At less than an inch thick, the SP350 CD player is a sleek, eye-catching portable that plays both standard music CDs and discs stacked to the gills with MP3 and Windows Media Audio (WMA) files. Assembling collections on a CD burner gives you the option of storing an incredible 24 hours of WMA music on a single CD-R or CD-RW. You also get text display for ID3 title information, showing track and artist information while music plays on its large, four-line, lighted LCD.
Enjoy 30 minutes of electronic shock protection using SteadyPlay technology--that's longer than the average workout. And you'll get 20 hours of playback time. An FM tuner, programmable playlists, adjustable equalization, bass boost, folder navigation, repeat play, and shuffle play broaden listening options. The package includes a RioVolt SP350, high-quality headphones, a complete car kit, two rechargeable NiMH batteries, a software CD-ROM, and a Getting Started guide.
1 I don't think Rio's very good...
The first time they sent me this player, it didn't recognize any discs, so I sent it back. The new one worked, though it skipped a lot on audio CDs that are older than 2000 AD, and doesn't recognize Fujifilm CD-Rs for some unknown reason... Then a year later the second one stopped recognizing discs. I'm just getting another brand.
This unit had lots of cool features for a good price, but unfortunately the performance wasn't as good quality. Now the player is only good for charging the batteries that only it uses.
2 Another Horror Story
Brand new out of the box, doesn't recognize most discs. Even store bought music CD's. CD-R's, MP3's ... forget it! Don't even think of wasting your money!!!!
3 Rechargable Batteries
Enough whining about the batteries already! If you want another set (and charger) simply go to "www.batteryconnection.com", click on the "Contact Us" link and tell them what you want. Some reviewers must not use the internet much, because it took me all of 10 minutes to find this site. The SP350 is a great player full of features AND extra batteries are NOT a problem to find. They have also recently become available on E-Bay. Search for "Prismatic Batteries" and you should find a seller.
4 RioBites
Customer support is NON Existant for this unit. Batteries are Proprietery AA Gumstick batteries that even Rio does NOT sell. I have literally spent 8 hours on the net and contacting Rio to find batteries and the only person I reached said they were available at Best Buy........which of course Best Buy NEVER heard of. Why any company would use a proprietary battery in a world flooded with battery designs and then decide NOT to support there own units is beyond me. Very Dissapointed. Rio has FAILED again.......
5 Horror story!
I am not going to repeat all the things that other people mentioned in the same sentence with RIO VOLT (e.g. skipping, bad support, etc.) I am only going to add another story. I bought mine at the BOSS store (it was heavily discounted), so I thought - "What'ta hell!." Bought it in Florida. Returned to GA figured out - no batteries! NOBODY ON THE INTERNET sells replacement batteries - NOT EVEN RIO VOLT THEMSELVES!!!!! Everybody, I urge you to BOYCOTT THOSE SOBs. This is not a right way to treat a customer at all.
6 Problems with any Rio Mp3/Wma CD player
This is just a fancier version of the SP150, a better looking more defined font for the larger Text Display, blue instead of green backlighting, 32 minutes of anti-skip instead of 16, an added built-in radio tuner, a car kit with ciggarette and casette tape adapters.
Alot of awesome stuff that didn't come with the SP150.
(Like that Software CD and NIMH batteries that were supposed to come with mine, but didn't?)
Here's the things they neglect to tell you when you buy these players. The buttons (especially the "joy-pad") will begin to stick after a while, usually the play button is the first to go. If you don't press them easily the buttons are likely to break. If you burn your CD's be sure that you burn at a SLOW speed (2x) that the laser can read without trouble.
If you have a high end CD burner with fast burning software your CD's are more likely to have errors.
For instance a CD I made 20 minutes ago will screw up on track 3 yet it is perfectly clean and has no scratches. The counter still counts but there is no sound, cueing further into the song helps sometimes but after doing this the text turns into non-sense characters, or there will be no text at all. I put in a CD that I burned 3 years ago on a now outdated Acer 6x4x32 CD-Recorder that is covered in scratches and for some reason it plays fine.
Pretty dang annoying, right?
If you don't go through your MP3's/WMA's and systematically assign the "track number" in Winamp and save the ID3 information your songs will NOT play in correct order.
Player volume is depressingly low, even at 40, which is the highest it goes. Its like this no matter what kind of headphones your using, even if they're the kind with an on-cord volume control.
You'll have to get a pockect EQ from Koss or Boostaroo to be able to hear your music satisfactorally.
This is a great player if your using it in your car, its crap if your using it as a personal walkman.
If you use a wall power supply to run your player while you sleep like I sometimes do I definately suggest you don't use anything other than the specified voltage power supply (usually 4.5v)
7 sucks!!!!
what's wrong with this player. it is supposedly feature laden; however, the features do not work most of the time. do not buy this piece of junk.
8 Silly American
Maybe it's my fault that I had an expectation on this product. I assumed that when I opened the package it would work and it has never worked properly. It skips, the display turns to gibberish, you can't play CD's while the batteries charge. I got this thing less than 24 hours ago and the return slip is in the mail. This is the second Rio CD/MP3 player that I have had a problem with and it will be the last.
9 The worse
This is the worse MP3 player I ever owned, first the batteries are proprietary, not AA as was advertised. It also skips and out right refused to play some MP3's even after I put them on a brand new CD. After I did that I put the old CD in a friends MP3 player made by memorex, it worked great. It's also not any thinner than a normal one. My recommendation, stay as far away from this frightful thing as possible.
10 3 hour battery life, and random lockups
While when the player is working it works flawlessly, the battery life is very short, and it has locked up on me after playing for a few hours. It's batteries are propriatory gumstick types, and even though they're 1450mAh, they only power it for a few hours. I was on a field trip and it didn't even get me through the bus ride. Worse, there's no external power pack, so you have to find a power outlet. Even then, it takes hours to charge the batteries, longer if your playing music while charging.
The lockup problem isn't that bad, but it makes the worry that more problems will arise later. The day I got it I was playing a standard CD and the display got all garbled, random characters and dots. The second time, a few weeks later, i was playing a 4 hour mp3 concert (with the AC adaptor of course), and when I went to pause it, nothing happened. It was like the hold button was activated, except it wasn't. I couldn't turn it off either, so I had to open the lid to reset the thing.
If you can live with short battery life, and don't mind strange lockups, it's a VERY nice player. Slim, seems physically durable, lighweight, and does not skip. The feature set is well thought out and navigation is easy. There's nothing to confuse you.
11 Promises great things, but delivers on little
This product seems great at first because of several points: The CD, CD-RW, and CD-R player combined with MP3 and an FM radio--what more could you want? It also comes with a remote controller and a car kit. It was for these reasons I bought this product, but the entire package is spoiled by the fact that it does an awful job of playing music!
It promises skip protection, but the machine skips constantly even if nothing is disturbing it. It also has power issues in that it just shuts down while you are using it no matter how charged the batteries are. I have asked other owners about this and they all say they have the same problem and that even once they have sent the machine in to be fixed the problem persists.
The solution: Buy any of the other CD/MP3 players out there because they just can't be as bad as this one!
12 awfully awful
Didn't work from the beginning. Was told later this was a re-conditioned product.
Don't spend your money on this product from this company
13 The newest, the worst
I had the SP100 player that I loved, it was a very good player and each firmware update gave me a lot of interesting functions. Unfortunately it was stolen from my car and then I wanted to buy another one. I saw the SP350 with its very nice design and I thought that if SP100 was great, this one might be outstanding, but what a dissapointment. Lot of buffer, for what? It skips all the time, a lot of CDR discs it doesn't read and its firmware is a lot less complete than the SP100. There's an unlimited list of things you can't do. I hoped that maybe the upgrades could fix those lot of BUGS it presents but I have turned to stone waiting for them. What's wrong with you at Rio Volt? If I could I'd like to return this junk and buy another one.
14 Skip city
The only thing I like about this is the remote other than that the product just get 1 star. It skips a lot on both type of CD audio and MP3. The radio reception is also bad. If you are thinking of doing sport this is not the one for you. This is my second and last time buying from RioVolt.
15 This player is JUNK...
The player continuously skips. Worst of all, I cannot completely charge the batteries. The player randomly shuts down while charging. I would never recommend this product or Rio products in general because customer service just does not exist.
16 How could they?
Really a shame, because the RIO 90, 100, and 250 were way ahead of their time and excellent pieces of equipment. I have tested all plus other brands, but the Rio 350 is just junk. It's not even thin.
17 Punished for not reading the reviews
It has nice set of features but it simply doesn't work.
18 Doesn't work! Not recommended at all!
I have been using this player for a couple of months and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It doesn't play many (not just a few) CDs. It's amazing, but unfortunately true. It skips constantly (even when it is not moved at all). Specifically, it has problems with CDs with CD-text info, MP3s encoded with variable bitrate, and many CDs for which I cannot track the reason of the problem. When a CD is inserted, it takes almost a minute to start playing it. And as I already mentioned, the reproduction is often so irritating (with gaps) you just give up. I bought this player despite the negative comments, lured by the many extras (case, car adapter etc.) and the amazing offer (one third of the price). But a nice design, a case, and a car adapter are useless if you cannot listen to music. It is sold at the normal price now, which would may make somebody think that the problems are fixed, but there has not been released a firmware upgrade. I bought this player thinking that the problems might have been minor or already fixed, but that is not the case. Go for a player that is actually playing the CDs, and not 1sec of music, one gap, 1sec of music, one gap and so on. Unfortunately, I'll have to buy another player too...
19 Mediocre player
Skips, stops, becomes unresponsive randomly (u can't turn it off) There are no firmware upgrades available to fix these flaws. I got this player with the car kit for $60 over christmas. Now I see it is $170, how is that possible? RIP OFF!
This player is barely tolerable.
CAVEAT EMPTOR!
Translation:
BUYER BEWARE!
20 This player sucks
The customer service sucks and the player sucks. It skips all the time, even on sturdy surfaces, and picks up weird radio stations I cant even find on my car radio. except for that its great! Did i mention that it skips all the time?
21 Priced to Move, but it's a dog
I'm returning the second Riovolt SP-350, which we got from J and R. Both units had a display which turned into gibberish at times, and a very poor quality FM tuner. I live within 20 miles of most Twin Cities stations but mostly got howling. Great feature set and included options, but now you know why the price was lowered and the product was discontinued.
22 Caution
I bought it, and...ah...hummm...it?s not that ultra-tin, to say the trught it?s not at all thin, it?s the same size of all the others cd players.. and i?t have a lot of bugs, I hope a new firmwire resolves it, but it?s a good player for $60
23 Hopeless piece of junk (There should be a 0 star option too
Please donot buy this RIO SP350 player as it is a smart way of daylight robbery . I cannot believe that I spent 60 $ for this c**p. Anyway the best u can do is go to a store and check it out and return it ... I have so many skips in my mp3 CD's ...
The worst player so far ...
My recommendation : Move on and go for a SONY Player ...
24 Riovolt SP-350 - I was not pleased with this unit
Subject: Riovolt SP-350
I usually don't write to reviews such as these, but when I came across this
product, I couldn't help myself. The Riovolt SP-350 has great features, but
is a horrible player. This unit promises to play regular CD's, MP3's, and
WMA's, but has major problems playing any of these formats. I purchased
this Riovolt SP-350 from J&R Music World, via Amazon.com for about $65.00
for my 17 y.o. son. I should have known something was wrong with this model
when I saw the exact same in Circuit City a month previously for about
$100.00.
I decided to take a chance and purchase the SP350 for a few reasons:
1- I was very satisfied with the SP250 I had purchased about a year before
(for about $170.00 the previous year at Circuit City)
2- about half of the "reviews" on Amazon.com seemed to be positive.
3- the SP-350 offered a lot of features that the SP-250 has which I found
very useful: battery charger, fast forward and rewind through tracks,
I was blown away by the fact that there is a paper insert that comes shipped
with the CD player that states "The player does not play discs created with
DirectCD". Heavens to Betsy! I believe that most of the CD's that I write
MP3's and WMA's to are created using DirectCD. Isn't Microsoft Media Player
really Roxio / DirectCD under the covers? The SP-350 would not play most
store bought CD's. It had problems getting past the LCD "Reading..."
message for CD-R's that contained MP3's and WMA's. The SP-350 also has two
batteries that are very odd. They are proprietary batteries that fit only
in the SP350. They are named 1450mAH NiMH batteries which are flat. Two of
these batteries come with the player and can be charged while placed in the
player. In anticipation of having to someday replace these flat batteries,
or to have a 2nd set, I looked on the web for replacements. I could not
find any replacements and the Rio / Riovolt site did not list them as being
available for purchase through them. My own older SP-250 has none of these
problems. I don't jog with the SP-250 and treat it with great care, but
I've never had a problem with it skipping or not playing CD's. The older
SP-250 came with normal sized AA NiMH batteries that can be charged in the
player. Because the older player accepted AA batteries, you could place
regular AA Alkaline batteries in it in a pinch. One of my only complaints
about the SP-250 is that the battery charge lasts only about 1 week after
using the player for only about 1.5 to 2 hours for the entire week.
I returned the new SP-350 back to J&R Music World as they have a 30 day
return policy. I asked for and received a full refund telling them the truth; the
SP-350 simply cannot play many different types of CD formats. I've now purchased
the Panasonic SL-MP80 CD/MP3 Player for $64.88, no shipping, off of
Amazon.com. It doesn't have features such as fast forward within a track,
nor does it have an internal battery recharger, but it's supposed to play
regular CD's,MP3's and WMA's, and have a long battery life.
25 I am so sad
Today I received my sp350 and it only worked me for 3 minutes. I live in Costa Rica and I don't know like the amazon guarantee works for my country. I am disappointed of the product and I want to know if somebody can help me with the application of the guarantee.
26 Believe the other reviews. This player is terrible!!!
I wish I had read these reviews before I bought this MP3-CD player. I saw it in Circuit City and thought that it had a lot of features I liked, so I purchased it. What a big mistake!
Problems:
o Skips on regular audio CDs (even when sitting still)
o Skips and pops when playing MP3 files
o Jumps from one MP3 file to another IN AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT FOLDER (?!!)
o Fails to recognize folders (showed strange Japanese characters)
o Fails to recognize some MP3 CDs AT ALL!
I've only owned this player for a week. How could I have encountered this many problems in such a short time? I actually exchanged the player at the store today because I thought I had a defective unit. From reading the rest of the reviews, I realize I have a defective product.
Don't touch this player with a 10-foot pole. I'm returning this player tomorrow and getting the iRiver SlimX iMP-350 CD/MP3 player instead.
27 very nice
I thought this player waaas very good except for no AM radio or bas boosteing
28 Best RioVolt yet!
I don't know why everyone out there is giving bad ratings to this wonderful machines. I just purchased one and I am astounded by its features. Compared to the RioVolt SP100, this thing rocks! I recommend it to everyone reading this.
29 Nice idea, but.......
Have been looking for a cd/mp3 player and was waiting for prices to comes down. Lo and behold, the Rio SP350. Price dropped from $110-120 down to $60.
Using the unit for about 2 days now and am completely unsatisied with the performance. Here's why:
1)no detailed instructions. How do i set presets? Must go to the website, upselling stinks
2)Once on the website, there is virtually no support beyond the manual, no firmware upgrades, etc, disappointing. It appears that Rio/Sonic Blue is moving toward a strictly digital future.
3)It sk-sk-sk-skips when used during what most would consider normal walking, no sudden movements, just attempted to play and audio CD
4)LCD display is buggy. Often, Japanese characters are displayed. Only way to clear is to turn off completely.
5)Remote is minimally useful. You never really know what you'll end up with. Minimal explanation of function. Also, the first few times I used it , it seemed to function fine. But soon, it would not activiate the player.
6)The FM reception is marginal at best. Almost lost completely inside buildings, unless stations happen to have strong signals.
7) The case makes swapping out CDs a chore, as the player must be completely removed from the case to open it.
Overall, I love the idea. But perhaps I should have read the reviews here a little more closely. I most likely would have avoided this product, even with the price drop. Will be returning it very soon.It is worth remembering that cheap isn't always a bargain.
30 Patience will prevail
After seeing the mixed reviews on this item I still decided to purchase the SP350. I want to start by saying that this item still sells for over a hundred dollars with tax at the stores I have seen it for sale in, with tax it would have cost me 118.00+ at Circuit City, that's exactly double the Amazon price.
I've only owned the SP350 a few days but I am already very happy with it, I have not experienced problems with skipping, but I do as suggested and burn slow. It takes like 10 minutes at x2 write speed, but I doubt anyone is so impatient that waiting an extra 6 or 7 minutes is an ordeal.
Considering it's better than average file system software, it's sound quality and it's sturdy outer casing which has already survived my daughter pulling it off our kitchen table by the headphone cord,(As a side note, it thankfully was wearing the protective case. The worst that happened is the cd popped off the spindle inside the player) it is light years above the similarly priced competition.
With the included car kit, rechargeable batteries and ac adapter I actually saved an extra 20 or 30 dollars I would have paid for the accessories alone, and again, the sound quality is excellent in my opinion with no skips noticed yet and I use mine in my car, during my drives to and from work.
I will try to remember to edit this review with an update after a few weeks more usage.
31 so far it works great...NOT
My brother ordered one from here a couple weeks ago and it works fine so far. even took it on a couple long drives with the car kit and worked fine. i have a SP100 (psx100) model myself and i would have to say that this model is much better (build quality and size). it seems to play just about everything i throw at it, even old cdr (and cdrw) media with mixed audio and mp3 tracks on it. read times are fast as well. sounds like the mixed reviews could be from a different batch. i'm not sure i'd take it jogging tho. price is prolly down to compete with everything else out there
things i wished-
regular AA batteries instead of the sticks
ear buds
firmware update for timer, etc...
UPDATE: while it does "work" it has begun to occasionally skip and battery life sucks. Furthermore, there's i did some digging around and apparently there's no support for this model (and the SP50) because they were made by the now defunct SonicBlue. other models that you can buy on ebay (SP90, 100, 150, 250) have equivalent Iriver firmware updates. There's NO RADIO function!
32 Very Disappointing
The tremendous drop on its price explains why I said that this product was a disaster. It skips a lot and there's bugs on LCD, bascilly it does not do its main job, to produce high quality music.
I am really sorry for this product, although I think the design is very nice. I wonder why RioVolt would release such product, they are losing their customers' trust.
33 Good Deal
This mp3 player could do almost everithing. It's cheap and has good accesories that you will enyoy.
34 Terrible
I changed it 4 times and i gave up on it the 1st every thing worked pretty good exept the batteries lasted like 2 hrs on it so i changed it 4 a new 1 then the 2nd one was horrible it skiped even when flat on the table i couldt beleve it so i went back and got a new one on thr 3rd one the radio didt work at all on any of them it worked really good but on this one i didt work at all and on the 4th one hte same thing i couldt beleve it cus the actual cd was great good sound quality and really good exept the radio well over all its allright is u get one dat dosent skip and u dont want a radio but i after all went for the sony 1 with the small screen dat got mp3 and radio/tv/weather its pretty good no complins so far
35 Stay away
Same thing as other people said. This player blows. The two star rating is there for a reason. Don't touch this player with a 10 feet pole. I guarantee it.
I packed it right back in the box after trying it out for an hour. It simply, sucks.
36 I wish there was an option for a 0 star
I was very excited on buying the new SP350 Rio Player for an extraordinary price. * NEVER GO FOR THIS PLAYER *
I tried 2-3 CD's (MP3) ... The player read it but it skipped a lot. Even the fact that the MP3 bit rate was 128 or less ...
Still it did not give me the output I needed . I am thinking of returning this piece of crap. Hopeless piece of junk...
The price drop from 169 ==> 59 is self evident of the fact of its performance ...
If anyone knows any tests which I can try to make this work , please let me know !
Thanks
37 This is a horrible product-Rio knows it-New low price!
This product was ill concieved and Rio knows it. They're very little help because they know they have a clinker. All of the things they tell you to do to get compatible discs are rediculous. Who's doing the work here. I thought I paid them. Just look at the price if you're not convinced. Originally sold for $169+,and it now goes for $59. This product is really not worth anything because it doesn't work. I have never seen a product that doesn't do at all what it is suppossed to. They should be out of business for selling something this bad.
38 Where on Earth do you find batteries for this thing??
I ordered a new SP350 and didn't get batteries. I wrote to Rio asked for a replacement set. Mind you these are bizarre rectangular shaped batteries you can buy in a regular store! Rio told me opps, sorry we discontinued this item and no parts are available. Other than this lame BS, the player itself works fine.
39 Bad service and bad product
I bought this cd player because the 250 was great and i tought that the RIO brand was very good. But what a surprise, the device was failing since I put it to work... I wrote to RIO and they never reply to me and I have been waiting months for them get out any update to the firmware.
Rio is not what it used to be... you cannot trust the company anymore.
40 iRiver iMP-350 is a Much Better Choice
This player is similar to the iRiver iMP-350 MP3/CD player, but a better display (4 lines instead of 2) and better accessories make the iRiver unit a clear winner.
Also, my experience with SonicBlue's customer service has been less than favorable (and this is being kind.) It has now been almost a year since I sent a broken player in for warranty repair or replacement. After half a year (!) they replaced my original player with a different, lower quality, model (SP250 with SP350). But it has now been a year -- and they still not have sent me accessories for the SP350 (which is incompatible with the old accessories.)
41 Biggest headache of my life!
For some reason, Sonic Blue appear to state that SP350 (like the pathetic SP250) has skip free technology?
Well, I burn CDR as mixed mode (MP3 and CDA) which is useful when backing up mp3 data.
OK the machine recognises both format but when you walk with the machine it skips all the time.
When using InCD (Win98se) and "Drag&Drop" mp3 files onto a formatted CDRW, again the unit skips and takes ages to load them.
I asked an Assistant of Dixons chain for an expert opinion: To hear skip free mp3 tracks on a CD you must use a "jog proof" player or a hard-drive based one.
Skip free technology will only work when not running/walking/playing unit through a car stereo (when using cassette adapter).
So much for a skip-free MP3 player! Ok if the machine is flat on a desk it might play fine, but these are PORTABLE Players and that means ON THE MOVE.
Unless someone comes up with a MP3 CD player which is Jog Proof and you can adjust the bass treble and bass/treble boost yourself, I will be forced to move onto Creative Labs NOMAD technology.
So far I have had two SP150, then two SP250 and now SP350.
Be wary of skip free - go for Jog Free.
42 GREAT yet... Patience required
This player at first try made me cringe as my favorite tunes were reduced to bits and blips as the player skipped. I scratched my head and decided to do some tests.
My results:
1) Make sure the files are encoded at a Bitrate of 128 or less
2) Higher bit rates also work if you burn at 2x
3) Encode your own music from your own CD's for best quality
4) Downloads work best if they are high quality ie iTunes store
5) Use high Quality CD-R or RW discs, Kodak Ultra or Green base
6) You can burn at higher speeds if you are using quality files
7) On Windows always burn your CD's as data discs
8) On the Mac always burn your CD's as Mp3 discs
9) Keep your cd's clean, never put a dirty disc into the player
What I like most about the RioVolt sp350:
1) Almost every feature I could ask for in an Mp3 CD player
2) Carrying case leaves functions accessible
3) Display is easy to read and fuly customizable
4) EQ is almost perfect with customized settings
5) The sound quality is amazing, even with supplied headphones
6) Batteries recharge quickly and last a long time
What would I change:
1) Bigger screen with manual scroll
2) Allow use of regular batteries
3) Slot load instead of clamshell design
In the end I love the RioVolt sp350, it's price can't be beat. Offers all the stuff a great player should. One word of advice I think is essential.... PATIENCE!!! If you don't have any, go buy an iPod you won't be disapointed.
43 An honest review by a real owner
A great concept nearly perfected in this amazingly thin and versatile Mp3 CD player. Although I do have some reservations, this is by far the better player out there for those with enough patience. And at around $100 is by far the most cost effective solution.
I can fit over 1000 songs on each CD at 128kbps and even when some files are at 192kbps or higher. This unit definately likes the Kodak CD-R ultra brand or any brand using green plastic. Producing skips and bleeps on other discs, once I figured this out I have had the pleasure of listening to flawless Mp3 CD's.
The only thing that bugs me is the fact that I have to start the player in a stationary position and not jar it or move it suddenly. Sure, you can pick it up and go. Just be aware the unit is recording the tracks into memory and you may find skips from moving it in the first 5 minutes. The sp350 needs to keep doing this every half hour or so which is kind of a hassel.
How would I better this unit if I were in charge? That's easy, slot load instead of their clamshell design. Also I would provide a larger LCD screen with manual scroll of songs info. Oh and a better implementation of the EQ with manual settings and saved settings, the player should also auto switch to a songs Genre. for example, Jazz songs are played through a Jazz EQ setting, Rock through a Rock EQ setting... And since it can record this could offer much more, like a sample of any song as your indication sound, and the obvious recording meetings or ideas. I guess that's getting a little too James Bond.
For now I am content to enjoy the Bass/Rap EQ setting for everything. It produces an impressive Bass response and really brings the drums out of any style. As a drummer this may be just how I hear it ;)...
Over all this is the best CD Mp3 Player I have owned but I still want an iPod yet at those prices I LOVE THE RioVolt sp350!
I do warn you though, if you have little patience buy an iPod.
44 A lot less than expected
This isnt as thin as you would expect. The sound quality is not as impressive as you would expect. The price is not as good as you would expect. This is the most dissappointing purchase I have made.
Heres Why
The Seek time to load an CD full of mp3's was about 25 seconds (no joke!)
Takes about 5 seconds to change a song.
Can only fast forward at 1 speed. Only about 3 times faster. That means to get to the 3 minute mark of a song would take 1 minute.
Sometimes the display would just turn into all crazy characters, forcing me to turn of the player and wait another 25 miserable seconds for it to load.
The car kit didnt work i dont know if it was the car's fault or the car kits but the sound quality was terrible.
Skips easily even though it claims "32 minute skip protection!!!!"
Just dont buy it. Its plain and simple. There is not even a chance that you will be happy with your purchase.
45 looks like I won the lottery...
I read the many awful reviews and figured I would give it a shot anyway. I am very glad I did. I have had minimal problems with the unit. The one and only time that I had the skip problems when I brushed off the cd it quit skipping. I walk with mine to work all the time. One of the downsides is definitely the complexity of use. Once you get the hang of it, it's okay, but it's not intuitive by any means. I do wish the rechargeable batteries were not the only portable power source (ie, I wish I could use disposables!), but it doesn't take long for it to recharge the batteries. I have recorded my own MP3 cd's and have recorded above the recommended bit rate, but at the 2x speed they recommend, I haven't had any problems other than the dirty cd issue. It looks like i won the lottery and actually got a good model, I know alot of others are disappointed, but mine is great. The sound quality is superb, I actually heard minute details on cd's that I had never heard prior. Great little unit and you can't beat the price with the rebate!
46 stay away
this unit has good intentions; has good accessessories and features. however it is a piece of junk. it constantly skips between songs. i tried contacting rio techncial support and their only answer is that you shouldn't use it for walking.
They also recommended not to record at 128kbs or above; i had not done either of these things. the unit skips even when sitting stationary.
Rio need to change the firmware. they should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this unit to stay on the market. there are no faq's.
47 Big Mistake!
I agree with all of those reviewers that gave 1 star to this unit. It's to bad that you are not given the option to rate it as zero stars. First unit I had could not even select the FM radio mode so it was exchanged for another. Second one could select FM mode but could only receive a few stations and only if you stood still. All pre-recorded music cd's skip continually. I was able to play some mp3's. Stay away from the RioVolt SP350. It was a big mistake for me to buy it and a complete waste of money.
48 Not Worth the $$MONEY$$
I purchased this product becaseu my Sony got stolen. I was looking for a new one when i saw this and read some of the reviews. It sounded like a good cd player. Big mistake. I recieved mine the other day and when i first took it out it was extremely light and felt like [inexpensive] plastic. not something i was expecting for a 189 dollar cd player.(theres definatly a reason why it has such a huge sale) when i put my cd in it started skipping when i would tap or shake it a little bit. The controls were also very confusing. I would not recomend this product to anyone. Stick to the big sellers like sony and panasonic.
49 nice, but too many bugs.
In one word:
Disapointed.
The good:
Price.
Features.
Built in batteries.
Nice design.
The Ugly:
Horrible FM reception.
A few skips here and there when plays mp3 content.
Too little setup features.
Controls are not 100% easy to use.
Beta release firmware with lots of problems.
Compared to:
Rio volt SP100 (2 years) - with latest firmware - flawless performance and ease of use.
Conclusion:
Unless they release new firmware fixing all the problems, don't waste your money on it.
50 Worst Online Shopping Experience Ever
I was attracted to buy this product by its rebate, but long before the rebate arrives I am terribly regretting buying it now. A LITTLE BIT MORE THAN ONE MONTH after I bought it, it literally stopped working. On the LCD, it always reads "Read Error" when it is supposed to play. After communicating with SonicBlue Technical support (remember it was after one month and couldn't be returned to Amazon), they agreed there was something wrong and it should be replaced. They gave a "RMA" number and to my surprise, I would have to pay for shipping the product to their facility in Arizona. That is not allÁ? When their replacement arrived this morning, I found out IT DOES NOT WORK. It automatically forwards or rewinds 5 seconds, stops for another 5 second, etcÁ? So I called support again, asking if the one I just received was returned by someone else instead of new, the answer is yes---Á¡refurbishedÁ±----without checking if it works!
51 worth the work
So here's the skinny on this high quality Cd player. When I frst tried my player..I also encoutered problems with playing my MP3 cd's. I called their support line and they were extremely helpful and pleasant.( too bad they don't have a 1800#) Anyway, I learned the following: 1) Burn cd as a Data CD. 2) burn/write at 2x...not 4x. 3) burn songs on the cd that have quality or bitrate of 128...this is a little tidious because you have to look at the quality of each song before you download it. 4) Close and finalize session. 5) Use high qualtiy blank CD's.
If you are willing to do these things, you will hear an unbelievable sounding CD in this player. It sounds even better than its predecessor. Too bad it took so much work to figure this out...it would have been nice to know all this stuff beforehand..so I'm sharing it with ya'll to save you calling the manufacturer and wasting any blank CD's.
The re-chargable batteries is a great feature...don't have to spend money on batteries. Once charged..batteries last a long time...I love this feature. This is a great CD player..I think it's worth it.
52 Dissapointing piece of junk is an optimistic statement
I have been wanting a Rio with the built in Radio Tuner ever since they came out. This thing showed up as a gold box offer one night and I got all starry eyed. It's thin, cheap, the controlsare confusing, the manual is a pdf file,that gave me a broken link error on the CD, fortunately I was able to retrieve it from the lacking in content support site.The software is dissaponting and not what I had expected at all. I should have gotten a used pre Sonic Blue model ... when they were still good. Now, don't bother.
53 TryHarder? It may look the part, but RioVolt; Keep Dreaming!
All I have to say is this is the worst player ever! My MP3 cd player kept on skipping and having a rough time playing cd music. I didn't even bother of keeping it, I just throwed it outside my window into my trash can. There is way too much negative description for this player and it is way too much that I am not going to list them.
RioVolt, if you want to try to make a better innovation for the community, then I suggest you to fix up this RioVolt SP350. Stop ripping off people money and start fixing up this MP3 CD player!
54 Two thumbs down for SonicBlue
I agree with the folks who have problems with this RioVolt SP-350 player. It skips the music tracks of either ORIGINAL CD-AUDIO music or MP3s stored in CD-R or CD-RW media that worked FINE with the previous model, the SP-250 Player (i wonder why SonicBlue discontinued it!!)
I've followed all the directions of Sonic Blue and still nothing. I believe it's a firmware problem. I mailed SonicBlue a week ago and i just got a reply from them. They say "we are sorry, we have no firmware upgrades, please return the defective unit to the store where you purchased it from to get a new one as a replacement and if they don't want to do it, please call us after may 1, 2003 and we'll do ir for you." but reading someone else's post, getting a replacement won't help much because i believe that it's this model that is all messed up.. now.. will SonicBlue send me a refund for this defective unit? who knows!!
What a disappointment, i expected much more from this brand.. two thumbs down for this model.. SonicBlue guys, do something QUICKLY or you'll lose customers!
Best Regards,
Paul D. Fabre
55 Don't Bother
My review is quite simple. Don't buy. I got the unit for Christmas last year and dealt with the skipping for a little while, but then returned it when it was static like in the car. After getting a second unit from Amazon, I found the static problem somewhat improved, but now noticed that the unit had a nearly impossible playing MP3 CDs. SonicBlue says clean the lens (of a new player?) and burn CDs only at 128kbps. This is not the performance I expected. This is poor. Now I'm stuck fighting with SonicBlue to get a refund. This product is not worth $...Get an IPod.
56 A waste of money
I have bought the Rio Volt 350 in Dec. 2002 and I'm very disappointed. The sound quality is very good, but there is so much skipping that it is not only no fun it is unusable. I send a list of problems (skipping, stopping to play music, not being able to read audio cd's, empty batteries after playing for two hours) by e-mail to the costumer support of sonicblue. I have been waiting for an answer for two weeks.
Since there are so many other consumers with similar problems I warn to buy this product. It is a waste of money. This product is a desaster.
57 Do Not Buy...
Got first unit, skipped and was very iffy reading CDs. Also, had glitches in software. Called Sonic Blue, first told me get a cleaning kit for their brand new CD player! After a little more discussion they had me send back mine and sent me a new one. This one is even worse. It is unusable, skips on various CDs and menu system is buggy. Do yourself a favor and wait until the next version of software comes out.
58 Disappointing
I have a 90, 100 and have tried the 250 and the 350 leaves a great deal to be desired. It does not handle files well, can read only a limited number of files, does not have resume and is difficult to navigate. The older models have superior firmware. Perhaps SonicBlue will fix these problems with new firmware. It should have been done before release to the public.
59 1 word 2 describe this HORRIBLE
I thought about purchasing this Mp3/CD but when I went to the store I was unimpressed. I didn't like the way the CD players contols were. I previously owned a RIoVolt SP250 and this is nothing compared to it. The only thing good about it is its slim. I would recommend buying the iRiver SlimX 350. It is a much better player. Rio products are going down hill. Ulike versions of RioVolt this iRiver player for once displays names of songs on regular Auido CDs unlike RIo.
I have 1 thing to say forget this CD player get the iRiver SlimX 350
60 One Month to Fix "Programming Errors", according to Mfr.
This thing is very disappointing. It skips like crazy, turns off at random moments, and is really not Ultra thin. I chose this specific model because of the FM tuner, but it doesn't work at all. Once I FINALLY got a hold of a tech support person at sonic blue (after being on hold twice for over 1/2 hour), I was told that there is a programming error with this model, and they might have a fix for it in about a MONTH. Forget it. Sending it back for a refund. :(
61 it's not an SP250
I have an SP250 and like it a lot. I couldn't find a 250 for my daughter so I bought her the SP350. (Aparently the 250 has been discontinued.) I thought that the higher model number and the higher price of the 350 meant it was a better player than my 250. Bad assumptions. Knowing what I know now, I should have bought a refurbished 250. The 350 won't use standard AA batteries. The 250 has that option (it comes with rechargables). Unlike the 250, the 350 doesn't display as much information in the display and it's not formatted in a way to make it easily understandable. The 350 doesn't have as many ways to configure it's operation as the 250 does. The 250 has a great equalizer that is very flexible. The 350 has a rather crude equalizer that has no flexibility in the way it can be configured.
I don't understand why Sonic Blue would discontinue their best CD/MP3 player and replace it with something that costs more, but doesn't work as well. The SP250 was a great product. I've seen used ones selling for $200! I'm afraid to leave mine unattended on my desk.
62 definetly not worth it...yet
OK lets make this simple. I used to have a rio volt sp250 and it was great all around, practically the best piece of electronices Ive ever owned. So when that bit the dust (wish I saved the recipt) I though why not upgrade, how could rio go wrong. Well they definetly did and I am still baffeled by how... The sp350 looks good, feels great and is definetly sturdy all around, there is no problem with that. Where you will find trouble is in the playback and the technical support. The thing skips through every song sometimes even skipping from one song to a completely different song in a remote folder! When you play audio cds it tends to freak out with ASCII code until you have to shut it down and start again. And the technical support is absymal, no one answers your calls and they only play one track of horrible music the whole time (psych out I assume they must be jammed with calls about this although they said I was the first), then of course when they answer you call they provide you with no real soultions anyway...So for potential give this thing a 5 for actuall performance give it a 0!! It could all be fixed with a firmware upgrade I am hopeing, but until then its completely uesless to me. Stay away!!!!
63 Beware!!; The worst buy that you can make
Well, I bought it just when it was released, so that was the first problem, you can't read users reviews(lesson learned).
After charging the unit for about 6 hours, it started the real problem. I tried to play standard music CD's and it skipped all time, then strange ASCII symbols appeard on the LCD instead of the usual "track 01"(and for what I'm reading, I'm not the first one). Never worked. I sent it back 3 days later.
Dont buy it!!
64 Mine failed on both MP3 and regular audio CDs
As others have said, this is a sleek and shiny unit. The feature set is impressive. But the unit I got should have never made it out the door.
The unit fails when playing MP3 recordings. It stops playing in the middle of a selection and will often skip to the next selection.
The unit fails when playing commmercially-available audio CDs. Again, it was skipping. The unit's display also went into "matrix mode" when moving between tracks: the two lines of alpha would display unintelligable characters. I had to shut down the unit before the display started prompting/displaying in English again.
I called support. They asked what sampling frequency I used (256kbps). They told me to use a lower sampling frequency and try again. I asked why; they could give no explanation. Since the exact same MP3 CD worked in earlier RIO players and this device is spec'd to deal with 256kbps, I ignored this recommendation.
They also insisted that I needed to update the firmware on the unit with the SP250 firmware from Rio's site. I downloaded the firmware, burned it on a CD, and tried to load it. "No File" error. I tried again. Same error. I was experienced doing this operation from my earlier Rio PSX100 unit. Three days later, I called support again. They said that the person who made the recommendation was wrong and were very sorry that they had sent me on a wild goose chase.
There may be good units out there, but mine is getting returned. These units appear to have been shipped with no QA cycle at all.
I'm a big fan of the MP3 CD format. I got the Philips Expanium when it first came out and have used the Rio PSX100 for a couple of years. This unit was a big disappointment to me. I hope that SonicBlue deals with the quality problems.
65 Truly a terrible player
I bought this thing after hearing the praise of the sp 250. At first, I had problems with the display listing garbage instead of song titles, but dismissed it as thinking they will get a new firmware up... this was not the case. their website which is truly terrible has no info or support on the 350 and their customer support line is even worse. You wait for hours and then they just hang up on you.
For a product that says "won't skip" it skipped a lot. I wasn't even jogging or walking. I was just sitting down listening to music on it.
The radio is garbage too. When they say FM tuner, they mean static tuner.
Do yourself a favor and don't buy this. I am going to return it and get an ipod instead.
66 It deserves a zero-star rating.
I'm on my third MP3 CD player -- I really like the format. I have had the original Philips Expanium player and the Rio PSX100 (the original RioVolt player).
This machine is a turkey. It skips when playing my MP3 CDs, and it skips when playing commercially-available audio CDs. Also, when changing tracks on a commercially-available audio CD, the alphanumeric display went into "matrix mode" -- 2 lines of incomprehensible characters. The only way out of this mode was to power off the unit.
When I called technical support, they told me to "create MP3 files sampling at a lower frequency" than the 256K that I had used. Wrong answer! The device is specified to work absolutely correctly at the sampling rate I used. And that explains nothing about the failure of the ordinary audio CDs on the player.
They also sent me on a wild goose chase saying I should download and install the SP250's firmware on this device. There was no reference to this on SonicBlue's website, but I tried it anyway. The device refused to download the firmware. (I had no problem with firmware updates on my PSX100 in the past.)
I would complain to SonicBlue's support line about wasting my time except for the fact that they now have a recording that says that they are very busy, announces the support center hours, and then *hangs up on you*. No offer to have you wait in a queue. No offer to call you back. No nothing. This is an extraordinary statement about how much SonicBlue values their customer. I'm going to go ahead and return mine to Amazon within the 30-day return window...
On paper, the specifications of this player are extraordinary. In reality, it's a total loser. And SonicBlue has categorically dropped the ball on supporting the unfortunates who got one of these dogs for Christmas.
Maybe they will fix the quality on this product. Stay tuned. For now, this is one product to avoid. I plan to buy no more SOnicBlue products until I hear about a marked improvement in quality -- and that they actually answer their customer support line.
67 Be Very Carefull!!
I have had my sp350 for three weeks now. Looks Great, Accessories Great, Sound is Great, But it does not always work. A place a regular CD in it and it skips while sitting on a desk. Placed a MP3 CD and it skipped. Got a lot of Garbage ASCII codes insted of the songs. Tried removing the ID3 option. That still didn't work. ...
68 So Far So Good
After 3 days use:
1. Good Sound, (good volume level)
2. Fairly Good FM (no AM), FM presets hard to figure out.
3. Nicely equiped with rechargable, long life -over 12 hour- batteries, but long charge time, and hard locate extra batteries to purchase, fairly good headphones, Cassette insert, and a leather case.
4. Not supposed to play when using AC recharger.
5. FF and FR within track.
6. Figure couple hours to learn how to use. Complicated
7. No timed auto shut off.
8. A bit noisy at start up and switching tracks. STartup time is several seconds.
9. Expensive, but cheaper than an IPOD by far.
10. Upgradable by software you convert to CD and play on the unit.
11. Small controls on sides and on wired remote. 3 line display in a small lighted format.
12. Can Skip when first in a track (as expected).
13. Plays most CD and other digital formats (but apparently not DirectCD).
14. Thin CD player: but AC recharger is typical size and clunky.
15. Light and appears fairly sturdy. Reliability unknown but a nice 1 year warrentee. (do not buy used).
CONCLUSION:
GOOD CD/MP3 Player.
69 Great until it stopped working
I really liked the design and features. It worked great for 6 six hours until it came up with "read errors" on the same disc it had previously played. It won't read any disc, CDR's with MP3s or regular CD's. The worst electronic purchase I have ever made.
70 What is your guys' problems?
This is an awesome MP3 CD player. All the features work. It loads every CD I put into it. It displays and navigates through all the directories correctly. The radio works perfect. The sound quality is great, not to mention the customizable Equalizer. It is not an ugly player. The case fits and provides for full functionality of the unit. The included controller even has a button that you can program the function for. I have done all the skip testing possible. I have shaken it, run with it, drop it on the carpet from 3 feet. It does not skip period. You can turn the ID3 tags on and off. You have two different settings for ESP when the songs are being loaded into the buffer: 80 seconds and 320 seconds. You can set the scan and scroll speed. The interface is extremely intuitive and easy to use. All in all, this unit is perfect. It even looks good.
71 Great features, poor MP3 playback
I got this player a few weeks back, direct from SONICblue. The feature set that they crammed into that little round case is incredible; however, they should have spent more time perfecting the features that they push as the unit's high-points.
The sound quality is outstanding. FM reception is decent; which is to say, better than most portable players.
Now, some of the downsides... MP3 playback is horrible. For a player that claims to have such a long anti-skip buffer my player sure seems to skip a lot when playing MP3s (Audio CDs work fine, I haven't tried WMA files). The unit frequently skips to different songs and has locked up completely (where all controls stop functioning and the batteries had to be removed) once. The only way I could get MP3 disks to work correctly was to starting burning my CD-R and CD-RW disks at very low speeds (1-4x, depending on the media). Disks burnt at speeds greater than 16x skip every few seconds and disks written faster than 24x rarely work at all. It should be noted that burnt audio CDs do not seem to have this problem.
The other downsides are minor at worst. I would have liked to have seen the LCD backlight be on all the time when the unit is not running from batteries (like the Sony I had before this one). Also, the manual is only available on the CD, no print copy is provided.
Hopefully the MP3 problem can be fixed in a firmware update. If not, you'll see my player on eBay inside of a month...
72 Sent it back after 3 days of trying.........
After playing with it for I finally gave up. I really wanted FM, unfortunately the reception is so poor it's almost pointless to have it on there! I only picked up a handfull of stations, none of which I listen to.
The CD player stored so many tracks into memory and once then quit playing once the stored songs had been played. It was supposed to store the next 30 or so tracks and keep playing. I only got it to continue once or twice.
It plays plain old CD's fine. Unfortunately, this costs way too much for just a plain old CD player!
73 Maybe I got a defective unit
It looks cool, has a lot of features, comes with lots of accessories, the batteries last a long time -- this seems like it should be a great player, BUT...
- The radio won't tune correctly to stations below 91.0 or so - it just keeps receiving the bottom of *its* range no matter what the station is set to
- It won't read some audio CD's that I tried, saying "no disk".
- It won't read a CD of MP3's that I burned, replacing the contents of some directories with random ascii chars.
- It seems to chop off the last second of some of the MP3's
- On one of the MP3 CD's that I burned, it chopped up about half of the songs into multiple songs, resulting in a blip as it goes from one to another -- i.o.w., it will list a song three times with playing time for each one a third of the total time
- Sometimes while playing MP3's, it will randomly jump to the middle of another MP3 in another directory
74 Too little... too late !
This mp3 player is no where as good as others on market. Rio took too long to get a decent product out and that too is overpriced. It skips and the sound quality isn't that great either (with better Sony headphones).
Have you seen a uglier design than this ? Probably not.
There are also some nice flash based mp3 player from iRiver.
This product is not worth your time or money.
75 Disappointed.
I already have an SP250 and an Iriver Slimx iMP-350. I bought this SP350 because of the 32 minute shock buffer. The player I got was skipping songs constantly. Called the online store to get a replacement. The replacement seems to work, but it skips songs still unlike the other two MP3-CD players(which never skip). First of all, I am disappointed in the review that [Amazon.com] gave because it says that you can use AA batteries. There is no external battery case to use AA batteries like the iMP-350(Sonicblue might sell it as an accessory later). This player does not always recognize my MP3-CDs like the SP250 and iMP-350. The only good thing is the sound quality is the best out of all 3 MP3-CD players. The rechargeable batteries that did come with the player take 6 hours to recharge. I currently have my own NIMH batteries and a 1 hour charger that I cannot use with this player. Sound quality is the only good thing about this player. Way overpriced and not worth the [$] retail price.
