RioVolt SP100 Portable CD/MP3 Player with 120 Second Anti-Shock

by sonicblue, Rio, Riovolt, rio, Sonicblue

Product Features

• Plays MP3, WMA, and standard audio CDs
• Listen to CD-R and CD-RW discs with more than 10 hours of music on them
• Can be upgraded to accommodate emerging audio-compression schemes
• Includes audio management software for PCs and Macintoshes
• Includes 8-function remote control and offers repeat and shuffle modes, adjustable equalization, and programmable playlists

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Product Description

Amazon.com

The Rio Volt portable MP3-CD player grants free listening across standard audio CDs as well as the MP3 and WMA (Windows Media Audio) files that you've recorded to CD-Rs and CD-RWs, letting you enjoy over 20 hours of digital audio from one CD (or around 250 songs). Plus, Rio Volt's large backlit LCD supports both ID3 tags and CD Text, simplifying song identification from any compatible disc, while 120-second antishock circuitry guards your listening almost anywhere.

While the Rio Volt is the first portable CD player in the family of Rio digital audio players, the manufacturer was thinking ahead: the device supports firmware upgrades to accommodate future digital audio formats.

Amazingly, the Rio Volt sports a playback time of up to 15 hours on two AA batteries (included), making it the first disc player we know of that can't play a single CD in its entirety. Don't fret, however--you'll find an AC/DC adapter in the box in case you want to listen to all 250 tracks of a single disc in one sitting.

The ID3 text display includes track number, song name, artist name, folder (album title), and overall playing time. The Rio Volt also lets you navigate through directories and search for tracks one by one or in blocks of 10.

A sleek eight-function remote control lets you operate the Rio Volt while it's tucked away in its carrying case or even in a backpack. The Rio Volt comes bundled with RealNetworks music management software and Adaptec CD-burning software for use on your PC or Macintosh.

Audio features include adjustable equalization curves with five presets (normal, jazz, rock, classical, ultrabass), repeat and shuffle play modes, and programmable playlists.

The Rio Volt comes with a 1-year warranty on parts and labor.

Product Description

Item number 4709-12, Grading is cover/record: M- using Goldmine standards. Please see seller profile for abbreviation descriptions.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Best One on the Market May 22, 2001

By Jason N. Mical

I recently had a chance to test-drive two different MP3-CD players, the RioVolt and the Philips Expanium, and in the end, the RioVolt came out the clear winner.

When evaluating MP3-CD players, there are two things to keep in mind: first, that this technology is still in its relative infancy, and allowances will have to be made before the companies figure out exactly what works and what doesn't. Second, MP3-CD players aren't an industry-created standard; they are a response to something that consumers originally designed and made for themselves (MP3 encoding and the idea of storing loads of MP3s on a disc). Therefore, it makes sense that companies with relative inexperience in the market - Philips for instance - are going to lose out to Rio, who's been in the MP3 game for a couple of years.

The RioVolt is a nice-looking package, pleasantly round and silver with blue trim. It's got all the standard features - a window so you can see your disc spinning round and round, a hold switch, and the option to choose a 10 second skip buffer or a 45 second skip buffer.

There are several things that make the RioVolt stand out: it has a digital volume control, instead of an analog wheel, which is nice, and it has a backlit window, so you can see what you're doing in the dark (car trips, subways, etc.) In addition, it reads ID3 tags, which means you get to see the title of the song you're listening to - something the Philips player doesn't do. And, as a coup-de-grace, the Rio will read CDs made with Adaptec DirectCD - something other MP3-CD players will NOT do (and, unfortunately, often don't tell you they won't do on the box).

I tested the RioVolt for two weeks, and it preformed well the entire time (and hopefully, it will continute to do so!) The sound it produces is clear, even on MP3s ripped at lower than 128 KBPS quality, and it has no problem reading up to 320 KPBS songs (for all I know, it goes higher, but I don't have any higher-quality MP3s to test it with). I tried it with three different kinds of headphones, and on all of them the higher-end sound seemed to suffer a little, especially on songs where there were rapid treble spikes. Again, that could be an artifact of ripping, and not the player itself. The RioVolt is also upgradable, which other MP3-CD players are not (I would highly recommend getting the 1.13 upgrade from Rio's website). Unfortunately, you have to waste an entire CD-R to upgrade, but it's a small price to pay for a product that changes with the times. Additionally, even on 10-second anti-skip, dropping the player from 4 feet in the air (a little higher than my waist) didn't cause it to skip at all.

Of course, the RioVolt does have its flaws. The lid seems a little flimsy, and the stop button (located on the bottom of a "wheel" control panel, like some VCRs use) has to be pressed just right in order for it to work. If you change your ID3 tag, say in WinAmp (to remove "Various Artists" and replace it with the actual band name), the RioVolt still reads the "Various" tag, which is a bit of a pain. The biggest flaw, though, is the crummy headphones - you might as well leave them in the box and buy another pair. Mine only played correctly out of one side, and the other side died in less than an hour. The last item of note is the strange remote control, which I suppose could be useful, but adds another two feet of wires for you to tie in knots and catch on things. I found I didn't really need it anyway, as I just set the player to "shuffle" and let random effects take their course.

Will there be better players in the future? Undoubtedly. Is this the best player available right now? Hands-down yes. If you've gotta have the latest and greatest, or (like me) want a way to make your massive music collection portable without having to lug 100s of CDs around, go with the RioVolt. You won't be disappointed.

67 of 72 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars it's about time, it's about good music !! February 25, 2001

By Bryan Lieberman

The first MP3 CD players were picky about what discs they would play and lacked any features beyond bare-bones playback. But these products have matured quickly, and after seeing Sonicblue's Rio Volt, we're ready to say that MP3 CD players have arrived. Aside from an awkward carrying case, we were hard-pressed to find anything wrong with this player. Best of breed To put this device through its paces, we burned a number of test CDs, which included MP3s and WMA files with a wide range of bit rates. We used CD-Rs, CD-RWs, discs with everything in one root directory, discs with songs organized in folders, and a number of different burning preferences within the included Easy CD Creator Standard 4 (for PC) and SoundJam (for Macintosh) software packages. Much to our surprise, the Rio Volt handled every disc that we threw at it with aplomb. It's also only the second MP3 CD player we've seen that reads ID3 tags (the Pine Technology D'music SM-200C being the first). Without ID3 tags, you have to plod through 150 songs on each CD using only track numbers as a guide, so we consider them a necessity. It's also the only such player to play WMA files as well as MP3s and audio CDs. But there were many other reasons to be impressed by this newcomer. The +10 button, which lets you jump ahead ten songs, makes navigating more than a hundred songs much easier. You can also group your songs in folders, since the Volt lets you navigate within directories, unlike the other players that we've seen. A Shuffle mode lets you skip around between all the songs on the CD-R, while the A-B mode is useful for looping any section of audio. We were as impressed by the player's form as we were by its function: The understated, rounded design is starkly modern compared to those of other portable MP3 CD players, which often look like prototypes. Skip the skipping The Volt collects 120 seconds of audio from MP3/WMA discs and stores the sound for playback in a flash-memory buffer. When playing back standard audio CDs, you can choose between 10 and 40 seconds of antiskip protection (40 seconds consumes more power). While walking around with the device in a bag, we encountered an occasional delay when fast-forwarding between songs on an MP3/WMA CD. However, once the music started playing, skipping was not a problem. If we can single out one problem with the Volt, it would have to be the carrying case, which must be threaded through your belt if you want to attach it to your hip. (The player itself doesn't have a belt clip.) While the player is in the case, you can't tell which song is playing or whether the player is on or off, since there's no display on the remote control. But at $..., the Rio Volt has to be one of the best portable audio values around. Unless you really need a very small, light MP3 player for exercise or travel, multiformat CD players such as this one are the way to go, since they're cheaper and hold many more songs on a single CD. Some other players cost a little less than the Rio, but its ability to play every type of MP3/WMA CD-R and CD-RW that we burned definitely makes it your best bet.

68 of 74 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Still need improvement. February 28, 2001

By A Customer

There are already too many good reviews about this product. I don't want to be offensive, but my feeling is some of the enthusiastic reviews must be from Sonicblue insiders. Otherwise, many of them should have already pointed out those shortcomings I am gonna tell you.

I used to own a Philips EXP103 for 6 months, and I was pretty happy with it. I wish I haven't seen all these extremely good reviews, otherwise I won't sell my exp103 for this Rio volt. Of course, as all other reviews said, this player does have fancy looking and something really cool (ID3 tag display, remote control, etc...). But here I am gonna talk about something it disappointed me:

1. Background noises. The background noise of this player is much higher than Philips EXP103 (although exp103 also has static noise). It's annonying especially when you listen in the eveing at low volumn. And you can also hear electric plus noises ("po") at the begining and the end of every mp3 files

2. Can't read out some discs. It's not like someone says that this player recognizes all kinds of CDR/W discs. It works fine for my MP3 discs, but can't read out an audio CD (Beatles - One) I burned. This 80mins CD works fine with all my CD players and philips exp103. I tried two identical copies of this disc, Rio Volt failed both. I don't have other 80min audio CDR to test at this time, so I am not sure if that's a common problem of rio volt. By the way, this player has no problem with my other audio CDRs (all <74mins).

3. IMHO, the sound quailty of this player is inferior to Philips exp103. It's partially because of the crappy headphone comes with it, which has no bass compared with the one of exp103. A low-end Sennheiser HD433 (<$30 including shipping) will do a much better job.

4. This is never mentioned by other guys before, probably my bad luck. When listen to audio CDs, the 40sec ESP mode gives much worse sound quality than 10sec mode. It's so obvious if you switch between these two modes while playing. It seems to me like a badly implemented loss-compression algorithm. I only experienced this problem with audio CDs.

I used to have a RIO500, too. Compared to memory chip based Rio500, both sound quality and backlite display of this player are actully degenerated. I suspect that Rio volt is just an OEM product Sonicblue grabbed to fill the market gap. Their next version could be better. If I had a second chance, I won't sell my exp103 for rio volt. I'd rather wait till other major companies join in this market.