Audio Reviews

This is worthless. It doesn't make a sound until you are right next to a cop. Thanks Beltronics, but I don't need a radar detector to tell me when a cop is 20 yards away, I can see him just fine.

The device performs exactly as indicated in the literature. All of the features function correctly and with excellent sensivity. In addition, the amazon.com performaance was excellent. I chose the free shipping option. I ordered Tuesday evening. The unit was shipped within 24 hours from a Kentucky warehouse. It was in the UPS Minneapolis office Saturday and was delivered Monday...six days after my order!

Bravo Beltronics and bravo amazon.com!

Having done a lot of research before making my purchase, I have come to understand much about radar detectors in general. First of all, no matter how many radar "bands" a radar detector claims to detect, there are only 3: X/K/KA. This detector detects all of these, plus laser. A word on laser: radar/ laser detector combos that you mount on your windshield do not detect laser very well at all- officers direct their laser beam at the license plate, which is quite far away from these detectors. Thus, do not have much hope for any laser detector. I found the Bel Vector 940's performance with laser to be quite good, considering the enormous advantage the police have over laser detectors. However, the 940's performance with all bands of radar is almost unbeatable in this price range. The more money you shell out, often, the better detector you will get. Thus this is not as sensitive as other, more expensive models I have tried, but it works to such a degree that I question whether or not spending more money actually means getting a better detector. The bottom line: This detector is, all things considered, one of the best out there.

I'll keep this short and sweet. I've had the Zen Xtra 40GB for about a month. I'm returning it tomorrow (hopefully) to get an iPod.

Pros:
- Plenty of space
- 1/2 the cost of a 40GB iPod

Cons:
- User interface is difficult to use; jog dial isn't very easy to manipulate
- Poorly designed software (buggy and doesn't work 50% of the time)
- EAX sound field manipulation is garbage - don't use it
- Can't use it as an external hard drive w/o extra drivers
- Bigger than shirt pocket
- Sync capability is practically useless and error-prone (200 of my files wouldn't sync thru Creative's driver)

The only redeeming thing about the Zen is a third-party shareware product called Notmad Explorer which is great - but unfortunately it uses the Creative driver and the Zen itself, so it's not much better.

So you want to buy an MP3 player? Well if you don't have enough cash for an iPod and/or a general mistrust of Apple products, this player is for you. The Nomad has some definite advantages over the iPod that far outweigh its drawbacks.

First, it has a massive amount of storage at roughly half the cost of the comparable iPod. The 40GB version I have is capable of holding 4000 minutes of music. Secondly, the Nomad can hold both music and Data files, so if you need to transport a few documents between home and work, this player can also do that job for you. Thirdly, music can be copied off of the Nomad as well as loaded to. The iPod only allows the user to load music onto the device (Apple's attempt to prevent indiscriminant copying). With the Nomad, you can effectively use your player as a backup for your music. Finally, the computer interface is very simple and familiar to the Windows user. The Nomad shows up like a hard drive in Windows Explorer, and you simply drag and drop music into the player.

The drawbacks of this device are few, but notable. First, the interface is nowhere near as nice as an iPod. They use a series of buttons and a clumsy wheel. It's not flashy and neat like the iPod, but I don't want to pay double just for a neat interface. If you simply must have that touchy-feely interface, Creative Labs is coming out with a Nomad Zen touch fairly soon. Secondly, the EAX sound features are utterly worthless. Unless you want to hear what your music will sound like in a church or a stadium, you wont use this feature. Finally, the organization of songs on the player could use a little tweaking. Everything is sorted by the ID tag of the MP3 file. iPod does the same thing, but I would expect something a little better from Creative labs, like being able to use folders to organize music.

So to recap:

PROS:
-Huge storage capacity at half the cost of an iPod
-Holds both data and music
-Can copy files to and from device (unlike iPod which is unidirectional)
-Simple explorer interface for moving music to/from device

CONS:
-Unimaginative control interface (will be solved when Nomad Zen Touch comes out)
-EAX audio features are useless
-File organization leaves a bit to be desired.

I had been putting off getting a digital music player in the hopes that prices would drop. I finally decided to get the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 40GB, which was decidedly cheaper than comparable products from Apple, HP and iRiver.

Boy, this thing is the best! I used to have to lug around all my CDs, but this thing stores my entire music library (THOUSANDS of CDs!). Navigation is easy; you can search by artist, album or genre, as well as create your own playlists. It has something called EAX which is supposed to be some sort of advanced sound technology, but I don't see much value in it. Supports both USB 1.1 and 2.0; I have 1.1 and it took about 48 hours to put about 8,000 songs on it from my computer. If you listen to it about 4 hours per day, you'll need to recharge the batteries about once every 5 days (do the math if you listen more or less than that).

In summary, I LOVE this thing! It has all the functionality that I need, and it is BY FAR the best value. There's no other product that can store 40GB of music for less than $300. P.S. I listen to it while programming at work, and I've found that jazz boosts my lines of code per hour and cuts down on the number of bugs! ;-)

This radio is by far the best sounding table radio I have ever heard. It rivals the sound of similar radios that cost $80.00 more! The bass response is superb, the highs are crystal clear, and it has good station pulling ability on FM. The stereo separation it very good, and it has plenty of volume. The controls are simple to use, and I must say, that I recommend this radio for space-limited areas. I have an ear for good sounding and mediocre sounding radios, and this one sounds great!

I was looking for a radio for my office, and I went to the local Target and found this radio. I liked the retro look (it reminded me of the radios my grandfather had on his table)! I took it to the office and everyone was commenting how cool it looked. The sound quality is good and for the price you can't beat it.

This is probably the best sound system I've ever bought. I never thought anything could be this high of quality... and for the price!



It has very good sound, good reception, big dials and a lit up display, and good bass. The best part is the audio input jack. Now I listen to my mp3 player with out the headphones. I'm amazed at how you can crank up the volume and still have great sound, especially considering how small it is. Wow!



I highly recomend this!!!

If you like the quirky pictures which a Holga, Diana, or other cameras produce; you will like this. I was originally angry at the poor quality of images as I wanted to use the camera for professional insurance work. But....I let it set in a drawer for six months and got it back out.
I experimented with it and got some interesting surreal results which I made into works of art with PhotoShop. This toy camera may be the beginning of another legendary junk camera.

Its an excellent camera and they should continue to sell them. It would be a disapointment if they cancel these nice camera's.I know alot of people with them and people that want to order some in canada. So please do cancel these camera's. thanks in advance

This is a great Camerar with excellent battery life!
The 16 mb of flash memory holds 180 pictures at the highest image quality setting!
I have taken over 100 pictures with the flash on and my batteries are still at full power! :)
This camera is feature packed for the low cost.
It includes a video out so you can view your pictures as a slide show on your TV.
The mp3 playback qualtity is excellent as well.
The included PC software is a breeze to use and the camera could not be any easier to set up.
I highly recommend this camera as a first digital camera or as a camera for the young photographers in your house :)

Well this is one cool looking piece of a/v equipment. But that is about it. I put this receiver up against my Onkyo which runs my home theater. The remote on the Kenwood is great for all those different components that you've mixed and matched over the years to build the perfect home theater, including IR commands for my Stewart film screen and Curtain control. But in every other category, it fell way off the mark. I used a typical 5.1 channel THX Certified speaker setup and a high end laserdisc and dvd player for sources. The Kenwood didn't have much of a problem routing video but audio was not good. At higher levels, FM channel bleed could be heard coming from the speakers. The amplifiers strained to push through programing material at higher dB's especially when all speakers were active. Eventually, the unit failed to even produce sound at all, barely spewing a whisper of what it should have been cranking out. Overall, I would give it zero stars but the remote and the fact that the unit is visually appealing redeem the 2 star rating. Save your money for a Sony or Pioneer if you're in this price range. At least they are more reliable.

The system is really loud and has excellent sound on all channels when in DTS 5.1 (DVDs and Digital Cable). You can really appreciate the bass. Also, the tuner is very accurate and I rarely get interference, something common in all other radios in my house.

Great sound but hard to set up. Looks great

If you are running Panther on a Power Mac system, then I would not get this card. The crappy drivers causes kernal panics within a few minutes of starting the system. I contacted their "Tech Support" and got nowhere fast. It seems that they are more interested in making excuses and finger points to oters as to why their card doesn't work. Then they go on to basicly say "Tough luck for now. We will have new drivers for you soon" but they don't say when, if ever, that they will have them.
It has been two weeks since Panther has come out and there has been nothing from them. All their other products have Panther updates, why not the Revolution?

I've been looking around for an el cheapo sound card, and I came across this M-Audio 7.1 card (I know, not exactly cheap). Anyways, this is not so much a review as it is buying advice and information. If you look at the used products for this card, there is a Chaintech 7.1 card being offered under this product listing. This sounded fishy to me so I looked into this card. Turns out, the M-Audio is very similar to this Chaintech sound card, using the same audio processor; the Envy24HT chipset. However, the M-Audio supports true 24 bit sound on the analog outputs, whereas the cheaper Chaintec is limited to 18 bit on the analog outs. (the analog outs are where the typical PC speakers are connected to). But, this gets more confusing. First, the Chaintec can support 24 bit/192 khz sound on analog, but only in 2.1 speaker mode, whereas the M-audio can do it 2,4,5,or 7.1 speaker mode. But this is only for the analog output. Why you ask? Well, the analog signal must pass through a DAC, or digital to analog converter in order to translate the audio signal for playback, and the M-Audio uses a better DAC than the Chaintec for channels 1-6. However, the Chaintec uses a better DAC on channels 7-8 (the Wolfgang DAC) hence it can support true 24/192 sound on these two channels. Aside from this analog issue, the M-Audio is known to have problems on its SPDIF output (this is the output on the card that connects to a digital connection like coax or toslink). So, for people who want a sound card to connect to your receiver or an amp, this becomes a drawback (although M-Audio is working on a fix for this problem through soon to be released drivers). Practially speaking, it's not a huge problem, but it'll bug audiophiles because the digital output on the M-Audio does not have native support for ASIO. (ASIO is a high end feature that playsback audio without any resampling; hence it's pure and unmolested). The Chaintec uses a toslink digital out which fully supports 24/192 sound just like the M-Audio. Using the SPDIF on the Chaintec also supports ASIO mode for bit-perfect playback, although you need an external software wrapper like ASIO4ALL to do this, plus it requires a good amount of configuration. (This can done on the M-Audio as well). For the really ambitious, there's even a bios flash program for the Chaintec that can change its native drivers into a Prodigy 7.1 card, hence full native support for ASIO without the need for a third-party wrapper. (But if you figure out how to flash the card into a virtual Prodigy 7.1 card, you lose all analog functionality). So, while the M-Audio may be a better card for analog use, it still costs about 5x the amount of the Chaintec and the digital out is no better than the Chaintec. If you only need the digital output on a sound card, the Chaintec is by far the best bang for your buck. All in all, the research I've done points to the Audiotrack Prodigy 7.1 as the best overall consumer card. (But all of these cards based on the Envy24HT chipset lack hardware acceleration, so hardcore gamers may want to stick to Creative). The Prodigy is about the same price as the M-Audio and it has all of its strengths, but it also has full native support for ASIO. The Prodigy also has better DAC's for analog outputs than the Chaintec.

So, in summary this M-Audio is a good card. But I'd go with the Prodigy 7.1 instead as it's about the same price. For those who are especially cheap or poor or only need the digital out on a sound card, then the Chaintec is the way to go. I ordered it online for under 25 bux with free shipping. Don't be fooled by its generric brand, this is a powerful card with many options, but don't expect much documentation or support on the Chaintec; internet forums notwithstanding. In conclusion, I think it may be worthwhile to do some research on the Chaintech and the Prodigy before shelling out big bux for this M-Audio or any other brand.

I just purchased this product and installed it on my PowerBook running Panther. While the bundled drivers were a bit buggy (volume control didn't work, etc.). I dind't have any kernal panics, however after looking through M-Audio's webisite a bit, I found an updated driver for Panther which is now working perfectly. The sound quality is great (although turning on the virtual surround mode decreases quality) and the product configuration options and features are as good as you'll find in any external card at this price.

I really like the features, sound, headphones, price. But based on the enclosed expired accessory offer, I conclude that it has been in the warehouse for going on 2 years, which led to my problem - the "fake display" sticker on the display was old and left all of its adhesive on the plastic making the display unreadable. Fortunately I was able to clean it off with pure mineral spirits without damage. Otherwise it's a great unit.

This is a state of the art player/radio with all electronic switching to engage tape and radio functions. It is compact and offers excellent quality. The remote is very functional and enables the player to be carried in a secure unexposed place while using the unit. I recommend it very highly. I am a bicycle commuter and I can keep this unit weather proofed in my pack, while working the remote. The only qualification for people who may use this player while on the go is that earphones might be more convenient and less obstrusive, i.e. not interferring with helmet straps, et al.

One reviewer complained about small buttons on the player, but I don't think this is a factor, because the unit switches electronically, not manually, and the buttons are sufficiently separated for convenient use.

This little Walkman is great. The features abound for its size and the remote control is great. You can keep your Walkman zipped up somewhere and work virtually all of its controls. The 2 types of bass boost, normal/CrO2 switch, playback modes and 20 presets just add to the value! It does take a second or two to start play/rew/ff, but remember these are electronic softouch controls which ensure proper playback pressure. The sound is great and the LCD, although small, is visible in any light source. Some of the buttons are small too, but again, remember the size of this unit. Overall, at this price, and even for $30 or $40 more, this Walkman is excellent. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys great sound from a small player. The radio reception was excellent too! Buy it!

I purchased the EM500 as my first PDA, along with a 64MB MMC card. The card allows me to store vast amounts of data and music on MMC, compensating somewhat for the barebones 16 MB of RAM permitted in this device.

Due to technological changes by Microsoft, the EM-500 and most other Pocket PCs on the market as of August 2001 cannot be upgraded to the new Windows Pocket PC 2002 operating system.

Assuming you need to buy a PDA before the new generation of Pocket PC 2002 PDAs reaches the market, the EM-500 is a great choice.

The video quality is excellent. The unit design is simple, sturdy and elegant. The included applications are more than sufficient for the average PDA or MP3 user. The success of the character and handwriting recognition software in translating simple messages was a pleasant surprise.

For added convenience, buy Casio's EM500 docking cradle.

I love PDA's (and computers in general, for that matter) and this is an excellent device. There was a time when I swore by Palm's pda's, but while Windows CE (now known as Pocket PC) has evolved to near-desktop power, the Palm has remained virtually unchanged. Of the Pocket PC's available, this unit is the best compromise of size and power. It packs a 150mhz cpu (more powerful than the HP Jornada, less than the Ipaq), 16mb of ram, and an amazing screen capable of displaying 16bit color. The Ipaq and HP Jornada can both only do 12-bit color at best. All of that is packed in a comfortable, small device that feels extremely solid in the hand.

While I do believe the EM-500 is probably the best unit available, it does have a few draw-backs. The miserly 16mb of ram is hardly enough... if you buy this make sure to get a 32mb or 64mb memory card to go with it. My other complaints are minimal: lack of hardware volume control, location of IRDA port... but none of these minor issues really impact the usefulness of the unit.

Definitely a great PDA, and well worth the money

This is a great pda for the price and it works well with windows which is a major plus. I am a med student and use mine to reference material quickly (it makes me look like a genius). Anyway, it has lot of other app as well so you can use it to play your fav song... on the train/bus or edit email or read a book... I COULD GO ON AND ON... anyway, good deal especially if you find one used.

This Panasonic DVD/digital video recorder is great! I haven't had the problem described (concerning the TV guide feature)--but note that this feature only works with the cable directly attached to the unit (cannot be hooked up to a digital cable box). The TV guide feature does not work with satellite either. TV guide feature is awesome...and you don't need a phone line (like TIVO). See epinions.com for my expanded review http://www.epinions.com/content_143539670660

Best thing since sliced bread. No idea why other reviewers whinge and whine. Granted the TV guide feature does not include ALL channels, but that is not the fault of the hardware; more likely a channel or cable supplier specific shortcoming. Of course, then you have to spend 5 seconds more on the recorder set up!
Although I am not an avid TV viewer (life is too bloody short) this device has ensured recording of sporting events and quality movies/dramas (etc. - add as appropriate) a breeze.

After our 8 year old DVD player finally began to have problems, I decided to get this DVD recorder despite my fears of quirky behavior in fairly new technology. All my fears were unfounded, and I love this new piece of electronics. For us cheap guys with just basic cable, the TV Guide feature worked immediately to provide us with both great show info and great ease of recording shows. It's just as easy to watch the recordings, and the DVD player quality is wonderful with our home theater setup. I highly recommend this Panasonic to anyone who can afford the price (nicely improved upon by Amazon, of course).

I previously ordered two of these units and wrote a review. Both were badly damaged, but one was salvagable. The other I had to return, after it overheated and emitted a noxious odor. I decided to take a chance and order another unit this month (goal was to have total of two working units), hoping that whatever warehouse or shipping issues that resulted in previous damage had been resolved. They weren't. This unit also came with crushed top and wheels. Until the manufacturer comes up with a better way to ship these heavy beasts, not worth it.

The Xpower 1500 is a good backup system as it has eveything you need in a convenient handtruck (the batteries are heavy).
Unfortunately the 61 Amphr batteries don't last that long. Adding a 100Ahr battery which you can easily be connected to the xPower make for a nice system which will get you thru a few days of blackout.

I HAVE TWO XPOWER 1500 UNITS . THEY WORK AS ADVERTISED, EACH UNIT WILL RUN A REFRIGERATOR FOR OVER TWO HOURS DURING A POWER OUTAGE. THEY WILL START A SKILLSAW WHEN FULLY CHARGED.
THE ONLY PROBLEM I HAVE HAD, ONE OF THE CHARGERS WILL NOT CUT OFF AUTOMATICALLY WHEN THE BATTERY IS FULLY CHARGED.
A QUALITY PRODUCT, BUT NEEDS TO HAVE MORE RESERVE (BATTERY AMPS) FOR LONGER SERVICE. GREAT IDEA.