iriver iMP50 MP3 / CD Player with Car Adapter

Other products by iRiver

Product Details

Product Manual [1.48mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000AERI5
• Item model number: iMP 50
• Batteries: 2 AA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #36,498 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #6 in	Electronics > Portable Audio & Video > Portable CD Players > CD Players with Car Kits
  #21 in	Electronics > Portable Audio & Video > Portable CD Players > MP3-CD Players

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 1, 2003

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The innovative iMP-50 comes stacked to the gills with features like broad format compatibility, pre-buffering anti-skip protection, firmware upgradeability, a graphic LCD with multi-language display, and packet-write format readability so the player can double as a hard-drive extension (using data CD-RWs).

The player supports music CDs, home-made CD-R and CD-RW with MP3, WMA (Windows Media Audio), multi-session discs (discs burned at different points over time), and Microsoft's Advanced Systems Format (ASF). New formats such as AAC, MP3 Pro, and so on can be supported in the future through a simple firmware upgrade. The iMP-50 also supports Winamp playlists as long as they use the file extension *.m3u (maximum 20 lists).

The player gives you a healthy four minutes anti-skip protection for MP3 and WMA files. By applying iRiver's own special algorithm, the iMP-50 provides better performance against shock than standard anti-skip algorithms. At the same time, iRiver maximizes protection at the beginning of songs through pre-buffering.

The iMP-50's graphic LCD that supports multiple languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, other alphabet-oriented fonts, Korean, Japanese (Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji), and others. It supports a total of 36 languages.

With MP3 and WMA files, the iMP-50 can play for 16 hours on two AA alkaline batteries (supplied) or seven hours with audio CD playback. Additional formats such as AAC, MP3 Pro, and so on may be supported in the future through a simple firmware upgrade.

Eight equalizer presets, a custom EQ mode, and separate electronic bass and treble controls are all at your disposal when it comes to tailoring the sound to your taste or compensating for speakers, headphones, or listening environment. A hold switch prevents unintended interruptions in playback and saves batteries by negating playback when the player is stopped. Other features include repeat and shuffle play, resume, bookmarking, sound fade in, intro scan, and track programming.

What's in the Box
CD player, earphones, car cassette adapter, 2 AA batteries, and a user's manual.

Product Description

MP3 / WMA / ASF / Std. CD

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Player Great Features Great Price, January 18, 2004

By A Customer

Pros:
Supports packet written CDs - Use your CDRW disk like a hard disk

Supports multiple .m3u playlists - control what songs are played and in what order through .m3u text files.

Will resume EXACTLY where you stopped - a must if you listen to radio programs and audio books.

Has bookmarking feature - great for returning to an audio book or radio program point after listening to music.

Firmware upgradable - Unit ships with version 1.0 - I highly recommend upgrading to version 1.3 which is available on the IRIVER international site at the time of this writing.

Supports track queuing - select the next song to be played while listening to the current song.

Easy to program - shows filename while selecting songs to program

Many more features

Cons:
No backlight.

In summary, the IRIVER IMP-50 gives you more features than many MP3 flash and hard drive players at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of media cost - 700 MB CDRWs are way under a $1 a disk. It's features blow all other manufacturers' CD MP3 players away. I highly recommend this or any other IRIVER CD player product.

Linux and other non-windows OS notes.
Supports Linux packet written CDRWs.

You MUST use Joliet extensions when creating your file system for the firmware upgrade disk.

.m3u playlist text files MUST be terminated with CR/LFs (DOS) not just LFs as is the standard in Linux.

.m3u playlist files take the following format:

\directory\im_no_angel.mp3

\directory\my_life.mp3

Note that the DOS \ character MUST be used as the file separator.

For best results, use only 1X-4X speed CDRWs.

RTFM and online documentation.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good player, good price, October 10, 2003

By A Customer

I have had one of these for a few weeks now and I am impressed. I took it on my last trip back east, I can't tell you how cool it was to press play and forget about changing CD's. Everyone around me was always digging through their entire collection looking for one song. I just sat there and listened.
What I like:
- Easy Navigation
- Plays all my MP3 and regualr CD's (Had problems with my last one only reading some MP3 discs).
- Plenty of battery life (AA, so I don't have to worry about bringing a charger with me)

I have one and would recommend it to anyone, especially for the price!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quality and Value, March 6, 2004

By	lindguini (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

I am very pleased with the performance and quality of the iMP-50 --it's a great MP3/CD player for the money. I did a lot of research and found that the iRiver products have a good reputation across their product range. Don't be fooled by the iMP-50's low price because there's little evidence that iRiver cut corners on this player. It is well-designed and loaded with the great features of iRiver's more costly players. The construction has a high-quality appearance and is quite durable. It may not have a flashy metallic finish but it still looks and feels good in the hand.

SOLID FEATURES:
The sound quality of the iMP-50 is excellent and can be tweaked with the equalizer settings and various low/high frequency boost features in the player's menu. I've only used this player with Sony MDR-EX51LP Fontopia earbuds ($30 but worth every nickel) and so the sound is clear and powerful. The earbuds that come with the iMP-50 are average quality. Better to invest in quality headphones/earbuds if you really want to enjoy the sound quality of any MP3/CD player. The earbuds/headphones are the critical link so don't skimp on them if you truly want to enjoy the sound quality.

The player's firmware is also user-upgradeable (I've installed the latest version 1.10 that has additional custom equalizer settings and some other tweaks) and the menu system is easy to master after a few minutes. To take advantage of all the iMP-50 features, spend the time to read the owner's manual. The graphic LCD display has a wealth of information (MP3 tags, file type, sound level meter, battery condition, and others), however, it isn't backlit. The lack of backlighting on the display is the only cost-cutting measure in my view and is not worth thinking about unless you normally operate the player in darkness.

ANY PROBLEM AREAS?
None worth mentioning. It appears that some reviewers on Amazon have given the iMP-50 low ratings because the CDs are loaded from the bottom of the player (to me it's no more difficult than any other player I've seen) and the fact that they couldn't get all of their CDs to play properly. I've tried a wide range of my own MP3 discs and normal CDs and the iMP-50 has had no problems with any of them. Anyone having problems are likely using discs that are worn and scratched and ANY player will have trouble with those. The disc mechanism is identical to those on laptops (that's how they get a thin profile) and should prove as durable as any good portable.

Overall, the iMP-50 appears to have all the features of iRiver's higher line products but at a remarkably affordable price. It was a great purchase.