MP3 Reviews

These headphones sound great and the VMSS is pretty cool but its design could be better. First of all, the VMSS control and battery pack is poorly placed. Even though it has a clip to allow you to clip to your clothing I found that the cord between the headphone and battery pack is kinda too short to allow you to clip to a good spot so most of the time I just leave it hanging, which results in another problem. With the battery inserted, the battery pack is kinda heavy so dangling the control gets very annoying because if you move around the battery pack tend to swing back and forth etc. and can get banged around. I wished they had built in the battery pack into the headphone itself or have it located next to the plug. I've already managed to put a crack in the battery cover because it came off one time, due to me moving around and the battery pack banged against something, and I stepped on it because I didn't notice it came off. Also, the cord is very long, which can be good but if you make a product with a cord that long you should built in some sort of cord management feature. I almost broke the headphones because there was a pile of cord next to my chair and somehow it got tangled with the chair and when I moved my head I almost broke off the cord where it enters the headphone.

So, in conclusion, it sounds pretty good and if you can tolerate its design inadequacies then its a good buy but for me if I had to do it again I probably would have bought something else.

These headphones are great. You will not be disappointed. They sound great with music, but play games and turn on the VMSS and it will take your games to a whole new level. Much recommended.

I purchased this headphone set with the specific intent of using them for 3D sound gaming. The VMSS system excels at creating a directional sound in games, you can hear from almost any direction, it's only limitations are from your sound card. I have a Game Blaster Live sound card and I hook the headphones into the jack on my Yamaha speakers & still get the full 3D sound that I would get from a 5.1 speaker system. Then I wanted to transfer my cassette tapes to CD-R's and was highly impressed by the full range of sound from these headphones, it's best to turn off the VMSS system with the handy slider control when listening to music only. If I had an unlimited amount of money to spend on a set of headphones, I would still buy this product.

I could not find the SC-FX8 case anywhere for my new camera (FujiFilm 4800), and the camera is not supplied with one. It turns out that the Case Logic MP3 Player Case is a near-perfect fit and great value too. I have no regrets about buying this case, but it would be nice if other colors where available. I prefer the belt loop because it is less likely that a thief will be able to snatch it and run.

This case works very well with Philips RUSH MP3 player. Plenty of room for extra memory cards and batteries! Great product at an affordable!

I bought this for my Rio 500 and it fits perfectly. When opened, the right side of the case has a pocket of elasticized netting that should hold most MP3 players as long as they aren't bigger than about 4.5" by 2.5" The left side has a large zippered pocket that runs the length of the case (vertically) and a smaller unzippered pocket that is 2.5" deep. The zipper that closes the case is large and seems to be durable. The case itself is soft and should protect the contents fairly well.

My only negative comment about the case is the belt strap. It is nothing more than a nylon strap running the length of the case and sewn at both ends. Caselogic describes the case as being easy to attach to a belt or backpack. However, to wear it on your belt you have to take your belt off, thread it through the strap on the case, then put your belt back on. I wish that they had made the strap so it had velcro, a snap, or a buckle at one end so that you could attach it to a belt more easily. Despite this minor flaw I am very happy with the case and can recommend it.

Great Volume, FM is average but I've droped it many times and never had a problem. Very Great purchase!!

If you're buying an Intel Pocket Concert, save yourself some time and get the accessory kit right off the bat (or choose the package that includes it with the player). You'll want this kit...

For a start, it adds rechargeability to the Pocket Concert, sporting a pair of nickel metal hydride (NiMH) "memory free" AAA batteries. The docking station featured in this kit serves as your desktop charger... Just insert the Pocket Concert, and it'll begin refreshing your batteries.

The docking station doubles as a fancy (and more practical) USB connection to your PC for downloading your tunes into the player. And while I question the value of the feature, the docking station also has a pair of RCA connectors providing line-level output for your stereo system (or to the line inputs on your computer, presumably).

The carrying case is superb. According to the brand legend on the zipper pulls, this is a Case Logic case -- a fact that Intel doesn't bother to present. But typical of Case Logic products, it's a well made and useful way to carry around your Pocket Concert.

Finally, the standard issue cassette adapter provides you an easy way to play your Pocket Concert on the move in your car, or anywhere a standard cassette deck is available.

The reason I rate it 4 stars, not 5? Price... At late-2001 "ballpark" pricing, this kit boosts the overall price of the Pocket Concert ..., which is at the high-end for 128 Meg audio players. (By the time you read this, no doubt pricing and competitive issues will likely be different, so make your own assessment.)

But price aside, it's still an important thing for any Pocket Concert user to have.

The accessory kit is awesome!! I have the dock set up by my home stereo with a cord running to my computer. It is nice becasue you can send songs directly to it from your computer and then play them through your stereo. The only minor complaint is the rechargable batteries do not last as long as real batteries but I was able to go over six hours on a plane with them. I only wish it had a remote.

OK - the MP3 module is nice, though it does not hold a lot of music. Typically 12-14 songs however, the ease of downloading into the visor and module is very nice. Now, about the clip...What a peice of garbage. For anyone who works out or does anything active and wants music to tag along, this IS NOT the equipment for the job. The clip does not secure to anything and if the energy hits the ground, forget it, you will be using super glue and rubber bands to hold it together. You would think that with all the technology out there, Soundsgood would come out with something a little more impressive and durable for those with an active life style- I know I would be willing to pay a little more for something more durable applicable for working out. Please, invent something, quickly!!!!

I think this is a great product. I have used other MP3s and this has a very fast method to load music onto it. With 64 mb, the music load speed is important. I used the energy clip during my workouts. I can get about 1.5 hours of music on this and the MP3 inside the clip is very small (3"X4") so I do not even notice it on me as I move about. Great product with bad marketing. There are very good used values out there. Enjoy.

Like I said great gadget but I wish that the mp3 player itself is just as good. I hope that Good Technology has improved on the little player because it is the worst so far in eminating noise.
The sony stick is the least that eminates noise.
This review isn't about mp3 players it is about this battery pack
and it does well for what it is intended for.

I've had this unit about 2.5 years (it was one of the first MP3 car audio units out). It's very pretty (especially at night), and plays well (except the FM tuner seems a bit weak), has good sound, nice scrolling display of MP3 ID3 tags, etc.

However I started having CD/MP3 read problems(?) and mechanical CD carrier problems, just after the unit passed its warantee limit.. At first, the unit started rejecting MP3 & CD disks- after sucking the disk in, it would think for a bit, then spit it out again with "Error" on the display- even if I had been playing that same CD earlier the same day. When it fell into this mode, it would reject *any* CD inserted (even brand new factory audio CDs), until I hit the "Reset" button (which also resets the clock, radio station presets, and all other personal audio settings). After "Reset", things would be OK for a while- then the same scenario would recur some weeks later, after trying to insert a another CD. "Reset" again, to fix.

In the past year, this has started occurring more frequently, until finally I had to "Reset" *every* time I tried to change CD's. I often had to try "Reset" *many* times, before I could get the unit to accept a CD. (No point in trying to set the clock, radio stations, or other personal audio settings any more- I knew they would be reset to defaults the next time I wanted to change CDs)

Now, in the past month, I have had problems getting the CD to eject- I can see the CD start to pop out of the drive, but the unit face does not move out of the way, to allow the CD to eject (this unit has a nifty moveable motorized "face", that must drop out of the way, for access to the CD drive). The CD is trapped behind the face, and cannot be removed from the unit. "Reset" does not help with this. I finally found a reference in the manual about this error- saying to press the eject and the "tilt face" button at the same time- this didn't work, but I found that if I physically *pulled* the face with great force, while pushing these two buttons, I could get the face out of the way, in order to remove the old CD...

I'm currently shopping for a simpler, more robust CD/MP3 player for my car...

I've been using one of these for the past couple of months, and it's got everything that I wanted...and then some!!

I've had my kd-sh99 for about a year now. When i first got it, I was one of the people who had the problem of the deck skipping. it would blank out for a few seconds and it was a gamble each time whether or not it will pick up again or if you had to eject the disk and try again. So i sent up to denver to be repaired, 6 weeks later i recieved it back and it has been great ever since. The technician said JVC had a bad batch of optical units, I happened to get one of those. A friend of mine bought this same deck and it worked flawlessly for him too.

I'm telling you, once you get a deck that can read MP3's you will never go back. I have 1 CD with 12 full punk albums on it, how cool is that! it is like having a 12 CD changer in your car, but much better. It reads ID3 tags and displays them up front up to 32 characters, it also reads CD-Text if the cd is programmed with it.

But yeah, so far it has worked wonderfully. no skips, nothin. just lots and lots of great music. it has a great random feature, it reads across the entire disc into every folder. some players only randomize in the current folder. it starts playing the mp3s where you last left off just like a regular CD. it only takes a second or two longer. it has a built in amp at 60watts, and a subwoofer control. you will notice your CDs will be a bit hot comming out of the player because of it, but it doesnt hurt them. the internal amp can also be turned off. switching folders on the CDR is very very easy of you burn it right. just prefix the folders with 01, 02, 03, etc and use the 1-12 radio preset buttons to switch. name the songs prefixed with 01,02,03 etc to play them in that order, otherwise it plays them alphabetically by ID3 tag. it has a motorized faceplate that is really cool. this deck has much more options and bells and whistles than any other deck in its price range. it would take forever to go through all the features. just know that it is the best one out there, i did a lot of searching before hand, but of course that was a year ago.

If i lost this, i most likely buy it again. the only reason I wouldnt is if they had a newer model! this is a purchase you will not regret.

Ordered this item from amazon a month ago and continued to get weekly updates saying there was a delay in shipping. Finally they told me they couldn't ship it and cancelled my order. Service was terrible because I couldn't cancel the order due to it being in the "shipping process", but the item never shipped. Not giving this product a bad review just amazon's customer service.

I just got this item from amazon. It shipped in 3 days! I was very impressed considering I expected over a week. It came in a small plastic case, with neck strap, usb extension cable, headphones, the player (of course), AAA battery, a small clip and rope to keep the cap with the player, and manual. I was not able to use it right away as the battery they gave me was bad. It was corroded and dented. Looked like some old used battery. I went out and bought some new AAA batteries and it worked right away. The controls are incredibly easy to follow and the quality of the sound is superb. I like all its features and think this is the best Mp3 player on the market, especially for its price. Very light weight, fits in the palm of my hand, and incredibly easy to put music on. I am a student and enjoy this product because I can put my documents on it (it's durable so I don't have to worry about it breaking like 3.5 floppies or zip disks), listen to music while I bike/walk home, and can record voice tracks (wav files) if I need a quick reminder. Highly recommended.

I have not owned mp3 players before this one, but i have seen other peoples. I also got it because it doubles as a storage device.
This thing is light as air. It has to weigh no more than the AAA battery that powers it, if not less than it. I get like 10 hours or so out of it. It has fantastic sound. I NEVER use the full volume, and it has different equilizer settings. The LCD display is a must for mp3 players in my opinion. You can make voice recordings if you need to, and it plays both mp3 and wma file types.
You need to have Windows 2000 or higher for it to be recognized as a new plug n' play device, since it comes with no installation disks. I love not being reduced to those unstable and zero capacity floppies. You just plug it in, drag and drop, and go.
This is well worth it, not to mention it just looks tight!

Ok, if you are interested in this product, I'll assume that you already own a Rio, so I guess I can't try to talk you out of that.

GOOD - Small, easy to carry around, cheap compared to OTHER flash memory manufacturers.

BAD - Expensive compared to CD-R, MD, etc.

UGLY - Bad memory clusters will cause skips over time.

Basically, if you have a Rio, and need more memory, this is the stuff to buy. Don't try and find Camera flash cards, and figure out how to use them in your Rio. That would not only be a nuscence, but also would end up costing you more. If you don't own a Rio, and are considering buying one, take a look at my reviews of the PMP300 and the PMP500.

- E-Mail me at nairos@home.com if you have any questions -

I purchased the Rio 500 and love it. It is the coolest things since sliced bread, BUT. I travel a lot for work and use a Win 95 laptop. The Rio 500 does not support the USB uploads from or to a Win 95 machine. This stinks. All in all though, I think that the Rio 500 is a great toy.

My wife even thinks so.

A Rio with only 32mb is pretty hard to enjoy since it can only hold about eight songs at once. With the extra 32mb smartmedia your Rio can hold about as much music as a cd. Another good thing is that with the price of the Rio going down, it costs less to get the Rio PMP300 & a flash card than to buy a 64mb mp3 player.

Bought myself the blue model, and liked it so much I bought one for my boyfriend. We both love 'em! Easy to use, light, small, and cute... who could ask for more?!

Have had my Yepp for nearly two weeks, and really like it. Great sound, lightweight, cute as a button. Easy to transfer files off my Mac into its built-in memory. Recommend it highly.

really great player, easy to use, good remote, light, plenty of memory, and easy to transfer if you know what your doing

I like the AVLS because my kids will use this. The sound is pretty good, and the price is fairly good since I can make MP3's for this player. It is not perfect, but I like the weight. I wish it had a clip though.

I bought one of these last month on recommendations and am very pleased with it. I have an NE510 I purchased last year, which was nice, but I needed a second player. This one has better features and better sound. The battery life is as good or better than indicated on the package.

Instead of just presets and bass boost, it has a parametric equalizer. Bass, mid, and treble can each be adjusted up or down three, each in high, mid, or low positions, for a total of 21 possible adjustments in each range. Bass may not boom, but it isn't boomy or muddy, either. The setting is saved as custom. There are also presets (I have used "Heavy" for some rock, but off otherwise).

Although I have used SonicStage software, I don't recommend it (not because I dislike Atrac3, but because I don't like the program). MP3s made by any program, burned to cd by any program, can be used on this player. I have used CDs with LAME MP3s (VBR) burned by MusicMatch and Nero with no problem. Nested directories also weren't a problem. MP3 CDs do take longer to load up when they are first put in (less than 30 seconds for a 700MB CD with 7 directories, 81 tracks, 625MB; less than 15 for commercial audio CD). Titles scroll and you can change the display options.

There are several playback options, including 10 most frequently played (also shuffle), and by group and m3u playlists on MP3 CDs among others.

The one problem with this player is the physical feel. The plastic is very light and thin so it seems a bit flimsy. The hold button on the bottom doesn't have as solid a feel as the ones on my Sony MD player or Clie, but the same as the NE510 so maybe that is just the CD player style. For the price, this isn't unexpected therefore I did not give it 4 stars.

this is one of sonys finest. as far as sound is conserned. they got the four band eq.off! im using a pair of the best koss headphones. with this player.the koss and sony are great together. its the best of all discmans.sony is in the lead.

A good mp3/WMA player with a lot of features for the money. Overall, I am quite pleased with it so far.

Pros:
- Good sound quality
- Plays both mp3 and WMA files.
- FM tuner and recording

Cons
- Controls a little difficult to use when protective case is on.
- Separate cable for USB donwload.
- Cover for USB port is not well designed, hard to open.

I've been looking for a decent mp3 player at a decent price for a while and it seemed like this one fit my needs with a rebate. At the current price, I would've bought something else but it was about a half price so I think it was worth it. Anyway, here is the review...

Pros
- cheap
- very small but not too tiny
- looks good
- sound quality is good to excellent
- comes with FM tuner
- has voice and FM recording feature (I make voice notes)
- has SM expansion capability

Cons
- buttons are too small
- recording button is hard to activate (it's either my unit or due to the small buttons)
- weird ergonomics (when you hold it on you left hand, looking at the LCD, the left voice button raises the volume and the right one lowers it. Also left select button is for the previous track which is up and the right one is for the next which is down on LCD... I don't know about you but I am used to the notion of right is up and left is down. It took me a while to get used to it)
- useless cover (it's too bulky)
- earphone is cheap quality
- USB 1.1 only (but is you are transferring several songs at a time, I don't think it matters much. Just be patient. You saved $50 over USB 2 unit)

I would most likely recommend this unit if it has a rebate. If not, go with something else.

Pros:
-A lot of features
-VERY easy to use PC software and mp3 player menus
-SD/MMC expansion slot
-Supports MP3/WMA up to 320kbps, VBR MP3, ASF,and ADPCM
-Stylish design, metal on front looks cool, case is looks nice , pretty backlight
-High quality/good sounding earbuds
-Useful and detailed manual
-iTunes, Realplayer, Windows Media Player compatible
-Can use it to transfer files
-Can record voice memos/radio
-Built in equalizer
-Size/weight, I can put it in my pocket w/out feeling it there
-Multiple languages(English, Spanish, French, Japanese)
-Upgradable firmware
-Comes w/Duracell battery
-20 radio presets
-Very good price from amazon, about one hundred dollars.

Cons:
-Small screen, but still readable
-Plastic feels a bit cheap, but many mp3 players are worse, the battery door also feels flimsy when opened
-Buttons are a bit small, but are placed very well
-Carrying case poorly designed, it makes it hard to use the buttons
-Radio sound quality is just OK and the reception could be better(I still got some static at some places even w/local station)
-No cover for SD slot because dust can get in, this isn't problem if you have a card inside or if you use the case
-USB cover is annoying to use
-Doesn't come w/the text to voice software like the 256F
-No USB 2.0, but transfering doesn't take that long

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars