Philips EXP103 eXpanium Portable MP3-CD Player with 45-Second Anti-Skip and Car Kit

Other products by Philips

Product Details

Product Manual [1.66mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004UE2R
• Item model number: EXP103
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (172 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #40,357 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1973

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

This sharp-looking unit is one of the first in a new generation of devices able to play traditional audio CDs as well as MP3 audio files burned onto CD-R or CD-RW discs. Although we maintain a few caveats with the Philips eXpanium's somewhat clunky design, we were pleased with its sonic performance.

In our tests, it took anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute to create a directory from an MP3-encoded CD, depending on the number of files on the disc. Once it was playing, though, the quality of sound was quite good. The dynamic range was more than adequate: the high end was crisp and clean, and the low tones were solid, even without the bass boost activated.

The antishock system was virtually infallible when playing MP3s. We suppose that if we'd dropped the player down a long set of wooden steps, it might have skipped, but short of that, the music kept on coming, ignoring our jolts and bumps. It didn't hold up quite as well for normal audio CDs (or CD-Rs or CD-RWs encoded with real-time tracks), but the antishock protection for them was still very good. However, while Philips claims that the shock protection is good for 45 seconds on audio CDs and up to 100 seconds for MP3s, the player took what seemed an inordinate amount of time to recover after skipping.

Navigating through and within CD tracks was straightforward, but in MP3 format the unit provided no way to search within a track. The display was relatively difficult to read, lacked a backlight, and did not display the track names on MP3 files. Additionally, the display's dimness and placement at the back of the lid made the unit hard to use in a dark car.

Overall, the eXpanium currently leads the way in what will likely be the next big portable audio format, and it's only a matter of time before they package the technology in a slightly sleeker, more user-friendly design.

Pros:

• Utilizes cutting-edge MP3/CD technology
• Crisp and clean high-end sound and solid low tones
• Nicely packaged with a pair of small earbud headphones and a car kit

Cons:

• Hard-to-read display
• Long skip-recovery time
• Lacked ability to search within a track in the MP3 format

Product Description

Rip It. Burn It. Spin It. With the Philips EXP103, you can take not only your MP3 files with you wherever you go, but you can also play regular audio CDs as well as CD-Rs and CD-RWs. Take your Philips eXpanium 103 outside, to the library, on a plane - even your car. With up to 100 seconds Magic ESP, you are sure to enjoy continuous music enhanced with Digital Dynamic Bass Boost. Headphones and an AC/CD adapter complete this flexible portable CD player.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

117 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So far, in early 2001, best of breed. The one to get., February 17, 2001

By	Frederick P. Barnes "fredpb" (Greenwood, SC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This eXpanium is the best, I think, of the MP3/CD players. It does not display text, but does a CD player? And I am not personally interested in short, one line text displays like the Rio Volt anyway. When they come out with a text SCREEN like display that displays multiple lines of data, so you can search through folders, then I will upgrade.

The eXpanium worked flawlessly out the box. Other's I have tried did NOT, and were returned. I kept the eXpanium! I think it is very reliable. It has never failed to read any brand of CDR. It does read CDRW, but I have never tried one. And it won't skip! Even in MP3 mode! The ESP skip protection is switchable for CD, but always on in MP3.

Strong Points: No skipping. Good battery life. Handles folders well (some brands don't). Has good bass boost. HAS A RESUME FEATURE!!! With RESUME turned on, it will remember the last track played, even if you remove CD or the batteries go dead! Love that feature! Good feature, if you have 150 songs on a CDR, and the battery dies at #75, and you were not watching what track you were playing! The RESUME switch has three positions: OFF/RESUME/HOLD. HOLD turns off buttons, you don't inadvertantly press one. You can program it easily. You can scan through tracks or folders easily. Has LINE OUT connection. Analog/dial type volume control. Has many modes, like repeat and shuffle. Comes with AC adapter, DC CAR adapter, cassette deck adapter. Sound quality is very good. Better than my other CD players (portables). Good quality construction. Good manual (some players come with manuals that look like photocopies). AND THE WARRANTY IS A ONE YEAR EXCHANGE, NOT FIX WARRANTY. The warranty says they will REPLACE the unit if it has a problem the first year, and take it to dealer or Philips. How many portable electronics items do you know that do that?????

Ok, now the downsides......

Display is dim, and basically, slightly yech. Hard to see in dimmer light, or if you have eye problems. The output power to the headphones (volume) is not impressive. It is barely adequate..I use max volume or near to it sometimes. So if you want to destroy your hearing with loud volumes, this may be a limitation. The battery compartment cover is a very tight fit over the batteries, and sometimes you have to work it a bit to snap completely shut. It will "fast forward" within a track in CD mode, but NOT in MP3 mode. If you press the ">>"/fast-forward button while playing an MP3 CD, and hold it down, it will just jump folders.

Out of curiosity, I connected the eXpanium to my $6000 stereo via the LINE OUT of the unit. I did not expect glorious sound better than my home components! I wanted to see if the sound was "nasty", like some devices that use audio compression are, especially at low bit rates. The lower the bit rate, the smaller the mp3 file, and more you can fit on a CD or MP3 device. But the lower the bitrate, the worse the sound, and it can be nasty in some cases. I use freeware CDex encoder/ripper program, with the "LAME" (yeah, that's the name) encoder option, set to 256 kbps. Sounds fine on my stereo. No nasties at all. 192kbps was also great for my classical music. Very good for what the eXpanium is. For rock and roll and many other types of music you can do fine at 128kbps, or in some cases as low as 80kbps. You can really store a LOT of songs on a CD with the low bit rates. At 256kbps I can get about 6 albums on a MP3/CD disc.

In summary. I love the eXpanium. The only other contender for me was the RIO VOLT. I had my reasons why I chose the eXpanium, even though they are about the same price. I am 51 and have been an audio enthusiast for many years, and do have a background in electronics. My choice, the Philips.

56 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tricks for MP3 file names, December 4, 2000

By	Pascal Fouqué (Santiago Chile) - See all my reviews

I enjoy the Expanium, but was a bit disappointed because some of my MP3 CDs contain more than 100 titles and the Expanium only reads 20 or so. It took me some time to discover why, so I share these tricks which I never found anywhere:

- only the first 30 characters are read and must contain ".mp3". This means that longer names are ignored. Directories with only long names do not appear in the album count.

- as far as I have seen, you can use any character in the names, but only one dot, the one preceding mp3. Songs with more than one dot in the name are ignored.

- songs are played in alphabetical order, without making a difference between uppercase and lowercase. Put the track number first if you wish to follow the original disc order.

- directories are read first, then level 1 sub-directories, then level 2, ... So, if you have 5 directories and 2 sub-directories in the first directory, these will appear as albums 6 and 7: not very practical! Songs outside directories are counted as an album: a CD without directory has AL00 only; a CD with songs outside any directory, plus 5 directories will have AL01 to AL06.

Follow these rules when burning your CDs, and you will not lose any song!

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars EXACTLY What I Was Looking For !, November 14, 2000

By	Robert Gatchel (Port Deposit, MD USA) - See all my reviews

As an AVID music lover who travels a LOT, this unit is EXACTLY what I wanted. I have SEVERAL GIGABYTES of MP3 music and want to travel with it all <grin>, and the traditional "memory type" of device just was NOT big enough for what I needed, and if I did get one of them that was big in memory, well ... it was also very big in price.

I had ORIGINALLY seen the Kangaru MP3 CD player in a computer magazine, bought it and was TOTALLY disappointed - skipped like CRAZY even if you just breathed on it (seriously). BUT I later saw THIS unit in an ad and went out and bought it without hesitation and high hopes, and have NOT BEEN DISAPPOINTED. This unit is AWESOME!

PRO'S

(1) Put close to 170 songs on a CD-R / CD-RW for HOURS of play on CHEAP media. I could take my whole music collection with me on just three disks!

(2) I have NEVER EVER HAD THE UNIT SKIP! I have shaken the heck out of it while playing and NEVER had it skip. Although when the battery was dying (after about 8 hours of play mind you) the music started to "skip and scratch" ... understandable when the battery is dying <grin>

(3) GREAT FOR CAR TRIPS! The car adapter kit works flawlessly

CONS

(1) EARBUD EARPHONES - OUCH ! They just do NOT fit my ear. Got some good Sony earphones

(2) DISPLAY IS HARD TO READ - ID3 tag is not a big issue with me, nor is a backlight (that eats up batteries big time). But the LCD display is small and a little hard to read in daylight and impossible at night <grin>.

(3) SEARCH FF/REW - would be nice if you could FF / REW through a track without having to start over again, but I can live with it.

SUGGESTION:

A "different" car kit. I often rent cars and some of them have CD players in them but NO CASSETTE PLAYER ... thus rendering the cassette adapter car kit useless. I would recommend that if you are like me you obtain one of the adapters that transmit the signal to a "blank band" of your FM band on the radio. I was SOO bummed on a long trip with a NEW car with NO CASSETTE DECK to plug my adapter.

OVERALL:

THE BEST DARNED UNIT OF ITS TYPE ON THE MARKET - PERIOD!