another product. THANK GOODNESS THE HEADPHONE PLUGS WERE STANDARDIZED YEARS AGO!

7.) It is important to hold the various manufacturers' MP3 players in your hand and sample the pushbuttons/displays.

I find that the RCA LYRA Model RD2201 fits comfortably in my hand and provides controls that can be operated single-handedly. I attribute this phenomenon to its "larger size" when compared to other MP3 Players. Someone referred to it as "the bar of soap" which is a suitable description. It is more rectangular than square like its competitors. It is also as much as twice as thick as some of its more compact competitors which I think is a good characteristic. Therefore, it doesn't fit as comfortably in a pocket as its competitors.

I find that thin products usually require two hands to operate them since they have controls located in odd places. I also find it more difficult to cradle square shaped objects than rectangular shaped objects in one hand-- depending on the dimensions.

8.) Initially it bothered me that the RCA LYRA Model RD2201 Player does not have a "HOLD" button to prevent unintentional activation of its controls. However, the controls appear to have been designed with this issue in mind.

The buttons require a genuine, intentional activation to get a response. The unit seems to ignore rapid, light activations of the buttons. This may be one reason that both AMAZON.com and I experienced the need to push buttons a second time to activate the desired function. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I can see where it can be irritating at times.

9.) The only EQUALIZER setting that is worth anything on the RCA LYRA Model RD2201 Player is the "customizable" version. You can do some really good things with the feature.

Minimal impacts to the music are distinguishable with the five other preset Equalizer settings. This is disappointing-- particularly since the "customizable" version must be reprogrammed EVERY TIME the CompactFLASH Card has been altered to make changes to the play list files. Frustrating? THIS IS WHERE SOME BUILT-IN EPROM MEMORY WOULD BE HELPFUL!

10.) Don't let the WEIGHT figures fool you! The RCA LYRA Model RD2201 is relatively lightweight until the two AA-Batteries are installed.

Obviously, a product that utilizes only one AA-Battery or possibly disc/puck type batteries found in calculators will weigh less. Then again, they are probably thinner and more squarely shaped. YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT THAT!

11.) The parallel port computer cable for the RCA LYRA Model RD2201 Player involves more than that. It includes two "pigtails"-- one to be plugged into the keyboard or mouse port and one to be plugged into a printer cable.

These "pigtails" make the cable arrangement unwieldy. A federal case does not need to be made of this issue! Just the same, it's something you should know about.

It seems advantageous to have a separate storage media reader/writer which comes standard with the RCA LYRA Model RD2201 Player. It serves as an external drive for your computer-- limited only by the amount of CompactFLASH memory inserted.

12.) There doesn't appear to be any reason to perform hand-stands and cart-wheels over the RealJukeBox software. I don't have much experience with comparable software programs. The software does the job.

Contrary to the AMAZON.com review, I am not so sure that the files are strictly MPX-- an extension that "protects" the file from duplication. The "options" can be set to less protective extensions. Of course, RealJukeBox is quick to flash WARNING notices on your screen to advise you of the potential consequences for doing so.

As I recall, RealG2 files require less space than MP3 files. Even a little savings adds up. Any time storage space can be saved, this is an advantage. Chalk one up for RCA!

this things sound is awesome it has by far the widest range of volume. i own this item but before i bought it i researched mp3 players and trust me the diomomd rio is not the way to go. if you want a lot of sound, a lot of rock, and a lot of boom, for your buck lyra is the way to go. i bought a 96 mb memory card and i am using it for this item it stores tons of songs off napster, cds, or anything. and about batteries... trust me it lasts plenty long. just pop in a couple duracel ultras and this bad boy will run for 10 hours or more nonstop. so what i am saying is i strongly earge you to buy this if you are in the market for a mp3 player.one more thing... comparing this to the rio as far as sound is concerned is like comparing a tape player to a dvd player.

I received this MP3 player with 32MB of memory from my sister as a gift around a year ago and for the first six months never used it since I had a MiniDisc player, a portable CD player, and a high speed CD burner.

The initial reluctancy to use it was the low amount of memory. However, with the significant drop in compactflash card prices, I bought a 128MB card for under $100USD and another 64MB card for around $40USD recently. With this expanded memory, the Lyra is awesome. It's sound is almost CD quality, and I now use Microsoft MediaPlayer software to play and to download songs. Very fast and high compatible. I agree with some of the other reviews as to this player eats up batteries.

Using Duracell Ultra's seems the best, I find that I can use the device longer with them. With a 128MB card, I can fit over 20 songs in the highest quality format. Also, what I found out that if you were willing to sacrific sound quality, you can opt for lower data quality files (96K) to have more songs on the same size memory card. However, I do not recommend this.

Now that there are 512MB+ cards available on the market, this MP3 is the best. It has great sound quality, the volume is very loud, uses upgradable reasonably price compactflash memory, has quick download speeds unlike MD's, uses regard AA batteries, is relatively small compared to a CD player, does not skip like CD's, and runs upgradable software right from the compactflash card.

The only drawbacks are that it could a a bit smaller, the light shuts off two quick, and it could us less power.

Nonetheless, all in all an amazing MP3 player even after a year.

HT

For relatively cheap you can get this puppy! It holds 64 minutes of music. The headphones I got were nice comfortable and were loud. I love my Lyra!

When my dad said that he found a cheap model of an mp3 player, I was hyped. Then, when we got to the store, I saw it, and well, it looked pretty bulkey& bad. then I saw all the other mp3 players, and thought they were way too smal!! Then, when I got home, I had a little troubble with the 1st and recomended program, but then tried the second, which is realjukebox, is so much better and faster. The sound is great, the donload time on my windows 98 is almost less than two min. You can expand the memory, and it has a back light. It fits right into your palm, and you won't be dissatisfied. I take it where ever i go, and it works good always. the batteries last at least 50 hrs, but i've only had it for almost three days. Trust me, if you get this, you won't be unhjappy for at least a year, :-P and i recomended it to alot of my friends, and they've loved it.
GET THIS ITEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is one of the best players on the market, as well as being made by a trustworthy company it is also be upgraded for future formats and for more memmory. For a month i obessed over mp3 players trying to figure out which one to buy, this was my choice because of its wide range of accesories and becasue of it compatibility with virtualy any computer. Desfinitley the best one on the market.

i think this product is great. even though mini disks are less exspensive, the players are smaller, lighter, unshockable, and fit in ur pocket. the earphones that come with it are good for free earphones. they are durable and can be taken anywhere. i love my MP3 player.

This thing absolutely rocks for the price. It displays song name and many extra features. It's a solid performer. It also uses the Compact Flash cards, so when my digital camera isn't in use it's using Mp3s on the cards.

i recently purchased the Lyra MP3 player. The sound is beautiful an it takes only about 30 seconds to get the song from a program into the actual player. The only problem is that it eats up batteries quickly and it is hard to set up the program but once you got it going, theres no stopping you! you may think that buying another memory disc is stupid because you can change it but if you have enough money, another memory disc is a great thing to have. the 32mb memory discs only hold about 9 songs and on a long car trip, you will begin to hate those songs! i encourage you to buy this product but remember its only to play music!

i jusy got this for christmas and it rocks before christmas i peeked and saw it and it looked cheap but then when i got it i couldint believe it it has its own equalizer and the sound is just great over all this is the mp3 player u want to buy if your in da market for one.