Audio Reviews

It appears these music CD-Rs do not work on most home CD players. I can only get them to work in my computer and in my car CD player (and that doesn't play back as great a quality as I'd like). I thought these would work since I had previously bought JVC Audio CD-Rs which are awesome. I won't bother with these again and unfortunately, I bought two spindles!

I have tried a handful of different CD-R's in the past few years, and these have the best quality. Memorex did a great job with these black CD-Rs.

The black colour on them looks great, as well.

I use these to burn audio cds, and every track sounds as crisp and clear as on the original cd. Another advantage to these are that you can see dust on them perfectly, so they are easier to maintain. There are absolutely no problems I have encountered with these cds, I highly recommend them.

I wanted to try this Memorex CD-R, 80 Minute in the 10-pk box before committing to a 50-Pk spindle. I've had nothing but good luck with these CD-R's. (Not a coaster in the bunch!!)
If you aren't sure about getting that 50-pk spindle, go on and order the 10-Pack. Give them a try and (if you are as satisfied as I am with their performance) order that 50-pk spindle..you won't be disappointed!!

Okay. Here is a write up, that I did, on the comparisons/contrasts on MP3 players. Mainly, the Harddrive versions (I.E. Rio Riot/Apple IPOD -both of which I own) and the flash memory type... (I.E. Memorex 3642 Mp3 Player, of which I own as well).
What prompted this little jaunt (of which you may send to as many people as you like) My $499 Apple IPOD died during a sync last month. Just me copying files over to it, and the battery ran out of juice. I would have not attempted to copy music had I known the battery was low, but the battery read FULL STRENGTH. Anyhoo, I called Apple, they said return it for maintenance.

I did. Sent it back.

They returned it, still broke.

To my suprise, there is only a TEN DAY return policy.

TEN DAYS.

I did not realize this at all... and it was a costly realization.

So, after a month or so of messing around trying to find another MP3 player... I decided to go with a flash memory MP3 player, the ones that use memory sticks.

SO, here are the pro and cons of these devices.

Pro's for the Memory Stick Mp3 players

-Cheaper. WAY CHEAPER than Hard drive types.

-If you go into music match and file convert to MP3 Pro and shrink the size of your MP3 to like, say 3o percent... you can really make a good Kompression. Example. My Memorex MP3 player has 32mbs of memory on board. It is expandable to 256mb. 32 mb will basically let you put one cd's worth of music. It is easy to put music on and off of them, due to your computer reading the USB as just another hard drive, so you drag and drop to put on, delete them to take them off. But, after you shrink your files to MP3 Pro 30 percent, you can put twice as many. So, basically a 256mb chip will allow me to put 208 songs on my little less than palm size MP3 player. And it wieghs like 3 ounces.

- More on memory. These little chips are the size of the upper part of your thumb, at least my thumb anyway. They come in 128mb, 256mb, 512mb and even though there aren't any MP3 machines out there to handle them YET, you can even buy a 1.5gig thumb size chip thingy. Considering the size of the chips and the shrinking kompression I told you about earlier, I could shrink my whole KOLLEKTION down to 10 of those 1.5gig chips. At the current shrink rate I am at 5 DVD's, which are way bigger and more fragile than these little chips.

- Not as fragile as hard drive type. You can drop one of these chips and not scratch it. I wouldn't stomp on one with my foot, nor get one in water, but they are encased in plastic. Ruggedish.

- Batteries last for like two days. There isn't much going on here, no moving parts, no laser or hard drive to put power to. Most of these flash Memory types have a single AA battery. I use a rechargeable type, so we are talking very low cost here.
In comparison to the hard drive types, where you will get a solid 8 hours of playing, this really whupps up.

- Size. Small. Very small. Mine is three inches by three inches. A square. But, you can get smaller ones. And the memory chips that go in them are the same ones you use for your camera. And you can put files on them. If you want to put a word doc on your memory chip, you can. Your Mp3 won't recognize it, but it is nifty storage.

COMPARISON/CONTRAST

- Size does matter. In the case of hard drive Mp3 players... lets face it, you can, if you so chose to, put a library of congress on these monsters. They are the caddilacs of the hand held devices, and guzzle batteries like gasoline. But when it comes down to it, size is the only thing they have going for them. I don't mean to downplay the hard drive types, but don't drop them, don't shake them, and after shelling out $499 to Apple you might consider insurance. Apple doesn't care about you or your apple after 10 days of ownership.

- Price/Komparison. IPOD ran me $499 bucks. My memorex MP3 player ran me 45 dollars. The 128 memory chip runs you 50 bucks. Owch. There really isn't a comparison to the two. The memory stick Mp3 players just kick butt on this issue. And, you get MORE than a ten day return policy, since you buy these things at Target/Wal Mart etc...

So, that is my review in a nutshell
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Not completely sure why I am getting such a roasting on this review. I am only reporting what happened to me, and how I bought another product and compared the two.... I am not trying to change anyones mind, but letting someone know what happened to me.

OK, this is a splitter. You can buy a cheap one anywhere but this one is well-made. The design matches the iPod well but it's functional as well. The black circle is a rubberized material with ridges that provide a good place to hold the splitter while you plug or unplug headphones. It works great.

I bought the splitter to use with a laptop playing DVD's while on vacation so that my wife and I could both listen with headphones (extremely important not to wake kids, especially while trying to enjoy a quiet moment on vacation). It works well on the plane too where you must use headphones to not disturb other passengers.

This thing is sweet, it works great to play your ipod through your stereo!!!

I have this model, about two years old. Its drawbacks are its tape speed and pause/VAS switches that are too close together and which are almost indecipherably labeled. But it had the other features I wanted -- external mic jack and an AC adapter port.

I used it regularly until yesterday when the entire microphone system failed. It appears to work perfectly, but it picks up no sound now whatsovever -- not with the built-in mic nor with the external mic jack. A real problem when you need a reliable recorder!

Not a bad little recorder. It's not as good as the digital recorders out there today but for the price I won't complain.

Compare with Sony's... I Love this one much better in quality, size, looks and price. My daughter will go crazy!

I find the sound great. The headphones hurt my ears and are uncomfortable. The AM does not pick up in the gym but FM is fine. AM picks up fine outdoors and in the house. It works great with the hand held device which I prefer with running. No jarring and I love the antiroll feature. And one battery! I also like that it is not heavy. I find it slighly smaller than the Sony and easier for my smaller hands. It is light weight. I enjoy it as my first digital.

I just received my player today. Overall, the quality looks pretty nice. I did notice that if you moderatly shake the unit you will get some wow/flutter when listening to tapes. I don't think running with it will cause any problems though. It looks reasonably well sealed. The only rub on this product is that the earbud-sized headphones sound pretty bad. I hooked up an old pair of Sony headphones (typical 'on the ear' as opposed to 'enclosing the ear' size) which improved the sound quality dramatically (roughly 50%). I've listened to 2 different ear-bud sized headphones, and they both sound pretty bad compared to the bigger sizes.

I love this Panasonic Shockwave. I have gone trhough several walkmen (or walkmans) in the last few months. Each has had its irritating problems (too easy to bump the volume or some other setting, bad reception or volume control, battery hog, battery and tape falls out when dropped, etc.) and each has broken beyond repair after being dropped accidentally.

My new Shockwave has survived several bumps and crashes with no ill effects. It has digital tuning with prerecorded stations (what a bonus, definite time and emotional energy savings here.) The volume dial is not easuly bumped and the belt clip is easily removable.

The only annoyance is that when you turn the radio on it tunes into AM first (you have to press the button a second tiem to go to FM) and I never listen to AM. This is not a big problem.

The shockwave is a rugged piece of equipment with some great bonus features. I recommend it highly.

I know I probabaly shouldn't expect so much for the good deal that I got, but the MX3900D was a major disappointment.

I have had problems since day one with the sound levels while playing DVD's. When I have the radio turned on I can keep the level at about a 5 or a 6 and hear it through my whole house. For a DVD I have to turn the level to 25 or 30 to barely hear common conversations. It is also really irratating that when I put a new DVD in the changer and then select that tray that the DVD doesn't automatically start playing. Isn't that the point of the DVD menu that movie companies put on the disc?? I even went so far as calling Philips to find out about the problems and was told that these are known issues and can't be fixed.

Sorry, but I want a system that I don't have to crank all the the way so that I can hear my movie. This one went back to the store.

I received this as a Father's Day gift. My five year old son and I had it up and running in less than an hour. It needed no additional cables and we were blown away by how good it sounded. Keep in mind this is my first venture into a home theater system. I could not see spending a mortgage payment on a system with a 5 and 2 year old that would put something through a subwoofer or something.

The sound is great. Set up is easy and the price is fantastic!

I bought a factory reconditioned 3950 from Overstock.com, and couldn't be happier with it. This system has some really nice features like sound that can be easily adjusted with the remote depending on where you are sitting in the room. It also has a voice enhancer feature that can be turned off/ on with the remote as well.
The sound is great for HTIB. The bass is tight, and dialogue is clear no matter what movie is playing. Considering I paid less than $200 for this system, I really don't see how the sound could be that much better in a HTIB that costs 5-10 times as much, which I saw when I was looking.
In addition to the great sound, this is a nice looking system, also. Philips is one of the few electronics companies that understands that exterior design is almost as important as sound quality.
Another reviewer mentioned the flimsy disc trays, this is true. They are very flimsy - I don't think it would take much to damage one, then you are SOL. But overall, I would definitely recommend this system to anyone who can't justify spending tons of money on a home theater setup.

This recorder uses regular cassettes, not mini cassettes. I bought it so I could tape solos and learn them on the sax but the built-in microphone doesn't record music too well. It's probably better-suited for taping lectures, meetings, voice, etc.

Very nice item. I bought others in the same price range and they do not come near the quality of this recorder. Very clear. Perfect price for the options and the quality. The site says there is no headphone jack but this model DOES have the headphone jack on it.

If you look at the picture in close up, it says MINI CASSETTE RECORDER RQ-L31. I dont actually have it, but from the other reviews and its features, id give it a 5

I have had this model for almost 3 weeks now and I have gone through 2 AA batteries already! (It uses one at a time). I have used the cassette about 5 hours per battery! Not acceptable. The Sony I had previously rarely needed new batteries rarely and the controls were much easier labeled. The controls on this Panasonic are a horror!! I will be selling mine soon on Ebay and probably buying a Sony again! The sound quality is acceptable.

The unit has good sound, a clear radio and solid construction which are the most important things in a walkman so on that alone it gets good marks.

Now for the details, the radio tuner is pretty good. I find it is pretty picky about being aimed in the right direction, much more so than my last walkman (an Aiwa). It will pick up weaker stations much better than other radios though when it's aimed right.

The tape player controls are electronic which I like. One of the many benefits of that is it can find the next song or the beginning of the current song and wind there automatically. Very helpful. It also prevents abuse to the mechanical parts which will probably mean it will last longer.

The neck strap it comes with has some advantages but I still might prefer if it had come with a belt clip instead. It comes with a cute bag that should protect it from scratches. The bag closes with a drawstring so it's very easy to put the unit in or out.

The weak spots are the headphones and the Brain Shaker feature. The headphones clip to your ears. There is no band between the ear pieces and the wire is constantly getting tangled. It is also very hard to lean back with them because of the clips behind your ears. Not very convenient for dozing off to some music.

The Brain Shaker makes the headphones vibrate with the bass. it's a cute novelty but gets annoying after a while. I would prefer regular headphones with a regular bass boost. You can always use other headphones though and still use the remote as they are separate pieces. You won't get the Brain Shaker with other headphones, though that may not be a bad thing.

I use NiCad batteries with it and I find that they drain pretty fast. For some reason it seems to use a lot of power while it's off. You should get good time on the batteries if you use it for extended periods but the batteries will drain if it sits around.

I didn't have any problems with the controls but I can see some technically challenged people finding it a bit confusing. Most people though shouldn't have a problem.

In short, I would recommend this model quite highly. I remember seeing a similar model without the Brain Shaker for a drop cheaper though and if that wasn't just my imagination I would recommend you take the cheaper one. Brain Shaker isn't worth spending extra on.

The mechanism in this player is excellent for shuttling the tape back and forth as one might do while studying language tapes or lectures on tape. It is very gentle on the tape and will not crimp or damage the tape, which normally leads to a jam and irreparable damage to the cassette. I have used this model for many, many hours, and I shuttle the tape a lot. I have never had good luck with cheaper cassette players. This model is at a very good price. The sound is excellent, and the AA battery lasts a long time. I have used this model to study both Chinese and Spanish. If you have had trouble with other cassette players, don't give up! You'll love this machine!

I bought this set in an attempt to improve the quality of analog to DVD using a Canopus box. The problem was, the cable jacks were too large for my VCR's component output. They fit in the jacks, but were loose would only provide a connection when I jiggled them about. I've never had this problem with this type of cable before, very disappointing.

I've purchased a lot of cable recently including S-Video, Component Video, and Optical Cable. I purchased this short cable to run data from my progressive scan DVD player to my Denon 987. And to be perfectly honest, the stuff Sears sells in their audio/video department works just as well as Monster and costs quite a bit less. Mind you, I'm not anti-Monster, heck my house is filled with 100s of feet of 16-gauge Monster THX cable. But you can get really good cable for a lot less if you look around. Try Ebay for starters...

I used to wonder why spend the extra money. It's just cable after all. Well, I wonder no more. I have an older TV and a decent but older receiver. The sound was okay but I was wanting something better. I bought a couple of these cables, and S-Video cable and 16 gauge Monster speaker wire.

My system is AWESOME now. I was truely impressed at what a difference a $50 (or there about) investment in cables made.

I've owned this tape player/radio for just over a year now, and for a while it was a welcome traveling companion, fitting neatly into my briefcase. While on trains, planes, etc., I could either tune in to local radio or listen to tapes of my choice.
Then after just about a year, and for no apparent reason, the radio suddenly began to act like it was one of those old fashioned coil jobs you made in Scouts. In other words, it couldn't pick up a signal even if you were ten feet from the transmitter.

Okay I told myself, call the Manufacturer to see what it might cost to get repaired (the warranty naturally having expired shortly before the radio did). And as feared, I was greeted with Voice Mail Hell... Press One if you are a Dealer, Press Two if you want parts, etc. One of the options was for Repair Estimates, and once there, I learned I must either "hold" for at least ten minutes (six calls), or "Due to Unusually Long Waiting Times, We are Unable to Take Your Call at this Moment. PLEASE call again at another time."
So I used their allegedly friendly, new fangled email system, and lo and behold, five days later I got a response from Operator 26 who told me I should call a certain phone number and all would be swell. Number called, wait either "too long, please call later" or longer than I care to wait (e.g. 16 minutes).
So who knows. Maybe Panasonic does really make good products and I got the only malfunctioning one in existence. But then again, who were all those other callers, also on 'hold' awaiting problem resolution?

Think I'll see if another manufacturer offers both a better product and better service.

This is a very ood player. it is planty loud. It has all the poop and gadgets you'll need. The only drawback is the headphones. They are pretty uncomfortable. But otherwise, i would definetly reccomend it.

I ordered the cassette on Thursday and recieved it Monday. A very well made piece of equipment, not flimsy at all. Sound quality is excellent. Stereo came with a black nylon carry bag, with draw string. Battery is concealed inside the cassette area to save room and allow the equipment to be compact. Sized so that it can comfortably fit in your pocket. (The one battery lasts for hours and hours.) Cassette does not skip during vigorous movement. Dropped stereo twice with no dents or repercussions. No regrets.

I purchased this item after reading both the good and the bad reviews. I was prepared for about anything. I was not. For those of you who the item worked properly and with ease I envy you. After reading the almost non-existent directions on how to install and operate the item, I followed them exactly. This item is not for you if you are not already familiar with some kind of music software. Music Match was a very difficult and frustrating program for me to figure out. Again, the almost non-existent directions for this software were useless. After the first day of unsuccessfully attempting to get this to work, I tried again the next day repeatedly to no avail. It would not recognize the device.

I finally decided to call Philips customer service. Another bad mistake. I was told that apparently my device was "corrupted" and that I had to download an updated driver to make it work. Imagine my surprise when even downloading the driver didn't work. At long last, for whatever reason out of the blue I was able to transfer mp3 files to the device and I was elated. When I went to listen to the music I downloaded there was dead silence. Nothing. I had no idea what to do or what was happening. Again, back to Philips customer service. In total I spoke to 4 different people, apparently located in Bangladesh who eventually told me I needed to speak to "Darren" in tech support and that he would contact me. That never happened. Therefore, I call again (oh, did I mention getting disconnected TWICE after being on hold for over 10-15 minutes?) and I ask if I could speak to anyone else in tech support that could help me. I was told No, Darren was the only one to talk to. I said, "there is no one else who works tech support that can help me?" and was told NO. Apparently, this Darren is the only person in Bangladesh who can assist the thousands of Philips customers with tech problems.

Overall, this product sucked for me. The experience with Philips sucked even more. I know I will never purchase a Philips product in the future. I resigned to return the item and promptly went out and bought an RCA Lyra 1021 and within minutes of unpacking, it had it working and was listening to my music on it. Coincidence? I think not.

i looked all over for this thing. NOONE even close to me had it. Ordered it from the seller on amazon from california. in my opinion, this is the coolest overall packaging of any flash-type player out there. the added bonus of being able to transfer files from home/work is very cool as well.

when i first got it, i plugged it in (computer is running xp) and nothing happened. I tried all 3 usb ports. they all work fine with my digital camera and my wife's mp3 player, so i called philips' customer service. they were very nice and asked me to send it in and they would replace it. a week and half later i got the replacement and plugged it in-nothing. i went over to a buddy's house and tried it there (slower computer/older model/etc.) and it worked fine. i went home confused and decided to try it one more time and it worked!!! i don't have a clue what happened but it's worked fine since. (by the way, i spoke with philips customer service 3 times and every time they were very pleasant and helpful.)

Pros:
1. nice sound
2. awesome design
3. can use file storage/transfer device
4. ultra simple
5. no cord, plugs right in! great for charging also

Cons:
1. a bit heavy in your pocket when your running (no clip so it
just has to sit in your pocket)
2. ear buds could be better, but are easily replaced
3. songs don't load onto it quite as fast a some other small players (samsung yepp yp-35)

these cons weren't big deals to me. an ultra cool looking player that is great for active people who normally have to worry about skipping. Head turner.

One last thing-when i plug it into my car stereo via an alt. input cord into a mini jack, it still produces awesome sound. much better than a couple of others i have tried this with.

Its an awsome Mp3 player, its really small and light- fits in your pocket easily.... The only down side is it takes a while to load songs onto it, but thats only a small part. Once the songs are on its great...