The compact, affordable CDP-3100 not only plays MP3 files burned to CD, but also mixed-mode CDs containing a combination of MP3 files and standard (PCM) CD tracks. You'll enjoy forty-five seconds of anti-skip coverage for music tracks and up to 120 seconds of coverage for MP3 files. Playback options include MP3 and CD track programming, as well as random and repeat (single track, all tracks). An auxiliary output lets you hook the player up to your home system through a stereo Y interconnect (not supplied).
The six-line text and numeric LCD simplifies file maintenance and offers scrolling text so you can read the full artist name and song title. The player supports MP3 bit rates of 32, 64, 96, 128, 192, and 256 Kbps, as well as variable bit-rate recordings (MP3 format ISO 9660). A hold switch prevents unintended interruptions in playback and saves batteries by negating playback when the player is stopped. Dynamic bass boost system (DBBS) heightens the impact of low frequencies. The player runs on two AA batteries (not supplied) and includes an AC power adapter.
What's in the Box
Koss CDP-3100 personal CD/MP3 player, AC adaptor, remote control, user's manual and a ninety day warranty.
1 It does work...
I got this little MP3 CD player when it went on a great sale because my old CD player was five or more years old and didn't really work. I never listen to my CDs anymore, but I was going on a long plane ride/bus trip so I needed something to listen to.
There are skips, some songs that it will refuse to play, and doesn't work too well upside down. Mine had a tendancy to just turn off for no apparent reason, even if it had fresh batteries and the buttons locked. Oh, and the locker is cheap. It kept un-locking and then the player would turn on and run the batteries dry.
Not a huge problem and served me well on my trip. It's now gathering dust and will probably get chucked next time I trip over it.
Great for trips/children who break things/people who want a cheap MP3 CD player. NOT great for music conesueirs or people who move a lot. Whether it is for you, I don't know.
2 DONT BUY THIS! IT SUCKS1
DONT BUY THIS...
I bought this player when it was $50 and now im regretting it. I've had it for about a month and used it maybe 5 times. NOW it wont even see my mp3 cds. it just searches for like 10 minutes and then it says no cd.DONT BUY THIS BECAUSE IT IS CHEAP ...!IT HAS POOR SOUND QUALITY AND LIKES TO QUAKE AND STOP WORKING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SONG!!!!!!
DONT BUY THIS...
3 awesome fabulous object
This is a really good peice of equipment it would be my dream to have it.If i had enough money to buy it which i do i would buy it.
4 amesome
just what you are looking for in a great chceep cd player.
5 MP3 On A Budget.
... The sound is good, anti-skip in CDA mode works well, the player seems reasonably durable. I found no problems with it recognizing long-file-names, though I've found it's helpful to start each track with a number '01 - blah', etc; otherwise, the player can be unpredictable in it's ordering of tracks. All in all though, I'm reasonably impressed.
6 Very good little unit
I gave it 4 stars but it could be 5 stars for the price. I've used a few players jwill, casio, memorex at the time they all cost a lot more than this and it beat them all. The rio at the time was much more. It was much better but it cost alot more. The lowdown on this unit:
Good:
No skips walking, biking, offroad biking, driving
plays dozens of different mp3 types, bitrates, media, burners
plays VBR up to 320kb or so
much better than all the others mentioned above except rio.
good navigation through directories
The bad
eats batterys. Usually seems to be 2 hrs. max was 5 hrs straight with kodak gold batteries.
no wma
no id3 tags.
no packet written disks
dont drop it. (i'm on my second one)
will not play r3mix mp3s reliably. I think its just to much compression processiong for its little cpu.
Bottom line
You can now get rio's for around less than they were with full id3 support
and the low end sp50 rio for about less as well. I haven't used the specific model but I hear its very good and based on much of their earlier model. I would go for the rio unless you get this koss really really cheap.
7 Overall.........Very good
this is a very good product. i can play over 100 songs on this player. i use a re-writable disk too. it reads it fine. once in a while it skips but i think it is because the batteries are low. great product.
8 Very good CD/Mp3 - Cd Player
I live in Brazil, I used it in my car and at work. It worked very well, played all MP3 cd?s I?ve tried.
9 Excellent for that price
Excellent sound, reads all my mp3 from my cdr's, supports vbr, no titles but for that price...
All what I need, good sound, good price.
10 Not so good
It has all been covered here, the skipping, the battery consumption, the total lack of web-support. I thought I was getting a good deal. In a way I did, since it only cost me 50 bucks to figure out that I'll never buy another Koss product again. At least I didn't drop big money on a high ticket item to learn this.
11 O.K. I just got it at BIG ! LOTS (former Pic'n' Save)
...The player is great!!!! when you don't expect too much!!!!!!
Reads CDR containing about 300 mp3 files approx.30 sec, CDRW - little longer. Sound quality is GOOD! but don't count on EQ !!! Display rather small but shows everything what I need to know what's going on, no search by song name, album or artist but how could you expect anything like this for 29.99?????!!! besidesyou can try to organize your mp3 files on CDR a little bit putting them into folders which are called by this player as "albums". not bulky at all, rather light and slim I would say, runs very nicely and DOES NOT skipp AT ALL in mp3 mode!!!I am going to send this player as a gift for my friend living in Europe since all mp3/cd players are far more expensive there. If you don't need ID tag support and "good sound" is good anough for you - just GO for it! For such price you can't go wrong!!!!!!!!
12 Not Bad considering the cost of competitive brands
I only read the reviews AFTER ordering Koss cdp3100 from an Internet auction site. I must say that after reading a lot of the reviews that I was more than a bit sorry that I had ordered it, but I could not cancel my order.
The player arrived the other day, and I took note of the review written by "An Electronics Fan" dated Jan 8, 2002.
I downloaded MusicMatch Jukebox and selected 96 kps as suggested by the reviewer.
Guess what? It works perfectly, great sound at a great price.
No skipping, scratching or other phenomena as experienced by so many of the other reviewers. May I suggest that they try out the recorder as suggested?
Anyway I am happy with the sound quality, and will purchase rechargeable batteries in order to keep running costs down.
Thanks for you reviews they were really helpful and I also learnt what not to do! Maybe the other unsatisfied reviewers should try to as well.
I do agree that the Koss internet site is completely unhelpful, but maybe we should all send a letter/fax/email to the company chairman and complain about the lack of backup and service for their products?
13 Great MP3 CD player, but it has it's kinks....
I got it for christmas (not even expecting it) with the Koss MP3 CD boombox (which works great). The thing is great! Skip protection works great, music is smooth and lush. The headphones were so great! About a 15 dollar pair i'd say! but...
People have been complaining about skipping with MP3 cds. I found the problem.
You cannot go past 160 quality. I burned a cd last night at my grandparents house (cause I'm cheap and dont have a burner). I tried 320 quality with MusicMatch jukebox. The songs stream VERY nicely on a computer, but don't on the cd player, nor on the boombox. I think that it's just too much on the discman.
Still, its a good discman, and I love it!
14 Do not even consider wasting your money. Believe ME!
I bought this CD player 2 weeks ago. The second I got it out of the package, it skipped like crazy. I was in denial, so I put in a regular CD. It sounded distorted and skipped like crazy. So I burned a new MP3 cd and tried it out. It still skipped. ... And here are some reasons why this CD player is now worth buying.
1. It uses batteries like there's no tomorrow.
2. It skips like crazy on both MP3 and regular cd's.
3. The display shows no names, titles, just numbers.
4. Huge bulky design. Does not fit in any pockets, no belt clip and heavy
5. Headphones have the shortest cable known to man.
6. LOUD!!! it makes a lot of noise.
7. It has ASP (anti-skip protection) that takes 2 minutes to load for every song, and hardly ever loads. The thing says 45second ASP but when it works it's less than 10 seconds...
15 For this price it's great
I've been using it for two months and I must say it's great. I didn't have any problems with playing any of my mp3 cds. I've got more than 20, some of them recorded more than 3 years ago, with music from more than 30 sources.
It plays music very smoothly and it sounds great. Hovever, there are some skips during playing, especially when I walk fast or go with tram.
Second bad thing is consuming power. Without rechargable accu it would be rather expensive.
I didn't experience any problem with scratching cd.
I think this player is really worth to buy
16 Good MP3 Player for the price
I got mine on Ebay so I got it for a little less than retail.
I opened it and put a CD in I had burned using Nero. It was some OTR (Old Time Radio) shows. It just skipped all over the CD unable to play it. BUT.......
I got a blank CD out took the CD and converted all the shows to 128Kbps instead of the 32kbps they were coded at.
I turned Juliet off and made sure I Closed the CD.
It runs great! Never skips. I wish it would show the title of the item playing but for the price it is worth it.
I totally recommend it to anyone wanting an affordable MP3, CD player.
I see that plate people have been talking about scratching their CDs and I can only think maybe they have a screw loose. No I mean it. Maybe it is not the plate but a screw loose on the plate it the problem. The plate is very sturdy so I can see it bending by push the buttons unless you are using a hammer.
I give it 4 stars simply because I think it would be nice to have titles.
Greate Item.
17 A new problem every time you push "start"
I got this item hoping I'd found a functional alternative to the more expensive MP3 CD players on the market. I was prepared to deal with "low frills/no frills" type drawbacks, however, the difficulties I encountered with this model weren't due to a lack of amenities. The unit simply isn't reliable, even at the most basic level.
1. Skipping: Oh so very annoying. MP3s skip for no apparent reason, even if the player is resting unmolested on a soft fluffy pillow. Really, I tried it - on a soft fluffy pillow, the songs skipped like crazy.
2. Batteries: It eats batteries like they're Doritos and it has the munchies, particularly in MP3 mode.
3. Unreliable: Today, my 4th day of ownership, the unit suddenly decided it couldn't read the CD it happily skipped through yesterday.
4. Web Customer Service? Sorry, no. Koss DOES have a presence on the Web, but its page is devoted only to its headphones - no mention of the CD player.
Much better players are available for a few dollars more. I'm glad I gave this unit a try, if only because I'm now confident anything extra I pay for the next-better model is money well spent.
18 Buzzzzzzz
I think for the money ... it's not a bad unit.
The display is kinda pathetic, but it did seem to play everything
OK. I made a MP3 cd of about 150 songs at 160k bit rate. EZ CD creator/Joliet. Long file names. Played all of them, no problem. I don't understand why eveyone else has so many problems. This was my first experience making an MP3 cd. Perhaps the quality of
each unit varies greatly???? The one thing that I noticed, that no one else seems to be talking about, is that when listening to a disc there is always a slight BUZZ. As if something is not grounded. This is what caused me to return the unit.
19 Very Unreliable, you get what you paid for
Bought this player for Christmas. Very dissapointed with the MP3 reading capability on both CD-R and CD-RW media, it cracks,pops and echoes the files a lot (almost every file). I had try all the different types of media in almost any brand and color available, I also have use three different burning software to check if there was something else with no good results. I have a DVD player at home with MP3 capability, as well as two PCs, all three of them play the same discs flawlessly with no cracks or anything.
The player plays audio CDs OK, but the very reason I bought it was because of the MP3 capability.
On top of everything, I lost my Target receipt and could not return, because they changed their return policy.
20 Chokes on Large Files - I'm Returning It
The Koss CDP3000 series is nice - when it works. Problem is, it doesn't work often enough for me to keep it. I wanted an MP3 player for playing OTR (Old Time Radio) programs - usually 10 to 30 minutes each. On two MP3 discs, the player worked fine for about 10 minutes - then would suddenly skip to the next track, leaving the previous one unfinished. The same thing would happen every time I tried to play the disc. On a third disc (with 120 10-minute shows), the player showed the number of tracks, but wouldn't play a darn thing. Without exception, these three discs all played fine in my computer. For what it's worth, the Koss sounds good when it's playing...but if you want to hear how your cuts finish, then look for another player.
21 Not a Bad Player
Even though many say that the Koss is not worth it I have had no problems. Well one I can say that it won't read my CD-RW's. It reads my CD-R's just fine. I burned them with Easy CD Creator 4 and never had to change any settings. Right now I have a CD-R with 240 songs encoded at 160kb and it handles them fine. The sound quality is great other than it declines when the bass is turned on but not badly. For me it works fine for school and car rides which I use it for. Highly Recommended.
22 Your best buy for the money
I just bought my koss cdp3100 cd/mp3 player today. Unlike a few others on this review board I didn't have any problem with burned cd's. What I've found to work best is is a file transfer through the hewlett packard cd creation software which came with my burner. I just placed my music tracks into folders labled for each band(one folder for each) then transfered these folders to a cd. This mp3 player can read into a folder and allow you to advance from one folder to the next and also allows you to advance from one track to the next within that folder. For the low cost of this player I was very impressed with the quality.
23 Simple, Sturdy, Excelent Quality
While this is a fairly straight forward and basic mp3/cd player, it does everything that it claims to do and well. I have had mine for about a week now and have had no problems with it at all. The anti skip feature is also impressive. I have had several other portable cd players ranging from cheap to top of the line and this unit is by far the best when it comes to the anti skip.
While the lack of Mp3 tag information (such as Title and Artist)being displayed was at first a considered a downside to choosing this unit, I am now glad that I bought on without this feature as it would take longer to begin playing each disk while it scanned every track for this info.
All in all the best audio component I have ever added to $2500 system!
24 Cheap affordable way to listen to your mp3's
Hello folks. The Koss portable Mp3/Cd player so far is a pretty good steal. I bought mine @ Target for ...(a few)bux. It sounds decent (and loud)and accesses folders with one button. Unfortunately, it has no text display...but you get what you pay for. The headphones are decent; the color of mine is silver with chrome buttons. For all of you folks: USE AUDIOCATYLIST ... for encoding mp3's in at least 160kbps. Thats near CD quality. Anything below 160kbps is underwater. Use EzCD creator's data for burning the discs.(NTI, Nero is good too). ....
25 It will scratch your CDs
I bought mine on sale at target but I have to return it after one week because it scratched my CD-R. The metal plate and screws on the underside of the cover was the culprit. Previous reviews mentioned something about this problem, but since I am buying CDP 3100 a later model, I thought that maybe the manufacturer has corrected the problem but I was wrong. Anyway, for the one week that I had it, it played CD-Rs, CD-RWs and regular CDs just fine. For the money, it would have been a good buy. But I just can't keep this player knowing there's always that possibility it will ruin my CDs, or my kids' CDs or my friends'CDs particularly if it's regular CDs. And I can't imagine myself wasting time burning CD-R and RWs over and over again to replace the damaged ones. I decided to buy Memorex model 8507. This one I'm keeping.
26 Good, low end MP3 CD Player
I recently purchased a Koss 3000 series CDR/CDRW/MP3 player. It is very bare bones, but I am satisfied. I have read some of the reviews here. The problem lies in that technical support for Koss is very poor. I too had some trouble burning a CD with MP3's sucessfully. I finally had luck using MusicMatch Jukebox, with MP3 quality selected (96 kbps), and Normal processing selected for encoding (under Advanced menu). My files are organized on the CD as follows: one folder per album, with respective MP3's per album underneath each folder. I read the review about 8.3 naming convention -- my player WAS able to read extended file names, just make sure the leading portion of the file name is unique. For example, my files are named 01(track number)_song title_album_artist.mp3. Again, long file names are OK, including spaces. Anyway, this is a good purchase. I also bought 2 AA NiMH rechargeable batteries and recharger instead of an AC adapter (neither of which came with the unit). All in all a great value, since I am planning to put around 10 hours of music on one CD. Also, I read that some folks are experiencing poor quality sound. I do not notice anything out of the ordinary. Folks, please understand that MP3 can be near-CD quality. The MP3 format will at best closely replicate CD quality sound. Notice the drastic differences in files sizes between an MP3 file and a CD track. That is partially why you may hear a faint echo, or other anomolies -- that is normal and is a trade-off with MP3's. If you don't like the quality, stick with the original CD recording. As for clicking sounds -- try adjusting the sampling rate and/or other settings with your CD ripping software. Now, back to the product... I am happy with my purchase, and recommend it with some caution -- be prepared to spend some time working out the kinks if you plan to listen to MP3 files. Your patience will pay off...
27 bargain, if you ask me
So many dissatisfied reviews up here, I'm glad I didn't read them before I bought this thing. It took a little messing around (very little) with Easy CD Creator, but I've found that the player does everything advertised. As I type, I'm playing a CD-RW with a dozen subdirectories (it wasn't clear that this is what the instructions mean by "album", but another post here straightened me out on that) containing a total of 112 mp3s. JOLIET format, which somebody said you couldn't do, with long filenames (max. 64 char, I guess), which somebody else said you couldn't do. Sounds fine, not quite CD quality, but that's to be expected. Also haven't noticed the skips or pops people are complaining about, but it's too soon to judge that.
I haven't tried pushing the limit on number of tracks yet-- to eager to try it out. maybe that will break it. Also, I haven't been running or otherwise shaking the box (let alone whacking it as some posts here have described) so I can't really speak to the anti-skip or the unfortunate metal plate. However, if you're not planning on working out with this player (or whacking it) and you want to put a Boston-NYC train ride's worth of music on a single, re-writable CD, this is a nifty unit for the price.
28 Thanks for the tip
Only by reading these reviews did I finally figure out how to make it read mp3s. I had to go back and burn the cd with Toast 3.5.6 because toast platinum throws mp3's intp mp3 mode. The Koss wouldn't read any cd's burned with toast platinum but what is cool is that if you burn the cd with Toast 3.5.6 using ISO 9660 format you can have additional sessions on the same write only cd by using incremental backup mode. Thanks for the tip Dave. It's too bad Koss doesn't tell you this!
29 Not Good Quality
Not a very good product. I bought one and a month later it broke. Returnd it and got another one and it broke too.
30 Caveat Emptor (to a degree)
I have the CDP-3002 which is the latest version of this model it has 120 second anti-skip for mp3s and 45 second for cds. It works well except that when you first put a cd in it takes up to 46 seconds for the anti skip buffer to fill itself. Also it is useless for running since it is continuously being bounced (for that you may want to buy a solid state MP3 player). I haven't tried it slung over a treadmill but I suspect it will be ok for that. In a car it is fine and I am satisfied with that. But you may also want to go get rechargable batteries as it will get a maximum of 10 hours out of it (and that is without using ESP or the dynamic bass)
31 Great and better than others
...I sent it back and bought the Koss one. It is great! The only problem I have is it has a tendency to pop a little while playing MP3's downloaded off the internet. The display is very simple, but it gets the job done. The sound is very great, it has a Bass Boost switch. Overall go with this one!
32 Taking Back my 3 stars in prior rating
Because I finally was able to burn readable mp3 discs after much troubleshooting, I thought perhaps my troubles were due to my computer configuration, burning software, etc. (I wasted 10 discs burning in various configurations.) So, I gave it 3 stars. Today, I had an opportunity to check out a TDK Mojo. I still had the "ruined" discs from my Koss troubleshooting. Guess what? The Mojo read all those discs all fine, and even displayed the tags! There was nothing wrong with my system or burning. The problem was with this product. Spend the extra money on a Mojo.
33 Finally was able to burn an mp3 disc that this could read
This is my first experience with an mp3 player. I was frustrated and almost returned the unit, since it would not read any mp3 discs that I initially burned. Perhaps it was simply my Macintosh configuration's fault, but when I set Roxio Toast Titanium 5.02 to burn an mp3 format disc, or Apple iTunes 2.0.3 to burn mp3 format disc, this unit could not read either of them. I ended up having to set Toast to ISO 9660 Level 1 (I guess an older and more crude format, instead of Joliet) in order to burn an mp3 disc the Koss CDP3000 could read, (despite the manual saying it supported joliet format). Once I figured that out, it worked fine, so I guess I will keep it. I ultimately made an mp3 disc with 16 albums (containing 220 songs encoded at 160 bit rate) and it plays fine. I have no experience with the pricier units, (such as TDK Mojo) but perhaps they are more flexible in reading mp3 discs burned in a more modern mp3 format. If that is true, it would have been worth the extra money to avoid the troubleshooting I went through (and wasting 10 cd's in the process). With that problem solved, however, I guess I can give it a decent review since it works.
34 less than expected
i bought this cd player at target on sale... after i opened it i made a couple mp3 cd's with easy cd creator and nothing worked. than i used nero and made an iso data disc and that worked but it would skip so often. it got really annoying and i dont know if its defective or im using wrong software or what. i dont recommond this product unless your just planning to listen to normal cd's with it. if anyone else has this cd player and knows good software to burn mp3 cd's that dont skip, please email me ...
35 Not very good.
Good price...but, player skips too much. I thought it was a bad MP3 rip or CD burn. I heard a large skip and replayed. Skip wasn't there. Did this several times at different locations. This would indicate the CD was OK and the player was skipping. Skipping will start annoying you to the point that you wished you paid more for a better player. Also, CD must be carefully inserted and firmly pressed into place. Otherwise, the player can't read the CD.
36 You get what you pay for
I bought the Koss CD/MP3 player on sale at Target (...) and it plays CDs and CD-Rs just fine the 45 second skip is great but with an MP3 disk it is very tempermental. It says it has been tested with 99 MP3 tracks on a CD and I have only gotten it to work with 50 MP3s and when I use the 50 MP3 disk it starts up and works maybe one out of ten attempts. I am returning it and I recommend spending a few extra bucks to get one that works. If you are not using it to listen to MP3s it is not bad.
37 For the cheapskate in you.
This model is currently making the rounds at several big-name retailers (...).
As a previous review mentioned, there is a metal plate on the underside of the player cover, mounted with several metal screws. There doesn't appear to be much clearance between the plate and the disc, and since the plate holds up the (rather stiff) pushbutton controls, I fear that each time you push hard on a button, you're bending that plate a little closer to your spinning media. I haven't lost any discs this way yet, but it may be a legitimate concern. I'm not too worried, though, since the only reason for even looking at this unit is for playing MP3 compilations you've burned by yourself onto ten-cent discs.
The LCD mounted in the middle of the cover only displays album and track number (each folder of MP3 files is considered a separate "album"), but no ID tag data. A minor quibble.
There is a delay of maybe 30 seconds between pushing "play" and actually getting playback to begin. However, if you're trying to play several hours of music without changing media, a few seconds of delay at the start is nothing.
Unfortunately, the MP3 playback quality can be described at best as "iffy". Lots of "chirping", which is not such a big deal through cheap speakers, but really annoying if you're wearing headphones. Worse yet, playback occasionally skips for no apparent reason.
On the other hand, until Sony and Philips start marketing devices with MP3 playback capability at this price point (say, mid-to-late 2002), the bottom of the field is pretty much the exclusive domain of (...) players like this one. If you absolutely have to have an MP3-capable CD player (...) this Christmas, why not save a few bucks towards your next purchase and go with the cheapest the market has to offer?
38 good player ..price
This is the perfect player! ... It doesn't read ID3 tags, but it starts up in 6 or 7 seconds because it doesn't have to read all the ID3 tags. That is an advantage of Mp3/CD players that don't have ID3 capability.
Once I got mine, I burned a couple MP3 cd's with about 13 seperate albums (so over 100 mp3's) and they all work fine. The anti-shock is what you'd expect for 40/25 seconds. IT SKIPS IF YOU SHAKE IT FOR MORE THAN 40 SECONDS! It doesn't skip if you are walking with it. Whoever said the antiskip doesn't work must not know anything about antiskip. As for the sound, it is awesome. The base boost makes it a ton better. It plays normal cd's very well, there is no difference between how it plays normal cd's and MP3 cd's except MP3 cd's take a couple seconds to boot up.
Overall, it is the ideal Mp3/CD player because it's cheap, it works, and it has good sound. Go buy it
39 Nice Price, wish it would work correctly.
I bought the player and it plays MP3's but it LOVES to randomly skip ahead a couple seconds in the middle of a song and it also insists on making some kind of "digital chirp" in songs I know sound just fine. I'm using the "LAME" encoder and changing the settings does not seem to work. Oh well, you get what you pay for.
40 awesome bargain
I purchased this product on sale at my local Target last month. So far I've had three problems, 1) I dropped it three times from a distance of about three feet and while it continued to play (awesome bufferring and anti skip) for several seconds the disc did suffer some damage as it came free within the device and became severely gouged as it continued to spin. 2) another issue is that it wont recognize more than 93 mp3 files per disc, the manual says that it supports 99 tracks per album, but i haven't had success yet in burning a cd-r with the multiple albums that the player can recognize. 3) I only use this device with the power adapter that came with the device (a big plus), but I did use Energizer Titanium batteries just to test it and it ate them up with in 6 hours of use. I thought that was rather too quick for my taste. The great features include 1)the right price, 2)compact design, 3)ease of operation, 4)nice packaging(comes with fair quality headphones, i do recommend upgrading though, and a AC power adapter), other features include a hold switch(temporarily disables buttons), a DBBS switch (extra bass), a line out port, and the usual programming options. I recommend this product at the right price.
41 This is a complete piece of garbage
I bought mine a few months ago, and for some reason, the engineers decided to put a metal plate on the underside of the lid. This lid is attached to the plastic via 2 screws, and these stick out just enough to scratch the CD if you hit the cover. Believe me, if you buy this you'll be hitting the thing when it refuses to play regular CDs, let alone MP3 discs. I can't trust it to play anything, because it scratched one CD-R, and my new Garbage CD. This thing has cost me $15 more than the original sale price, due to the unrepairable damage it's caused.
I'd like to email the company about this product, but they don't advertise anything but their headphones. Save another 30 bucks and get something that doesn't constantly flash "ASP" because it doesn't have any. That's what mine does. Skipping is one thing, but to have the thing stop the current track, hang for several seconds, or spontaneously shut off is another. All of these things have happened to me. Do not buy this.
42 Nice
This is a great entry-level MP3/CD Player. ...The Koss doesn't have the flashy case or the large LCD screen, but I still like it better than the Expanium. It is much simpler to use, and it has better battery life as well (the Expanium has only 10 hours). It is also noticeably lighter and thinner than the Expanium, which is also a big plus. It has a slower boot time (the time it takes from when you turn the player on until when the music starts to play) than the Expanium, but there is almost no delay what-so-ever between tracks. ...I have had no trouble at all with any of my burned cds; they all play fine. As for the "electronics fan from New Jersey", he needs some serious help if he can't make an MP3 cd correctly. It is a totally no-brainer process, so don't believe what he says. I only have had two problem this CD player. 1) that if there are any long, noticeable scratches on the CD, the player will sometimes misread these and suddenly go from 3:23 on track 5 to 3:24 on track 6; but that rarely happens. and 2) it cannot read ID3 tags (song name, artist, and album information). However, all in all, this is a great MP3/CD player, and the price is right.
43 Not bad
I bought mine 8/21/01, and I must say I am very happy with it thus far. I have had no problems creating and playing mp3 discs. Also it played CD-RW nicely. I play it thru my car tape deck with an adapter, and it still sounds good. I get the occasional noise, but I'm not sure if these are not related to the quality of the mp3's. Also, it doesn't list dir labels, but for the price, this thing is great.
44 Definitely not worth the time or effort
I bought this player last weekend. I am returning it today. I, like several others, spent an entire day trying to get all the mp3 files on one cd to play correctly. Now, as for telling me I don't know what I am doing when burning CDs, I have been burning mp3 cds for years. I tried everything from CD Creator 3 to CD Creator 5 and several others. The only thing I could finally get to work... contrary to several other reviews, was Direct CD and then I had to burn each folder by itself, close it, try it, reopen it, then add another. That is not what I call efficient.
The other problem, it will only recognize 8x3 (the old DOS format) filenames, so anything more than that is truncated and any files with the same first 8 characters are skipped. Since it won't recognize ID3 tags, that is a major problem. I used only the number of the "album's" song to write to the cd. One other thing, DON'T put anything on the CD but mp3 extentions, if you do, the player won't recognize the CD as an mp3 CD and will respond with "NO CD". Did I get it to work? Yep. Twelve wasted CD-R's and CD-RW's later.
The sound quality? Not bad. The mp3's, however, would pop and crackle from time to time along with other glitches here and there. And by the way, the sound problems were not in the mp3's. These are top rate mp3 recordings not just some I picked up on the internet.
Finally, IMHO, don't waste the time or the money. You can do much better with some other product and I am sure you will be much happier.
45 Bought it yesterday and KEEPING IT!
I don't know if these other guys know how to create and burn a proper MP3 disc but I must say that I have had nothing but great experiences with this CD player. Made 2 discs so far (1 CDR, 1 CDWR) and the playback was flawless. Sure I get the occasional glitch or pop but it is not bad at all and this seems to be experienced with most MP3 players anyway. Absolutely no skipping and the sound quality is very good for an MP3 player. For this price you can't go wrong (shhh, bought it on sale this week at Target for $...). Buy and be happy.
46 Bought it yesterday, returning it tomorrow.
I'm new to the world of MP3 CD players, and if this is how they all work, I'm going back to straight CDs. I spent nearly an entire day trying to get a CD-R encoded to work with the darn thing. What frustration. And when I finally -did- get a CD-R burnt that worked with it, the sound quality was reminiscent of a walkie talkie. LAME. There was this weird echo effect present in the MP3 playback that does not exist when the very same CD-R is taken to a desktop PC and played there. Also, the sound quality on CDs is bad, too. FWIW, I used RealJukebox Plus to encode from CD to MP3, and then used CDRWIN to burn the MP3s to CD-R.
This KOSS unit is a shame, because I bought the KOSS unit since I was so pleased with their standard CD player, which costed me [price]. This unit, at [price] from my local ... store, is not worth more than [price] IMHO. I'm returning it tomorrow and picking up either the Philips/Magnavox unit, or the RCA unit. But this one is a reject.
47 Cheap MP3/CD player - if you can't afford a TDK Mojo...
The Koss CDP3000 is worth what you pay for it. If you can't shell out the hundred-fifty dollars for an MP3/CD player with ID3 tag or filename support, then consider this one. It has the usual drawbacks, such as that it takes some time to spin up the CD and read the structure (somewhere between 10 and 40 seconds, depending on the CD, and sometimes it gets stuck during this process, but turning it off and them back on fixes this). The manual says it supports bitrates from 32K to 256K, including VBR. I tested a fair variety of different MP3s on it, and everything I tried except those with the new MP3Pro format worked. The anti-skip function is pretty good, but not perfect. The headphones are passable, but most people will want to spend twenty bucks on a pair of Sony's. (If you can afford fifty dollar or more headphones, then you should be able to afford a better MP3/CD player). I've gone through two sets of batteries so far, one lasted quite a while, and the other went very quickly, so I suspect the second set were just bad batteries. The navigation system is pretty good, it sorts by directories on the CD (calling them 'albums'). The random play feature only has one function, which plays all the tracks in one album in a random order, then switches to the next album. This product includes *no* software, and crappy documentation. It does have a line-out, and it includes an A/C adapter. For those who saw my earlier review, the problems I had were due to the way I burned the CDs -- don't use DirectCD to create MP3 CDs, it doesn't create CDs that follow the appropriate standards.
