Customer Reviews

RioVolt SP90 Portable CD-MP3 Player with 120 Seconds Anti-Skip

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(64)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(37)

 

 

If you want a blue SP100 without a remote and backlight, just flash upgrade your SP90 with the SP100 firmware. Just download the SP100 firmware and do the following:

1. Rename the IMP-100.HEX file to SP-90.HEX
2. With a Hex editor, open this firmware file and change the IMP-100 to SP-90 in the first line and resave the file.
3. Burn a cd with this new SP-90.HEX file in the root directory.
4. Place the cd in the player and turn it on.

You now have a blue SP-100 that supports playlists, has shorter gaps between songs, user eq setting, faster load times, etc. And from now on, you can just flash this player with any SP-100 upgrade without having to edit the firmware as you had to do this one time.

The SP-90 is a GREAT BUY now that you know it can be upgraded.

Well, for the price this is a great player, but here are some things the SP100 has and this doesn't:

1. Most important: firmware upgrades. This feature has a lot of power and it gives the older unit a lot of new features, like playing playlists and improved programming, and it's actually very important, because if there will be a future audio codec that will be popular like OGG vorbis or even MP3 Pro, and if it will replace regular MP3, then you can be sure that Sonic Blue will have a firmware upgrade for your player. (By the way, the best place to download the upgrades are from the iriver site (which is the original company that menufactures the RioVolt), and not the RioVolt site becuase the iriver upgrades work fine on the 'Volt and they come out much faster. Lately the Rio team hasn't released any upgrades at all, but the iriver team is releasing them all the time.

2. Remote control: I don't use the SP100's remote much, but I do use it a little, and it's very convenient for walking on the street and just skipping over the tracks you don't like without taking the unit out of your backpack.

3. LCD backlight: very important for me, as I use the player a lot at the Army at night and it's pretty useless without the backlight, because then I can't browse for the album I want to play.

Anyway, you should get this player if you can't afford the extra money for the SP100, but if you have about $175 to spare you should buy the new SP250, which has an 8 MB buffer and a really neat LCD display and FM radio, a charger, NIMh battries, and improved features AND it supports firmware upgrades as well, and in general is much improved over the SP100 as well as the SP90. It is the perfect player, if you can afford the price!

Well I guess it's my turn for a review. I purchased this for... from Amazon.... I mainly wanted it for the mp3 feature.... I particularly did not like the head phones; they were average to say the least. The sp90 could use more bass. It has a preset bass level, but it's useless. I decided to upgrade the firmware to the sp100 2.10 version just for the heck of it. I really didn't experience problems w/ mine before doing it. I experimented a little and shook it to see how much it would skip and compared it after I upgraded the firmware. I put the upgrade disc in and it took maybe 10-15 seconds to upgrade. I immediately place a cd in and started shaking and doing the same thing I did w/ the player when the original firmware was installed. Believe it or not, it only skipped once compared to it skipping everytime from that height w/ the original firmware; I dropped it about 3.5 feet onto my bed. I'm happy w/ my purchase, especially for the price I paid.... Just burn the image on cd and insert the disc in the player. *Note, try this at your own risk, I won't be held liable; I'm just helping out. I'm told it already worked for a couple of people I sent it to. File size is 335kb. I hope this helps. Please vote on this so that other people can benefit.

hi
I bought this product a week ago
I was little disappointed that it couldnt be upgraded first
BUT!!
you can!!!!!!!!!!!
Before i upgrade this product with new firmware
It skipped like every 2 seconds
But it doesnt now

-+-+-+ THAT MEANS YOU WILL HAVE SP100 WITHOUT BACKLIT AND REMOTE-+-+-+-+

ISNT IT GREAT?

HERE'S HOW~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EVERYONE~~~

YOU DOWNLOAD NEW FIRMWARE FROM www.riohome.com

AND YOU WILL SEE IMP-100.HEX FILE

CHANGE THE FILE NAME TO SP-90.HEX

WITH A HEX EDITER(RECOMMEND ULTRAEDIT), OPEN THE SP-90.HEX

AND YOU WILL SEE - - - - > IMP-100..............

IN FIRST LINE

YOU HAVE TO CHANGE THAT TO - - - > SP-90............

SAVE IT

AND BURN A CD WITH IT(SP-90.HEX)

PUT THE CD IN, YOU WILL SEE ***UPGRADE*** SIGN ON THE LCD

HAHA

Was this review helpful to you?

OF COURSE IT WAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The SP90 has met/exceeded my expectations. I have a Nomad II MG mp3 player for jogging/vigorous sports, so I was primarily looking for a replacement for a 10 yr old Sony Walkman CD player that finally expired.

My key selection criteria were price, sub-$ [money], ability to play mp3/wma and of course std audio-cds. I wasn't looking for a high-end unit with tons of gizmos -- if you want such a player, look elsewhere.

FYI - I did the firmware upgrade (sp90hack), see earlier reviews for details, and without any exaggeration, it was quicker and less challenging than getting the player out of its inpenetrable packaging! I would recommend implementing this upgrade.

*Pros*
- No skipping whatsoever, and I've put it through its paces; walking/running with my dog, cleaning house with all the motions associated with vacuuming, dusting, ironing, etc.
- Great sound (clarity). I'm currently using a $[money] pair of Sony headphones.
- Simple interface.
- No problem reading audio discs or mp3/wma discs that I burned (all at 128 bit rate as recommended). I see some reviewers have problems with this - perhaps more a function of their CD burning software, not sure. Also, many reviewers recommended burning at 1X, 2X. I had 2 audiobooks (8 hours each) I burned to a single CD each. Each audiobook had 8 CDs. I burned the first book onto a single CD at 2x speed. Kinda time consuming and since CD-Rs are only a few cents I burned the 2nd audiobook (8 CDs) onto a single CD at maximum speed based on pre-record test, at least 4X. I've had NO problems playing back this disc either.
- Good battery life. For audio CDs I only got around 6-8 hours, but playback of mp3 discs I'm getting 12-15 hours.

*Cons*
- Big letters on LCD truncate the file information, or you have to wait for the ID tag to cycle.
- No backlight. I knew this going in, but may be important for some.
- No officially supported firmware upgrade, but workaround as mentioned.
- Appearance. Not very stylish, unsophisticated. I wouldn't say it looks like a toy, but more geared for the teen market.
- Entire unit is that hard/brittle plastic, including the buttons. I would have preferred rubberized controls.

You get what you pay for. A very good quality CD/mp3 player without frills for around $[money] (after rebates), and since some new models are hitting the market, I imagine you'll be able to pick the SP90 up for around $[money] within a month or so.

The SP90 is a fine sub-100 dollar mp3/CD player. It is approximately the same player as the Rio Volt SP100, only without an LCD backlight, AC adapter, remote, and external ESP switch. Note that all the SonicBlue mp3/CD players are rebranded versions of mp3/CD players made by iRiver. The SP90 is a downgrade of the SP100 for a reduced price.

The LCD screen supports two rows of text and two rows of miscellaneous information. The top row has icons displaying repeat, shuffle, and low battery warning. The second row contains track number and time. The third row has artist and title information or filename for mp3s and wmas. The last row is wasted by little dancing figures and an animated round thing that serves no purpose. This makes navigation of the file system limited to two lines. It would be nice if SonicBlue/iRiver had actually made use of the last 1/4 of the LCD screen for something like displaying the folder name or displaying artist and title info on separate lines. The lineout plug is affected by the volume control for some reason. In all the CD players I've seen before, they were constant. It's neither a good or bad thing for me, just kind of weird. The plastic buttons are sturdy enough. My only complaint with the controls is that they put rewind, fast forward, play, and stop on one large round button. It's easy to accidentally hit the wrong function if you apply any sideway pressure. The round pad also forces you to look at it when you use any of the four functions. It's very difficult to do it by touch alone, which is useful when you're driving or when it's dark; you'll have first figure out which way is up/down/left/right by the postitions of other components of the player. Buying the optional remote helps but then you might as well just get the SP100. The SP90 is opened by sliding the blue switch on the front. It only opens up partially on its own so you'll have to lift it up by hand. The included earbuds are low quality, which is about standard for most headphones included with a music player. You should be cautioned about DC-in on this thing. I tried two separate 4.5V DC car adapters manufacturered by Sony and Panasonic and neither worked. The plug might be proprietary, forcing you to buy power adapters from SonicBlue. iRiver is a Korean company so they might use some other standard that SonicBlue didn't bother to convert. This doesn't affect me much because I've got NiMH batteries and a one hour charger usable at home and in the car. However, it may be wise to check with SonicBlue on this.

I've had no problem with skipping as some others have reported. The SP100 has a firmware upgrade that reduces gaps between tracks and possibly reduces skipping. While the SP90 is not officially firmware upgradable, it can use use the SP100 firmware to get added features and improvements. All it takes is a simple renaming of the file and a hex edit to change the name inside the file. Instructions can be found on the internet. This probably voids the warranty so use at your own risk. Some new features as of version 2.10 are reduced gaps, resume for last 10 discs played, katakana font display, winamp playlist support, display of time remaining, and reduced disc recognition time. Also, ESP control for audio CDs is lost because the SP100 has an external control for changing it between 10 and 40 seconds while the SP90 has a menu option in the original firmware.

SP90 is a good economy player with solid features. You should know that iRiver recently came out with the ChromeX iMP-150 for the US market. It's an upgrade to the SP100/iMP-100 with better button placement and a much better LCD screen (smaller pixels and no dancing!). It includes backlight and remote, but no AC adapter. If you're considering buying the SP100 for its backlight and remote, definitely go with the ChromeX. It's designed by the same people and is much better at lower cost. If you're willing to spend more, go with the SP250 or iRiver SlimX.

I've been using this player for 3 days now. I will separate my review into Pre-Upgrade and Post Upgrade.

Pre-Upgrade
The CD takes a while to load, almost 10 seconds. That can get annoying. Also, as you change songs, it takes 4 seconds to load the song which also got to me after a while. As for anti shock, it skipped for me in certain situations. If you just shake it, it won't skip but when I took a stroll it skipped a few times. If you rotate it upside down and back, it will skip. It doesn't even save your previous EQ settings and playback settings (Shuffle, Repeat) and you have to keep setting it. Combined, with slow song loading times, I start to regret purchasing this product and not the SP250.

Post Upgrade
I burned another CD with the hacked firmware and plopped it into the player. It took about 5 seconds now to load the MP3 CD. Now it only takes 2 seconds to switch between song. And I'm happy to inform it has never skipped once for me yet. I noticed the CD stops spinning after the song plays for 10+ seconds, I guess it's starting to really use the Antishock and store the song into memory and also save energy. It never did this before the upgrade and constantly spinned the CD. It also now saves my previous settings.

I'm very please with the performance of the player now that it's been upgraded. I wish the load times could be even almost instantaneous but CD players can't even do that yet. Other than that, I wish they could improve the aesthetics of the player. The pictures look nicer.

I can't recommend this player unless you are going to upgrade the firmware. The player performs horribly unless you do the upgrade. With the upgrade, this player is a real gem and at a very cheap cost.

...which is an inexpensive MP3-CDR(W) player. I've had my SP90 for almost a month as a substitute for a car cd changer while I'm scootin' about in an insurance rental (not my fault, so there! <g>).

Anyway, between commutes to/from the office and a couple of trips out of town, I've only had one nit to pick with the SP90. Depending on the type of music burned onto disc, the player does have tendency to take a couple of seconds longer between tracks, so the car tape deck's auto seek goes gonzo. I suppose an upgraded firmware could possibly address this, which is all pretty moot, as the SP90 is about as upgradable as a brick. However, until I've seen for myself that SonicBlue has come up with a Rio Volt firmware that pre-emptively reads ahead to the next track and eliminiates all between-track gap, I'm not going to lose any sleep over this feature, or lack there of (but then, even the solid state players have a wee bit of a gap between tracks, so there!).

I've also taken the SP90 on a couple of out of town trips, and having the ability to take so many tunes in such small space with such long battery life (about 8+ hours of MP3-CDR's and regular audio CD's on a single pair of alkalines) is quite nice. Not being limited to the same 64Mb (or marginally more) of solid state player content (or you'd have to lug along a laptop to change out tunes) or taking a large stack of minidiscs is a real convenience, considering the current one bag carry-on restriction on planes.

The anti-skip for MP3 content is quite good, as I was able to listen to glitchless music while making the rounds in San Francisco on foot, on bus, and on cablecar. The audio CD playback is a bit iffy, but that's really not the reason I bought this thing in the first place.

Not having a remote is a bit of a drag, and haven't even bothered with the included headphones (but the I haven't bothered with bundled headphones on any Rio product since the Rio500). But what do you expect for the low-end model?

So, as much as folks may mourn the lack of upgradeability on the SP90 as well as the lack of some other niceties, it's definitely a better model than some of the other low-end MP3-CDR(W) portables out there. And it definitely meets my requirements well enough.

Ok let me break this down for you who are considering purchasing this.
1. The firmware is not supose to be upgradeable, but it is. Download the firmware upgrade from riovolt.com for the SP-100, this is the medium range model that is upgradeable. Look for instructions on how to make a hack for the .hex file.

2.When upgraded their is no gap in between two songs if u dont skid ahead.

3.My cd player does not skip.

4.The navigation button

5.A line of text taken up for a person dancing (ok thats kind of stupid, but that's no big deal)

6. New version of firmware loads much faster and supports multiple M3U files

7. The battery lid is not as loose as eveyone says it is. I think mine holds fine ( if you didn't say that others are loose, I would not have even considered mine to be loose)

8. The new firmware lets you turn off the cd player, open it up and it will still pick up back where it was at!

9.The 2.10 firmware lets your music fade in when you start it up so it isn't to loud at the second you turn it on.

10. Everything is great about it, no skipping and the upgrade makes the player even better. If you need any cd player, then I would HIGHLY recomend this one (1 year parts and labor warrenty).

By the way, do not buy sony cd players, they are great, but if the product breaks, they do not stand behind their warrenty. I know this from experience. The spindle shattered on it and they wouldn't help me at all. So if u buy any Sony product, then don't be suprized if it will cost as much or more to have the product fixed, they are a buy-at-your-own-risk company.
Go with Rio, they have a one year parts and labor, Sony just has 3 months on labor.

This is a great idea, combining the ease of cd's (vs tapes) with mp3 technology (which is rapidly growing). There are a few major flaws with this cd player;

1) It CHEWS batteries (i cannot stress this enough)

2) The "anti-skip" doesn't work when the cd player is creating the buffer for the song you are playing. Therefor don't expect to be running with this (sometimes it even skips while it's in your hand.)

3) Takes FOREVER to load the "v1.00", sometimes even up to 2 minutes or more until you can actually listen to your music.

4) Doesn't get nearly loud enough, sometimes i find myself holding my hands over my ears to keep all the music by me.

5) "Sample rate 48" blocks some of my favorite songs, making me not be able to listen to them.

6) When listening to a 74/80 minute cd (not mp3 cd) the Cd Player doesn't create the buffer, so you cant jog or even walk with it.

Aside from these flaws this is the best cd player ive ever owned (hands down) the new mp3 technology in portable devices is hitting the market at an incredible speed, i think that if Rio would slow down and take 2 more months to fix the flaws that are EXTREMELY obvious to everyone, this could be the best cd player of all time

One last thing, here are all the unique features that i really enjoy;

-Equalizer settings for "Ultra Bass"
-Folder style settings allow to skip around and find the song you want when you want it.
-"+10" allows you to skip through your LARGE mp3 collections on the cd(s).
-Ease of use and a beautiful system.