MP3 Reviews

I bought the Archos 20 gig expecting nothing much. Was I wrong!!!! I am blown away by this gizmo as it compares to the RCA Lycra video jukebox!!!! It even competes with my Sony TV/VCR handheld which takes a direct digital signal in quality.

The screen is pure clarity! Beautiful! The unit is heavier, very sturdy. The video is all I'm interrested in, but if you put music on it and the image data is with the music file, that image (artists' CD cover) will show while the song plays.

Back to the video...easy as punch. The 20 GB (AV320) comes with a remote control and DVR attachment! You get your money's worth! Recording from the TV's digital cable box rendered beautiful images. Especially the cable channel! I suppose the quality of the source determines the quality of the playback, and cable movies must be digital because they looked like DVD quality!!!

I then made the haunting attempt to do what I could not on the RCA - transfer movies from my computer to play back on the Archos. Unlike the RCA, the Archos comes with software that makes this easy, so in one step I did it and it worked!!!!!

The sound is awesome!!!! Yes, it's bulky, but that's because it's using a laptop hard drive whereas the iPod uses a smaller one. It's like carrying a small brick around. But the iPod is a music player, and that's why I use it for that and this for video.

So far one downside: A case doesn't come with it and won't be available until the end of the month from their website for an additional $40. I'm going to hold on to my screen cover that came with it until then.

This is why I slave away at work! This is sooo cool!

Like many, I was deciding between Archos and RCA. I'm sure RCA has released I good product but...after doing research I had my doubts about the RCA(bad software, delays, side by side reviews,etc).
I'll try to keep this short. Overall this is a good device, it does what it claims to do very easily.
PROS:
+Nice screen
+Easy Navigation
+Easy to Record Audio/Video
+Easy to transfer files
+Sound and Video quality is great
+Clean design
+Controls are good(except when the middle joystick button option is on)
+The ablity to have ad-ons(My deciding factor)

CONS:

-The weight...its not a brick but its heavier then Iexpected(this weighs 12.5oz/RCA weighs 12.8oz...according to official specs)
-The price..but its a new product from a small company

I have only had it for a week(I ran though most of the functions) so I might find more nagging things. But so far, so good

My real rating is 4.5(The price should be lower)

At last I have received my av320 after a 1 month waiting line. This baby does everything previous archos players did...only better. Video is very clean and smooth and the demo movie included in the player showed no pixelation and was very sharp. With its 3.8" lcd screen no longer do you have to squint or strain your eyes to see video or pictures. Picture zooming has been greatly improved over the previous archos multimedia players as now you can zoom to a huge 3x times over instead of the small 2x zoom from previous JBM models. Sound is excellent but could use a little bit of more fine tuning options which can be fixed with future firmware. The bundled DVR100 is able to record from any video source with a composite or s-video connection be it a DVD player, VCR, camcorder or TV. With the DVR100 you can record video on the fly. No longer do you have to rip and encode dvd movies to your computer, just simply plug the video cables to the DVR100 and to your dvd player, press play on your dvd player and then hit record on your archos, recording in real time. Its that easy. It encodes video using the divx codec. Overall I was very impressed with its quality in design and excellent interface navigation menus. Although I gave it 5 stars (no regrets!) I will list the "cons": First, the player can become pretty hot like a hot cofee mug, especially when viewing video for an extended amount of time. Second, its thick 1.25", and heavy. Third, and no surprise like the previous archos players, the bundled headphones [are bad], so I suggest you buy some good headphones. Fourth, the navigation joystick can easily be accidently moved, changing the song you were listening to to the next track as I found out. Fifth and last, I don't like the placement of 'headphone jack in' which sits upright of the player. I would have preffered it be placed on the side so as to cause less obstruction of the screen. But overall THIS is what all mp3/mp4 players should be (Apple take note). It may seem pricey for a lot of people but it is worth every penny.

I have had my player for ~6 weeks now. When choosing an MP3 player, I narrowed the field down to this player and a couple made by iRiver. My primary reason for choosing this one was its expandability and the belt clip (as opposed to the Rio Sport, which is the same player but with a slightly different look and a velcro arm band).
Pluses: size, weight and shape are nice - easy to hold in your hand while running; memory is excellent and easily expandable with an SD card; great display; software is simple and useful; radio reception is very good; controls and settings are easy to manipulate; good battery life compared to most comparable MP3 players; solid construction.
Minuses: the belt clip carrier looks a little bit cheap, but is secure and sturdy; the earphone jack is in the bottom of the player, which is slightly awkward but not a big deal.
Overall, I would buy this MP3 player again if I were shopping today. I'm very satisfied with it.

i used to have the rio s35s which was a nice little sporty player, so when i upgraded i tried another rio since i had a good experience. don't regret it at all.

pros: black, key lock feature (to prevent hitting buttons accidentally), small versatile structure, plastic container and belt clip

possible negative: no armband, cheap earphones
(i bought my own earphones that go around the head - work really well for running)

otherwise, i have no real complaints. it does the job its expected to do - holds plenty of songs for a 2 hour workout at least, software is very usable (if you can't understand it, you must be very computer illiterate), and i never had problem with the construction - i always keep the case on. and if you complain about how cheap the rubber is, come on, what do you expect? gold-plated and diamond-encrusted players? i prefer this to the ipod (which supposedly skips) per se, because i've dropped it countless times, crammed it into small lockers, and stepped on it, and it still goes strong.

a good buy for a small relatively decent priced mp3 player. esp for running or the gym.

I just got my Rio and I must say, it's easy to use and sounds good. I took it out running and I live in a busy area. I only had the volume up to ~20 and had no problems--I thought it was plenty loud and had no desire to take it up to the max of 30. My only complaint is that the ear pieces are very uncomfortable to me and I had a hard time getting them to stay in place, on top of it. I ended up walking the rest of the way. Once I get new ear buds, I'll be happy. I was a little worried when I ordered it that the belt clip wouldn't be adequate to run--I'm no longer concerned. It didn't budge--felt very secure. And I LOVE the FM radio feature!!! It came in perfectly clear and, being that I haven't transferred many songs to it yet, let me test it out without boredom.

I have had my player for ~6 weeks now. When choosing an MP3 player, I narrowed the field down to this player and a couple made by iRiver. My primary reason for choosing this one was its expandability and the belt clip (as opposed to the Rio Sport, which is the same player but with a slightly different look and a velcro arm band).
Pluses: size, weight and shape are nice - easy to hold in your hand while running; memory is excellent and easily expandable with an SD card; great display; software is simple and useful; radio reception is very good; controls and settings are easy to manipulate; good battery life compared to most comparable MP3 players; solid construction.
Minuses: the belt clip carrier looks a little bit cheap, but is secure and sturdy; the earphone jack is in the bottom of the player, which is slightly awkward but not a big deal.
Overall, I would buy this MP3 player again if I were shopping today. I'm very satisfied with it.

i used to have the rio s35s which was a nice little sporty player, so when i upgraded i tried another rio since i had a good experience. don't regret it at all.

pros: black, key lock feature (to prevent hitting buttons accidentally), small versatile structure, plastic container and belt clip

possible negative: no armband, cheap earphones
(i bought my own earphones that go around the head - work really well for running)

otherwise, i have no real complaints. it does the job its expected to do - holds plenty of songs for a 2 hour workout at least, software is very usable (if you can't understand it, you must be very computer illiterate), and i never had problem with the construction - i always keep the case on. and if you complain about how cheap the rubber is, come on, what do you expect? gold-plated and diamond-encrusted players? i prefer this to the ipod (which supposedly skips) per se, because i've dropped it countless times, crammed it into small lockers, and stepped on it, and it still goes strong.

a good buy for a small relatively decent priced mp3 player. esp for running or the gym.

I just got my Rio and I must say, it's easy to use and sounds good. I took it out running and I live in a busy area. I only had the volume up to ~20 and had no problems--I thought it was plenty loud and had no desire to take it up to the max of 30. My only complaint is that the ear pieces are very uncomfortable to me and I had a hard time getting them to stay in place, on top of it. I ended up walking the rest of the way. Once I get new ear buds, I'll be happy. I was a little worried when I ordered it that the belt clip wouldn't be adequate to run--I'm no longer concerned. It didn't budge--felt very secure. And I LOVE the FM radio feature!!! It came in perfectly clear and, being that I haven't transferred many songs to it yet, let me test it out without boredom.

I note that some of the complaints about the menu setups of the Nomad 3 reflect the fact that the users did not know that the first thing they could have done is go to Nomad's website and download an upgrade for the firmware which make the players menu display the individual albums or track for each artist.
I frequently check their site for upgrades but the capacity is enormous, I even have audiobooks downloaded onto this thing. I've owned all the Nomads since the first 6 Gig unit and this one is by far the best.

I purchased this product about 2 months ago right here from amazon.com, and have no regretted it for an instant. As soon as I received it, I couldn't put all the CD's I owned onto it fast enough. You may think 40 gigs will never be utilized, but that's the great part. I'm going to own this thing till I drop or go deaf. The mechanics of it are great, as well as easy to use. The sheer sturdiness of the player enables me to take it anywhere, in my car (there goes the need for a CD stereo in the car!) to the gym every day, and in bed at night, and hooked up to the stereo in my room. What a time and money saver this thing really is in the long run. I highly recommend the product to anyone who enjoys a lot of music. Amazing product overall

Let me start this review by saying that I cannot possibly explain just how much I like the NOMAD 3. Having said that, let me explain just how much I like the NOMAD 3. This player is unbelievable...everything a music-lover needs. I don't want to ramble on about all of its features, besides, there's too many (and they're all listed on Amazon). Maybe the best feature of this player is its upgradability (besides the sound quality, wheel button interface, I could go on...). For example, look back at all the other reviews that have been written on it, and focus on all the negatives. Now, forget the negatives, because the NOMAD 3's latest firmware upgrades solve these problems! When I first bought the NOMAD 3, I was dissapointed by it's lack of a graphic equalizer...I figured an equalizer would be essential in a player like this. After a few months, however, Creative Labs announced a new upgrade...and guess what? Now my player has an on-screen 4-band graphic equalizer! I'm already looking forward to the next upgrade!

Transferring songs is easier than you might think. Hook the NOMAD to your computer, and the file-transferring software automatically opens. The screen is divided into two windows, with selectable sources of music for each (for example, CD track listing on the left, NOMAD 3 track listing on the right). Simply select the tracks you want to copy from the CD, hit "Transfer", and that's it!!

For the inexperienced, let me give you an idea of how much music this thing holds. My player is a little over half full. If I load up all the tracks, and set it to "shuffle", I could listen to no-repeat music for 27 days. Non-stop.

Finally, I can safely say this is the last MP3 player (or any kind of music player, for that matter) that I will ever buy. Ever. This is my second one (my first was destroyed, long story)...and if anything ever happened to it, I would be right back here that day to order another one.

For the price [...] this DVD player is well worth the money. It does not have progressive scan, but I did not purchase this player for that feature. This unit has many good features and the sound and picture quality are very good by using just the RCA audio and video connections. It had a very good review from consumer reports (a publication I highly recommed and utilize, sepecially for consumer electronic purchases). MP3 playback is very good, as is the VCD. DVD-R, CD-R/RW, all play well on this device.

Not an excellent player (for excellence purchase a Sony DVD-NC655P, my other player). But still a very, very good and economical player.

I neither wanted nor needed another DVD player. I already have three. But this player was part of a rebate offer for the Samsung phone that I bought. What a surprise I got when I received this thing! I was expecting a cheap DVD player. This is not. This is a very decent quality player for, if you actually paid for it, a good price. The remote control is intuitively designed and the picture and sound quality is better than average. The only major gripe I have about it is that the video quality is just a bit jagged, like a Photoshop picture that's been sharpened too much. I'm still a diehard fan of Pioneer video products, but I'm going to keep my eye on Samsung. It's the company with the momentum. I originally planned to sell this player as soon as I got it. But it appears that I will be keeping it after all.

I've had this player for about 8 months now and I'm happy with it. Reading some of the other reviews, I've heard comments about skipping DVD's, but I've never noticed a problem. I did end up having to buy speakers in order to get the audio to sound good, but that's the fault of my TV (only one audio input, while the DVD player has a left and right output). I've personally never had a problem with it, and I'd certainly recommend it to anyone.

If you have a home network and know something about networking, the Audiotron is an affordable digital audio controller that can sit in your stereo rack. It took me about 2 hours to run the wires and configure network security so the Audiotron had access to the gigabytes worth of MP3s on one of my servers. Now, I can control play lists and the receiver from my computer, and my wife can do the same from a distant part of the apartment via a web interface through the wireless network.

The Audiotron provides a digital optical output to your A/V receiver, so the MP3 files get decoded using your high-end A/V receiver's digital-to-analog converter. Even 128 kbps MP3s sound fantastic on my system although a friend could notice the difference when using 192 kbps MP3s. The Rio Audio Receiver is about [price] cheaper but it lacks digital output (so you get poorer analog output) and looks less sturdy and complimentary to your other audio components. Turtle Beach provides a set-up utility and a simple web interface to the Audiotron. 3rd party authors have created 2 additional clients (PC/Mac/etc) that can control the Audiotron. Also, the firmware gets updated regularly. The web interface has already gotten much better when moving from version 2 to version 3. The controls on the Audiotron's front panel are fairly intuitive and the LED screen is easy to read.

I love the audiotron. I now have access to the 100 GB of my music library that is now encoded as MP3 files. Setup was simple -- a little network monkeying was required, but I was up and listening in about an hour. The web interface to the device is simple (even better with 3.0 of the firmware)and has everything you need. Sound is great, and it looks swell next to my NAD separates. Plays mp3s, wma, and streaming radio.

Having all of your library accesible this way can really change the way you listen to music, for the better. I haven't used the other, similar devices now available. But, it's hard to imagine the value/money of Audiotron being exceeded. The bundled ripping software is quite good (but you favorite program will work fine, too)

If it has any cons it is that you can't directly use it with a wireless network (not a problem in my case as I already had my listening area wired) and it seems to get a bit hot with extended playing.

If you have a large MP3 library, and you listen you to music through a good audio system, you need this component.

I have slowly gotten all of my CD ripped and tagged correctly and I had been playing all of them via my HTPC. The only problem was that I need to turn the TV on if I wanted to see any song information.
I ended up getting an Audiotron and I have been very happy with it. It plays back files on shared disks from your PC. It will play mp3s, windows media, and .wav files. With the wave file support it will play back perfect uncompressed CDs. It will also support streaming media station from the Internet.
Even though it is a couple of years old, it is very well supported by Turtle Beach and there are some awesome apps that you can run on your desktop to montior and control the Audiotron.
I highly recommend it!

Pros:
80 hour mp3 play time.
Resume to the exact point within MP3s.
Fast forward.
Supports 16 to 320 kbps.

Cons:
Unreasonable 400 Mp3 Limit.
Fast forward is slow/awkward.
Mysteriously doesn't play all discs (possibly burner soft/hardware related?).
Cumbersome controls and wires.
Hassle to plug/unplug from car.
Remote ignores hold switch when unvelcroed.
Remote too sensitive, when bumped wastes batteries.

1) Sounds Great (but toss the cheap headphones and get good ones).

2) Great "random play" functions. Randomly plays throughout the whole disc regardless of multiple folders, or will randomly play inside specific folders.

3) Plays up to 80 HOURS on 2 AA batteries! The unit does this by uploading the (MP3 or Atrac) songs into a buffer memory before playing each song which takes about 3 seconds. Then the disc stops spinning and it plays the song like a flash memory MP3 player! Don't worry about it taking too long to "read" all the files on disc--it does this very fast when you first put the disc in--it seems to take less than 10 seconds??

4) Much cheaper and higher capacity than flash memory MP3 players.

5) Nice design and easy-to-use controls.

6) Complete high-quality car kit!

This thing is cool! The only reason I give it 4 stars instead of five is that I've only had it for a week and only time and use will tell if it will last and continues to be reliable.

***NOTE*** The goofy manual never said how to turn the power off on the unit...I've been struggling with that for a week until I finally stumled across the answer...just hit the "stop" button and the unit will turn ITSELF off in about 14 seconds.

Contrary to the stated in another review, this is a great MP3 player. It supports 16 - 320 kbps MP3 files and also VBR (variable bit rate) encoded MP3 files. Atrac3plus is the SONY's proprietary audio compression format and the included software is a bonus. It is not necessary to use it, unless if you wish to try the Atrac3plus compression technology (be aware that standard MP3 players cannot read Atrac3plus files).

The G-PROTECTION function works extremely well for both audio and MP3 CDs. Using the player in the car, even in off-road conditions it had never skipped a track. The battery life is surprisingly long (about 75 hours of continuous MP3 playing).

Sound quality is very good: headphones are decent and three-level bass control is provided. Operation is easy: the JOG DIAL simplifies the MP3 group/file selection; P MODE button allows shuffle tracks of the entire disc, only in the selected group or play only tracks with bookmarks. It is also possible select m3u play lists. The two-line LCD display is not large but is quite legible. The display shows the information contained in the ID3 tag for MP3 files or the CD text if available.

Certainly this player is not perfect, some minor deficiencies are pointed in other reviews, but for $80 the Sony D-NE518CK ATRAC3/MP3 CD Walkman is a incredible value.

best micro hard drive player on the market in my opinion. i wouldnt buy anything from iriver though. they brag about how their products are updateable by firmware, but they release no firmware updates, also , when the battery goes in 2-3 years time iriver told me , after many many ignored e mails, they dont replace the batteries for the igp-100. the company is interested in nothing only money, not respect from their customers. if they listened to their customers they would see that their current way of treating us makes us move to the ipod or creative players. if they listened , and took our opinions into account they would have customers back again and again. i wont buy anything from them again. when everyone starts this( and most will) they will go bust and they can blame no body only themselves. back to topic though . terriffic player. pity the random play isnt exactly random. lovely size , nice software, good sound, get better headphones, the supplied ones are useless. iriver keep making good products, but get your act together in the area of support and customer relations

I was looking for an MP3 player to use during long flights and while working out in the gym. I wanted an iPod but the short battery life was the biggest mark against it. I currently have 309 songs on this player and see no reason to update it in the near future. At any rate, updating the song list is quite easy using any Windows PC. No special software needed. Using the Sony MDR-G72 behind-the-head phones, it provides good sound. I have played everything from Judas Priest and Rob Zombie to Carmina Burana and Dave Brubeck. The bass and treble is excellent for such a small package. The FM reciever appears to work very well too. So far the battery appears to be lasting about 9 hours with continuous play. That makes it through any domestic flight in the US. If you want a dependable player to simply play music, get this one.

This mp3 player truly is perfect for almost anyone. Many people say they need a ton of memory like the Ipods but truthfully all the other features of this product make it a perfect buy. It fits approxamitly 350 songs - which even if you have 1000 or more songs, 350 is packable. The interface does not need any getting used to (infact it's quite clever), it functions properly and is the most durable hard drive mp3 player out (the closest to a flash player). It gets beautiful reception in terms of fm radio - and the preset setting mode is great. The case is perfect - alloing access to all the controls, and the sound quality is far superior to the Ipod. Transfering songs is as simple as drag and drop. For those who are not familiar with those terms, it means: the mp3 player pops up as a folder and you copy paste files from your computer. If you do not like this feature you can use the pain in the neck method the Ipods use (CD-ROM). So realy the only problem is the limited memory (which is not even 1.5 gb, cause only like 1.35 is accessable), but with radio, perfect interface, perfect size and weight - 3.5 ounces, and a great value, you get the perfect mp3 player.

I bought this as a gift and I was looking for something less geeky than the iRiver ChromeX, which was the first choice. I just wanted a player that got the basics right and didn't involve dozens of settings. The brand name was there, I knew it was made in Japan, and the price suggested good quality for the features you get.

Based on my experience of the few weeks while it was still in my hands, my impression of this player is generally positive. The sound quality is good. I didn't look at the watch, but battery life was totally decent. The antiskip protection has passed several tests which have probably been more strenuous than real-life situations. And unless you're a geek, this player has pretty much all the features that you will need. I bought it last year, it's still being used and I haven't heard complaints so far.

There are a few things about it that I didn't like. I will mention them in order of their importance.

First, the lack of the fast forward and rewind functions while playing MP3s. I knew about it from the manual, prior to purchase, but I underestimated how important these functions are. It may vary with your listening habits, but if you listen to audiobooks or if you find yourself frequently skipping back and forth in a music track, this is not the player for you. Again, it only applies to MP3. Fast forward and rewind does work for audio CDs.

Another issue was the occasional overlapping between the end of one track and the beginning of the next when playing MP3s, but this happened randomly and it may have something to do with the quality of the CD.

A shortcoming that seems to be common to many CD-MP3 players are the "clicks" presumably generated by the buffering/antiskip algorithms. This player makes no exception. The clicks are there, very weak but still audible. They tend to occur when silence follows sound abruptly. If you pay attention, you will hear them at the end of music tracks. You may notice them if you listen to voice recordings even without paying attention. But you may not care about this. Audiophiles probably don't expect much from a portable player.

The browsing of MP3 CDs is limited to jumping by track or by folder/album. CDs with deep directory trees are not easy to browse, but otherwise you'll be fine.

The design is okay, but there's nothing "slick" about it. A little dull and bulky, actually. No back light on the LCD display, which makes it harder to use in the dark.

The included headphones have a wide spectrum, but they accentuate lower frequencies, which I find unnecessary, since the player itself has a bass-enhancing mode. However, many people like that, and if you don't, you can always replace the headphones.

The first one I bought I had to return because there was strange background noise (intermittently high pitch clicking) while playing back MP3. After awhile the player start skipping. (I know it claimed to be no-skip) So I thought it was my bad CD that I burned. But it was not. It skipped and click even with my regular music CD. So I returned and got my money back. The unit must have been damaged or something. After a week of no musics to listen to I did some more research on the web in hope of finding a good (better) CD/MP3 player to replace. But it seems like there's no better quality and value out there for the same price range. So I went back to the same store and give this player another chance. This time I was so impressed with the flawless performance. Battery life was long as they claimed. And I think it's longer than they said (nearly 60 hrs if you don't crank up the volume). Love the ID3 tag feature. Most of all, it's one of the rare CD players that is made in Japan. I own it for nearly 3 months now. I listen to it everynight about 1-2 hours a night. No problems what so ever. Highly recommend it.

(...).

This CD player is amazing for one simple reason: you can fit up to 15-17 CDs worth of music on it. I am fairly experienced with computers--I used Windows Media Player to 'rip' songs from 11 CDs from my CD collection, then burned them to ONE CD. Windows Media Player was able to automatically download song/album information using CDDB--navigating from CD to CD and within each virtual CD is a breeze. Now--I *have* put my MP3s onto a CD and I will acknowledge that many, many mp3s will fit onto a single CD. However, I am amazed that so many MORE WMAs will fit onto the same CD. The manual recommends ripping songs at 96kbps and this is fine for me. I notice no sound degradation at all.

The sound is very good. (...)

This is a very cool piece of technology and I am very pleased with the sound--but I am so over-the-edge happy about the WMA format and functionality.

This is a must-get.

I decided to buy an mp3 cd player instead of other options (like a flash player or big hard drive player) because the storage medium of the CD is very cheap so if you ever need more space you just have to buy a $10 spindle of CDRs. If you agree with this line of reasoning you should consider an mp3 cd player, but maybe not this one.

DESIGN
This CD player is not designed too well. There is the navigation button that combines play, rewind, fast forward, and stop, and it is too easy to press the wrong one. Also, rewinding and fast forwarding do not work that well. The jog dial is a cool idea for navigating through long lists of files, but after a while it starts acting funny and getting confused. Sometimes it is hard to press the dial in without the selection getting changed. Also, since it's on the front of the unit, it can get moved unintentionally.

FEATURES
This player comes with Sonic Stage Simple Burner Software which converts your mp3s to atrac3s and burns them on cds. Atrac3s are a lot smaller than mp3s and don't sound too bad. The problem is it takes this program forever to convert a whole cd worth of mp3s to atrac format. Then sometimes it leaves out songs or messes them up. The program is easy to use but it is pretty bare bones; it offers as few features as possible.
The player features bass boost, which is usually unnecessary, and all the standard shuffle and repeat options. Notice that to get mp3s to play in track order according to album, each album must be in a separate folder and all the filenames must begin with a two digit track number (08,09,10...). Also, sometimes, small scratches on cds that normally wouldn't make a difference on standard audio cds may mess up large portions of songs on mp3 cds. It can also take a very long time to load CD-RWs, and sometimes won't load them at all.

All in all, the player is pretty good. It's very durable (I've dropped mine a few times and it's okay) and the batteries last forever. The sound is pretty good and it gets almost loud enough. The atrac3 is very good for fitting more songs on your cds but it doesn't work with anything else. There may be better designed Sony players to check out...

I normally don't review electronics, but so many people before me have knocked this great player down and I have to correct the myths. First of all, this is NOT a MP3 player. It's a CD player that plays MP3 cd's that you burn yourself. It also plays ATRAC and ATRAC+ cd's which is Sony's version of MP3 that compresses files to 1/2 the size of MP3's and retains the quality. Most of these people before this review are not well versed in MP3/CD players as evidenced by the one that thinks this is an simply a MP3 player and doesn't know how to hook it up to "get music" (why do these people bother posting and skewing the reviews is beyond my imagination). I'm reasoning that most of these people never bother to read directions and simply jump to a negative conclusion when they can't figure something out. Let's face it, technology today is complicated and learning how to read is the first step so READ THE INSTRUCTIONS IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!!

This is a great cd player for the money. The sound is loud and crisp (when you use the first bass setting) and I'm really picky about bass. However, buy a good pair of headphones. Sony "mega-bass" is the best. As with all players, the ear-wear is always poor quality and the player WILL sound poor no matter what. The software is so completely fool-proof that the people complaining about it probably aren't running a system that's up to date and don't understand the problems with Windows 98 or never defragmented their system. It's simple to use and runs EXACTLY like the software that came with the Intel MP3 player from a few years back. I used the ATRAC+ conversion at 64 kbps (equivalent to 128 kbps for MP3) and was able to get over 300 songs (26 cd's) at an average of 4-5 minutes each. If I used ATRAC (not the + one), I'd probably get 50 less. The sound was not compromised at all. I WAS SHOCKED! Keep in mind I have a $20 pair of headphones and I haven't listened to it in my car or home stereo (or with the cheap headphones that came with). The file compressions to ATRAC+ did take a while but only a fraction longer than regular MP3 converting. There is one problem though, when you already have a MP3 file to convert to ATRAC or ATRAC+, the software doesn't allow you to cancel and you need to control+alt+delete to abort if you change your mind. SONY should patch this problem and I intend on letting them know about it on their support page (which is very good by the way!).

The buttons are easy to use and I have no complaints except for the fact that you can't shuffle play the first track in each file you create on the CD. The player will only randomly select so you may get up to 2 tracks from the same file played after each other (a very minor issue and I never had more than 2 songs from the same file play together). The instruction manual is a little vague in some spots but I was able to easily figure things out by simply play around with it.

I wanted a player to bring to work that had all my favorites songs on one disc. I was able to achieve this with ATRAC+ technology. This way I can bring double the amount of music with me. I cannot recommend this player enough!! I usually buy small electronics made by Phillips because I've had good luck with them. This is not the first Sony cd player I own. I've not been happy with other Sony items I've bought (5 disc cd player, portable cd player a few years back and an amplifier) so I hesitated when buying. I have a SONY Vaio PC and have had no trouble with it. I also like my Sony Cybershot camera so I thought I'd give them another try. I'm glad I did!

i bought this mp3 player after searching through a large number of mp3 players ...ranging from panasonic and rca to iriver etc... there are some important things that i came to know about the product only after buying and listening to it...i am listing some pros and cons for this awesome product by sony

PROS
1. sound quality very good
2. great bass
3. intelligent search for folders and within folders using the jog dial ....its one of the features that is missing in some models of panasonic and others .... u can search for folders and songs without playing them ...and once u find them, u can either play or skip them (with a different song still playing) ...
4. good battery life
5. very light weight headphones
6. resumes from the very next second of the song at which u have paused / stopped completely ...
7. player slim and light weight

CONS
1. takes longer time to load mp3s than panasonic ...i have tried both with same battries and with the same cd, compared to the panasonic sl-mp-70 and found sony taking longer time to load ...not only for 1 cd but for all the cds that i have
2. wire length too short for the headphones ...its about 1 metre only.
2. headphones supplied are the ones that come for $6 (from Sony at Walmart) .....if u use some other good noise cancellation headphones u can easily notice the difference ..but the sound is alright with this too ...
3. wires for the headphone separate in front of you (for your ears). This is irrittating at work.....
4. u have to compromise on the sound quality for compressing more songs on a single cd with altrac technology(quilte obvious).
5. play/pause, stop, forward, rewind; all are on a single button. pressing the wrong one accidentally is quite frequent even after long use.
6. i got a carrying bag free with these...but the design of that is is too compact and u can't increase/decrease the volume easily because the headphones get into the set from another slit provided in the bag ..and the volume control remain inside the bag ...so if u want to change the volume u have to detach the headphone, take the player out, change the vol, place it back and attach the headphones ...but its not a problem if u do not use the carrying bag

overall the sound quality is very good and that is why i gave it a 5 star ... i have listened to RCA, PANASONIC, DURABRAND, and IRIVIER of the same price range ...but this sounds the best among those...lets see how long it goes trouble free..