Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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75 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good value when on sale with rebate., July 11, 2002
I heartily recommend the SP50 with a couple of caveats: don't buy it at the suggested retail price and be sure to buy it during the rebate period. On sale with the rebate, the SP50 is a good low-end player with enough features to satisfy most users. At full price, the SP50 simply isn't worth it.The good stuff: I didn't see any of the extreme problems with playback reported by others here. In CD mode, the player worked flawlessly. With electronic shock protection (ESP) turned on, I tossed the player on the couch and even shook it with no skips at all. In MP3 mode, the player functioned equally well. It has played every MP3 I have tried at bit rates anywhere from 96 to 196 kbps on a variety of CD-R media. (One note: all of my MP3 CD-Rs are closed disks. Some users have reported playback problems with open CD-Rs. I haven't tested this.) I have experienced some minor playback blips on fewer than 6 individual MP3s, and I can't be sure that they weren't due to problems during ripping. In any event, fewer than 6 small problems out of over 1,000 MP3s is good performance, if you ask me. Finally, I prefer the styling of this model to any of the other RioVolt models. The blue SP90, in particular, has always looked little too cutesy and toy-like for my tastes. In contrast, the SP50 has platinum and gray color scheme with a flat, rough-textured finish that resists fingerprints and smudges. Not so good stuff: This thing eats batteries faster than any music player I have ever used. SonicBlue claims "10 hours of continuous MP3 playback." That may be true if you just put a CD in and play straight through, but if you actually use the file search and playlist functions of the SP50, you'll find that 5 hours is more realistic. I suspect this is due in part to the way that shock protection works in MP3 mode. The player has a two-minute buffer, and once the buffer is full, the disk spins down. Thirty seconds before the buffer empties out, the disk spins back up and the buffer is re-filled. SonicBlue claims that this is to conserve battery life, but any freshmen physics student can tell you that it takes more energy to move a stationary object than it does to keep a moving object in motion. All this spinning up and down just has to eat up a lot of electricity, and the more searching and skipping through the tracks you do, the worse it gets. Worst of all, this creates what I see as the biggest flaw in the SP50: As the batteries get low, the player takes longer and longer to spin up the disk. Eventually, it take longer than 30 seconds to get the disk moving, and you get long pauses in the middle of songs while the empty buffer waits for more data. The solution, of course, is to keep fresh batteries in the machine or use an AC adapter, which, unfortunately, is not included. As others here have pointed out, the included ear-buds provide inferior sound. This shouldn't come as a surprise. Since when are the ear-buds packaged with even the most expensive players worth much? If you're the kind of listener who is bothered by this sort of thing, you should already have purchased a decent set of headphones for yourself. The search and playlist controls are complicated and cumbersome. It takes some reading of the instructions and a little practice to make it all work. I was eventually able to use those features with ease, but the process could be simplified. Finally, the player does not include an adjustable equalizer as the package claims. It does feature a simple bass booster, which works well and is sufficient for my purposes. After checking SonicBlue's web site, I knew this going in, so I wasn't disappointed. It's probably just a misprint, but SonicBlue needs to correct it as soon as possible. Bottom line: You'll read a lot of criticism of the SP50 here. If you buy one of the players that are recommended, however, you'll never pay less than $100 for anything. On sale with the rebate, the SP50 is a solid little player at a good price that will satisfy the average user. If you are an audiophile and fussy about your playback, why are you listening to MP3s on a portable in the first place?
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
You get what U pay for, November 18, 2002
... the SP50 is a really good (though not great) player for the price (after rebate)
Pros:
-really has 120 second anti shock for mp3 playback and 45 sec for regular cd(only when ESP button enabled and not flashing) and with really strong batteries. Shook the thing like a earthquake, did'nt skip a beat.
-Played just about every thing i've put in it. MP3 recored at various rates up to 320kb worked fine.( used Nero-burnig ROM)
-Displays ID3 tag info (scroll)
-easily navigate folders. Displays folder names too.-Seperate audio line out.something more expensive players don't have. -Has a lot of standard features packed into it. (read the manual!) Cons:
-Player feels light and fragile. Afraid to drop it.
-ear buds are poor and should be thrown away for better headphones immediately.
-No Back light. problem in poorly lit areas and at night.
-Sound quality is average.
-Equalizer button only increases volume nothing more. Bottom Line:
If you're looking for an inexpensive MP3 player that does the basic job of playing MP3 and standard cd's has good features, with relatively average to good sound quality then this this is the right thing for you. But if you need more than an introduction to the world of MP3 players and have the cash to dash then look else where. This is not the luxury car of portable mp3 players but it will get you to where your going.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Value for money, September 27, 2002
Well I'm starting this review saying that this is a cheap MP3/CD player. Keep that in mind. For the 40$(after rebate) this one costs, your are certainly buying something that doesn't have the features of it's more expensive brothers. What I have to say is it certainly is worth its money. On the outside it looks nice but it feels a little cheap, as the cover doesn't "lock" into place but moves slightly (not causing any problems). There is an analog volume control, head-phones out, line-out (to connect active speakers, plug it in your soundcard, or for the car-kit), bass control (normal-boosted, sorry no equalizer here), a lock switch that disables the buttons on the cover, which are used for controlling the
device (play, stop, ff,...). When it comes to using the SP50 I must say I was surprised. I thought it would be a really difficult thing to browse through songs, but that's not the case. The LCD display (no backlight) can handle up to 2 lines (13 characters each) plus extra info concerning the play mode, battery meter and file type. When you hold the player with both hands it's really easy to find the mp3 you are looking for, only using your thumbs. You can browse your mp3s on a cd either alphabetically (entering up to five characters), or by folder. Creating playlists (up to 64 mp3's) is actually a feature that you won't (or even can't) use, as it's not that easy. The random playback mode (entire cd or specific folder) comes in handy here. While playing, the ID3tag information (artist, title, album) +#kHz & #kbps scrolls on the first line while the current folder/mp3 number and duration are at the second one. I have tried about 15 mp3-cds and the only problem (beeps while playing) was with one album encoded at 192kbps (I guess it was a problem of the codec used, as I re-encoded it using lame's codec at the same bit rate and now plays flawlessly). Also I have yet to find an unsupported bit rate, having tested mp3's from 48 to 320kbps and VBR. Anti-skip protection works quite well at mp3's, but you have to bear in mind that there is only a 2MB memory (which means 4 minutes at 64kpbs, 2 minutes at 128kbps, 1 minute at 320kbps, 45sec for audio CD's). That means that the player renews its buffer every 2 minutes when playing at 128kbps, so you can shake it for 2 minutes, leave it alone for 10 sec. shake it again... The sound coming out of this device is what some might find problematic. Yeah the earbuds are low quality (they can be replaced, I use the headphones of my older cd-player). There is a little white noise (hsssss) and a sound (eeeeee) when the player buffers the mp3 to the memory (that lasts 5 sec. every 2 minutes at 128 kbps). Both of these are only audible when using the SP50 indoors at low volume (or when it's really quite around you). When you increase the volume, they disappear and generally when using the SP50 outdoors (where you are supposed to use a portable device) the outside noise is mush louder. The line out however produces clear sound, the only "bug" here is that the bass feature doesn't affect the line out. At last, battery life is quite good; I got about 6 hours on good alkaline batteries (that was with a lot of browsing and changing CD's, I guess at continuous playback you could reach the 10 hours sonicblue promises). My old Ni-Cd rechargeable batteries give about 2 hours of continuous mp3 playback plus 1 hour of audio-CD (which is enough for my every-day use). Bottom line, the SP50 is an inexpensive mp3-cd player not lacking basic features. If there was no problem with the sound output I would definitely recommend it, but if you want some quality at this section you have to [spend more].
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