RCA RP2478 Portable CD/MP3 Player with SmarTrax (Silver and Black)

by RCA

Product Details

Product Manual [408kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000093UQD
• Item model number: RP2478
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The silver and black RCA RP2478 portable CD player combines eye-catching slim styling and advanced features like support for MP3 and Windows Media Audio formats, a built-in FM radio with 30 station presets, and SmartTrax navigation. It even includes MusicMatch MP3 recording software to get you started burning your own MP3 CDs with up to 10 hours of music. Up to 200 seconds of esp-Xtreme skip protection with MP3/WMA files (45 seconds for audio CDs) makes this CD player virtually skip-free in most conditions and a great choice for joggers and runners.

The CD player's SmartTrax navigation technology helps you quickly access specific songs or playlists among the hundreds of tracks on an MP3/WMA-encoded CD-R/CD-RW. Using a library of computer-generated identification tags to identify digital audio files by title, artist, album, year, genre, and track number, the SmartTrax file-management system can "read" song data from your recordable CDs, letting you view song data and create playlists at the touch of a button. SmartTrax can read the song data even before the song is played. A three-line dot-matrix display shows SmartTrax data and allows 30-track/folder programmability.

Other playback features include Digital Bass Boost Surround for extra low-end slam and added musical depth, three preset equalization settings, and a hold switch to prevent unintended interruptions in playback (and to save batteries by negating playback when the player is stopped). The unit operates for approximately 20 hours on two AA batteries, either alkalines or rechargeables (no batteries included).

What's in the Box
CD player, headphones (e.clipz clip-on headphones), and MusicMatch software.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Diamond in the rough, October 24, 2003

By 

iloveads47 (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: RCA RP2478 Portable CD/MP3 Player with SmarTrax (Silver and Black) (Electronics)

All right... Its not Aladdin (REM: A Diamond in the rough) but it is a very competitive product with quite a few major glitches in the design area, mostly. Appearance wise, it is not the cutest thing to ever hit the streets (unless you are a fan of Rave/Techno/Hip Hop/Rap, in which case this is probably designed in the style that you enjoy ;) I am not complaining about appearance here though... The interface is very difficult to memorize, much to many buttons that are arranged seemingly out of sequence. And they all have the same shape, so you have no way whatsoever to figure out what you're pressing in the dark (or in your pocket, for that matter... I guess you'll get used to it in a few months but :( downer.... The menus are difficult to navigate, and RCA, as usual are no help either. I think monkeys write their manuals, I'm serious!!! A few comments on the specs, since NOBODY (not RCA, not Amazon), even have all the functions listed...

Very neat high rez (comparatively) LCD that is unfortunately too low contrast and maybe even a little bit too small to see properly. Not backlit...

Radio tuner (only FM) with 20-station memory. Relatively poor reception and unwieldy command interface (takes much too long to scan-- you have to hold "scan" for five seconds and release it within 3 seconds of that) :( but hey, it works and you're gonna listen to the radio only when you're out of batteries, right lol otherwise look in the Amazon portable radio section for much, MUCH better scanner radios.

The CD-MP3-player stands out even in its class (we're not even talking ultra-slim players here) as being at least 50% bigger and bulkier than the average. However weight-wise it is I would say quite a bit (25%) lighter than average, even when it is stocked with batteries and the other ones aren't... How do I know, you ask? I have 2 other CD-MP3 players that did not suit me and one that broke a while back sitting on my desk at this instant, and I can compare :) ...

Compatible bit rates info I couldn't find ANYWHERE prior to purchase, and believe me, I looked-they are important to me (I frequently listen to low-bit-rate audio-books)...

MP3: 32-320 kbps & VBR is fully supported, unlike almost any other model on the market, apparently-Great range!!!
WMA: 64-192 kbps = Downer!!! what about 48 kbps??? I'm upset lol I have to re-record like 6 CD's worth of audio-books
Supports CD-RW (who doesn't!!!)
Does NOT have Resume (downer) on standard recorded CD's :'( (******see section below*****)

A few comments on the software (MusicMatch and the so called SmartTrax system)

To enable the RP 2478 to perform many functions comparable to those of higher-end and HD players you have to burn the CD's using their "SmartTrax" 'FancyPants' ;) format . The provided CD contains MusicMatch JukeBox (boy, they really like those DoubleCapital words, don't they ;) ) which writes in this "format" (basically inserting a text-file in the root of the CD that describes different aspects of it for the player. Then features like browsing by genre, performer, year and extensive Playlist creation become possible... I don't appreciate this very much, since I already have licensed CD burning software (NERO--Highly recommend!!!) with which I am happy...However, resume is important to me for understandable reasons (see above) so... lol guess which program I'm going to have to install in a few moments :P ...

Question you may be thinking of at this point: why on earth do I give it 4 stars and not like 2 or 3? Because it sounds perfect, does not skip and loads the songs it plays in a very short period of time unlike other players of its class (think of the Panasonic SL-MP80 or even the disappointing Creative M-100)

While I still believe that RioVolt is the superior company, this is a more than adequate replacement for the SP-90 that actually sounds better and performs better in some areas. Once you get by the minor glitches and the Great-Chinese-Torture-Style design, you may find a winner in there somewhere...

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This CD Player is cheap and crappy!!!, November 30, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: RCA RP2478 Portable CD/MP3 Player with SmarTrax (Silver and Black) (Electronics)

I bought this cd player because I needed a player with a MP3 player and FM radio. When I got home and opened the package I was very pleased. The headphones were comfortable even though I had already bought my own headphones. The sound system was very nice and clear and the stations came in pretty well. But after having it only 2 days, the volume buttons on the side began sticking and I had to take the cd player apart and push them back out twice. I would push the volume button and it would go in and stay stuck. The sound would go out and you couldn't hear a single thing. I highly advise anyone who wants a good cd player not to buy this one.. go for SONY or PANASONIC.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars DO NOT BUY, March 19, 2004

By 

Robert J. Pengelly (Greensboro NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RCA RP2478 Portable CD/MP3 Player with SmarTrax (Silver and Black) (Electronics)

I got this for an x-mas presentt I was really excited but when I went to turn it on it didnt work. Sometimes it takes up to 10 minutes for it to start playing a CD. Also once it starts playing then it will often skip and sometimes stop playing compleatly. However the radio works great but for 60 bucks you can get a lot better radio then this.