Audio Reviews

Although this is a cheepie, this little recorder went an astonishingly long way with me. Too bad it is discontinued. I recommend this recorder if it ever comes on the market again. I have gone through many recorders, and most only last a few weeks. This one made it two years of near daily use, lots of banging around, and the general chaos of academic life. Panasonic needs to reintroduce this lil one, since mine FINALLY went kaplooey and I need a new'n bad.

Decent sound-even 4 pre recorded music. has HEADPHONE,elect. adapter & external MIC JACKS.Small,light-even clear-when recording in front of a fan w/o external mic. (close rrange)Definitly an affordable alternative to micro cassette recorders. Will use rechargable batteries only about 3-4hrs playback & a bit heavier w/Golden Power batts.- Hope to update this review w/ comments on its long life.5STARS FOR ACCURATE PORTRAYALS OF A GOOD RCEORDER.

Just like with most of Panasonic products, the RQL-50 mini cassette recorder is outstanding. Great sound quality, attractive design and simple use are worth the price I paid through Amazon.com. It comes equiped with two DC2.4V NiCad rechargeable batteries and an AC adaptor/charger. I have been using it for about four months for recording interviews with no problems. This is the second RQL-50 that I have owned. It is compact and light weight and highly recommend it. The Amazon.com price is hard to beat.

Although this is a cheepie, this little recorder went an astonishingly long way with me. Too bad it is discontinued. I recommend this recorder if it ever comes on the market again. I have gone through many recorders, and most only last a few weeks. This one made it two years of near daily use, lots of banging around, and the general chaos of academic life. Panasonic needs to reintroduce this lil one, since mine FINALLY went kaplooey and I need a new'n bad.

Decent sound-even 4 pre recorded music. has HEADPHONE,elect. adapter & external MIC JACKS.Small,light-even clear-when recording in front of a fan w/o external mic. (close rrange)Definitly an affordable alternative to micro cassette recorders. Will use rechargable batteries only about 3-4hrs playback & a bit heavier w/Golden Power batts.- Hope to update this review w/ comments on its long life.5STARS FOR ACCURATE PORTRAYALS OF A GOOD RCEORDER.

Just like with most of Panasonic products, the RQL-50 mini cassette recorder is outstanding. Great sound quality, attractive design and simple use are worth the price I paid through Amazon.com. It comes equiped with two DC2.4V NiCad rechargeable batteries and an AC adaptor/charger. I have been using it for about four months for recording interviews with no problems. This is the second RQL-50 that I have owned. It is compact and light weight and highly recommend it. The Amazon.com price is hard to beat.

Although this is a cheepie, this little recorder went an astonishingly long way with me. Too bad it is discontinued. I recommend this recorder if it ever comes on the market again. I have gone through many recorders, and most only last a few weeks. This one made it two years of near daily use, lots of banging around, and the general chaos of academic life. Panasonic needs to reintroduce this lil one, since mine FINALLY went kaplooey and I need a new'n bad.

Decent sound-even 4 pre recorded music. has HEADPHONE,elect. adapter & external MIC JACKS.Small,light-even clear-when recording in front of a fan w/o external mic. (close rrange)Definitly an affordable alternative to micro cassette recorders. Will use rechargable batteries only about 3-4hrs playback & a bit heavier w/Golden Power batts.- Hope to update this review w/ comments on its long life.5STARS FOR ACCURATE PORTRAYALS OF A GOOD RCEORDER.

Just like with most of Panasonic products, the RQL-50 mini cassette recorder is outstanding. Great sound quality, attractive design and simple use are worth the price I paid through Amazon.com. It comes equiped with two DC2.4V NiCad rechargeable batteries and an AC adaptor/charger. I have been using it for about four months for recording interviews with no problems. This is the second RQL-50 that I have owned. It is compact and light weight and highly recommend it. The Amazon.com price is hard to beat.

On May 29, 2004 I ordered the digital recorder, based upon the glowing reviews that I've read about the sound quality. I'm a barbershopper and wanted to have high fidelity digital recordings for the chorus web site and for learning tapes. The device is tiny, sleek and shiny like an elongated lighter. It sounded sensational with the little ear buds, but came with no protective case. On 07/09/04 it stopped working entirely. The display did not light up, yet the batteries were new (2 days old)and the battery display showed that it was fully charged the day before. I was heading out for a rehearsal, and had it on my wrist by the strap. My guess is that it must have bumped into the car door as I slid into the driver's seat. When I took it off my wrist to put on the seat belt, that's when I discovered that the display was dead. I opened the battery slide and the little coil that pushes against the battery sprung out. Without that in place the recorder cannot work. Because the failure happened more than a month after purchase, Home Depot would not cover it. Olympus is having me send it back. We'll see what happens. It's a nice device, with great fidelity, but it's incredibly fragile. I'd hesitate before recommending it.

Yes, the features of this machine are nice, but the DSS format's name "Digital Speech Standard" and Olympus's touting of it as an "international standard" are deliberately misleading. In fact, Olympus owns it and does not even make it available enough for software vendors to develop conversion software. There is no way to, for instance, convert a CD audio, or MP3, or any other audio file into DSS format in order to play it on the DM-10. If you buy the thing thinking you can load 10 hours of CD audio books onto it, you will find that instead you only get 1 hour (in WMA format). And if you call Olympus to ask about it, their tech support people based in India will just tell you tough luck.

I purchased the DM-20, which has twice the storage. I would recommend finding that one if you plan to use it much for music. It has great support for Windows Media Audio .wma and .mp3 files, and their proprietary format. I try to do everything in .wma. At the lowest quality compression setting you get a very long recording time. Navigation is easy. The controls are set out well. The LCD has good info and lots of options. The voice recording quality is excellent, especially from the remote control plug-in microphone (which might not be available in all versions).

The SAXR25 is great when it works. Provides excellent results in slim, reasonably priced unit. However, if it breaks like mind did, you're in for a read surprise. To date, my unit has been with Panasonic for 90 days and still isn't fixed. Their customer service is terrible; they simply string you along. They will honor the 1 year parts & labor warrantee, however you will be without an entertainment system until it gets fixed, and they don't offer any alternatives. Better have a backup plan if you purchase ANYTHING from Panasonic. It could take a year to fix it and that is completely within the scope of the warrantee. Apparently satisfied customers are not a priority with Panasonic.

I had to bite the bullet and upgrade to a receiver with Dolby Digital 6.1 surround. Even though my 11 year old, very expensive Sony was still working, it had original Dolby Surround.

I did the research, and settled on this unassuming Panasonic. It has been surprising a lot of people, for good reason. It sounds awesome! And with a pure digital amplifier it weighs nothing, nor does it heat up like my 34 pound Sony.

Only complaint- I would like the ability to re-label inputs on the display. I don't have a Tape deck, but I did have an extra video source (plain cable as well as HDTV) so I utilized the tape inputs for regular TV. On high end systems you can rename the inputs to reflect any custom hookups.

I have never had anyone refuse to honor a warranty, although I do understand that many companies will if you tamper with the insides. The digital Panasonic receivers have become favorites with audiphiles who have been opening them up and "modding" them. I have a Panasonic HD RPTV and had a warranty call for alignment issues- no problem at all, and it was 1 week before the factory warranty expired!

This was my 1st video receiver, and I am quite happy with it. There is a lot of power in a small package. Although the receiver has a fan, I have never heard it running.

You might want to consider this unit's big brother, the SA-XR45. For a few dollars more, you get on screen programming, a better remote, and an extra video input. Amazon lets you read the manaul on-line, and since the manual covers both models, you can see the differences between them before you buy.

One caveat: ALL of the video inputs have to be the same type as the video output. I had 2 S-VHS inputs and a VCR with composite input, and the receiver would not output the VCR signal using the S-VHS output. A call to Panasonic revealed that the receiver was "working as designed."

My only real complaint is that I wish the remote control were lighted. But for the price, Panasonic has made an excellent receiver.

The SAXR25 is great when it works. Provides excellent results in slim, reasonably priced unit. However, if it breaks like mind did, you're in for a read surprise. To date, my unit has been with Panasonic for 90 days and still isn't fixed. Their customer service is terrible; they simply string you along. They will honor the 1 year parts & labor warrantee, however you will be without an entertainment system until it gets fixed, and they don't offer any alternatives. Better have a backup plan if you purchase ANYTHING from Panasonic. It could take a year to fix it and that is completely within the scope of the warrantee. Apparently satisfied customers are not a priority with Panasonic.

I had to bite the bullet and upgrade to a receiver with Dolby Digital 6.1 surround. Even though my 11 year old, very expensive Sony was still working, it had original Dolby Surround.

I did the research, and settled on this unassuming Panasonic. It has been surprising a lot of people, for good reason. It sounds awesome! And with a pure digital amplifier it weighs nothing, nor does it heat up like my 34 pound Sony.

Only complaint- I would like the ability to re-label inputs on the display. I don't have a Tape deck, but I did have an extra video source (plain cable as well as HDTV) so I utilized the tape inputs for regular TV. On high end systems you can rename the inputs to reflect any custom hookups.

I have never had anyone refuse to honor a warranty, although I do understand that many companies will if you tamper with the insides. The digital Panasonic receivers have become favorites with audiphiles who have been opening them up and "modding" them. I have a Panasonic HD RPTV and had a warranty call for alignment issues- no problem at all, and it was 1 week before the factory warranty expired!

This was my 1st video receiver, and I am quite happy with it. There is a lot of power in a small package. Although the receiver has a fan, I have never heard it running.

You might want to consider this unit's big brother, the SA-XR45. For a few dollars more, you get on screen programming, a better remote, and an extra video input. Amazon lets you read the manaul on-line, and since the manual covers both models, you can see the differences between them before you buy.

One caveat: ALL of the video inputs have to be the same type as the video output. I had 2 S-VHS inputs and a VCR with composite input, and the receiver would not output the VCR signal using the S-VHS output. A call to Panasonic revealed that the receiver was "working as designed."

My only real complaint is that I wish the remote control were lighted. But for the price, Panasonic has made an excellent receiver.

i got this player for Christmas. The setup was fairly easy. I like the fact that i can use it was a back-up hard drive too. The Archos frimware is very iffy so i reconmend getting the rockbox one. It is better and has different fonts and even includes games like tetris. THis made the player better. It helps to have USB2.0 to help with faster tranfers. Transfers are easy becuase it shows up as another hard drive so it is a drag and drop job. Good player

Pros
rechargable battery
upgradeable firmware
memory
capability
good looks
ok battery life

Cons
size (on the heavy size)
included headphones

As a basic MP3 player its it pretty good. Its 15GB capacity should be sufficient for most users and the USB connectivity is good too. However, it is bulkier and heavier than the Creative Labs Zen.

I've had my Jukebox Recorder 15 for about six months now, been getting used to 'living with it', so to speak. In that time, I've gotten VERY accustomed with using it. Yes, like anything with a great deal of complexity in a simple package, there's a bit of a learning curve. But once you figure out how to 'handshake' with this box (and it doesn't take long), you find that it's quite intuitive, and navigating through its functions is a breeze.

Audio quality? Excellent, both on record and playback. The unit can RECORD (which is VERY nice) via a line-level analog or digital input, which makes this a great device for hooking to a line-level output from a stereo to transfer pesky non-digital sources such as vinyl or tape. It can handle qualities up to 320kbps in constant or variable bit rates. Playback audio is excellent and rather powerful for a portable device.

The internal battery is very convenient, IMHO...all it takes is a few hours of charging and you can get some 10 or so hours of playback time. No running out to drop some dough on more batteries needed, nope.

BUT...that's not all, folks. The nice thing here is that this also can function as a removeable drive, with USB transfer capabilities. So you can cram some MP3s in there, some large project, etc etc...and take more than just music with you. This'll be convenient for anyone who has to transport large files, such as multitrack session files for music types, or big graphics files for artists, or some specifically-needed piece of software that needs to move around, etc etc. Use your imagination, you'll find uses.

Plus, of course, this works with anything...sure, you can make an iPod work with a Windows box, but it's not quite so 'happy'. So with this being more 'generic', it seems to help with ease of use/connectability issues for different platforms. Just find a USB port and get busy.

The only flaws here lie in the headphones. They're pretty uncomfortable. But this is easy enough to remedy and, in fact, WORTH remediation by getting a much better set of 'cans' and using those with the Jukebox Recorder 15. You can appreciate the excellent quality of audio you'll get out of a well-encoded MP3 with this box that way.

I'm planning to take mine into some studio sessions I have coming up next month (June 2003) so that I can convert and 'dump' various mixes of tracks in MP3 format to the box so that they can be reviewed outside the studio, at leisure. It's good enough, IMHO, that even semi-pro-type usage of Archos's machine in this way is warranted. Very cool little machine, this.

I just baught this unit from costco. I think its a worst unit. I cut two mp3 cds of 650 mb capacity TDK one. None is working, But these CD's are working on other player and on my desktop.
Normal CD works but Quality is not impressive. SKIP protection is very very bad. I think mucic player is not entirely a field for Casio. They put there mind somewhere else.

I have yet to be able to hear even 1 song on the player, even normal CD's don't work - everything sounds like the chipmunks. Trying to deal with casio support is a joke - nothing on their web site (web site listed in manual doesn't even exist) and only 1 number in the manual that is open for 8 hours a day monday-friday. After 1 hour on hold (wasting my lunch hour at work) they said it is defective and they can't help without having the player sent to them or to return it where it was purchased from. I feel like I just wasted my money and time trying to deal with the problem - it is not worth it.

Not sure why there are negative impressions of this unit. I received as a gift for the holidays '01 and it's worked great every since. I almost always listen to CD's I've burned and the unit has always recognized them. In fact, I wanted a unit that would be able to read CD-R's, CD's. and MP's. The unit has done this flawlessly. The headphones are comfortable and sound quality is good. Overall, this is a super value in comparison to MP3 only players with expensive memory add-ons. The only drawback is I wish their was a rechargable battery included.

Great audio card - however I have the misfortune to find out that this card does not work correctly with the non-usb Sidewinder 3D Pro. ...Installing the DirectX 8.1b, Lastest Sound Card Drivers, and Sidewinder 3.02 drivers doesn't help. The controller is listed as not-connected. You can use it in analog mode, but you loose much functionality.

...

This card came with my Dell, but I'm going to buy another one for another computer with a proprietary unsupported card. This card works great in all situations, from listening to music to playing games. This big advantage (for me) is that it works great in Linux, which is why I'm buying another one.

I'll recomend this card if you just want a 16 bit sound card. what you'll miss is the 1024 midi voices that a SBlive has... but if your goal is not to play midi music then buy this. You'll get a 32 voices polyphony soundcard with multitilmbral capabilities! as the original Ensoniq, this should be the choice of anyone that wants to make music with trackers. You'll be able to mix 32 digital channels without losing quality as in other soundtracks. To give you an example, how many times did windows told you that another app is using your sound card? Well, with Ensoniq you can hear other windows sounds while listening to an MP3. Well, that is posible with the original Ensoniq.

It is nice. Protects my pod well. It also keeps the pod from slipping off the table. Only bad is that the raised cut holes for the < << || >> > make it difficult for the common functions.

This is a great case. The only problem is that the holes for the buttons are a little too small if you have big fingers, but once you get used to it, it is a great product.

Originally i bought the best case i could find. It was leather, it had a belt clip, and a screen cover. After having it for about a month, i realized how useless it was, since it did exactly the opposite of what a case is suppose to do. The small translucant cover began to rub against the screen in my pocket and left it brutally scratched. As for the belt loop, if your a high school student like me, do you really think its a good idea to leve your 300 dollar iPod out on your belt??? no. There is only 2 small annoyances with this case

1. its made of a coarse rubber and is at times hard to coax into your pocket

2. the 4 top buttons are somewhat hindered by the thickness of the cover, but its not a huge problem, you just have to poke as opposed to tap

believe me, this case may be the cheapest, but in no way reflects its quality, pick one up today!