Diamond Rio Volt

Forget 64 megabytes of music -- bring along 650! Sonic blue's Rio Volt MP3 CD player addresses almost all OF the complaints about the first generation OF MP3-enabled CD players with improvements looks up as displaying artist and TRACK information on its LCD audio playback OF MP3, Windows Media, and CD music is excellent, enhanced by wave tweaked more equalizer settings. Updateable firmware means early glitches look as odd directory up navigation of AR easily addressed with a simple download.

I bought this because when I was hunting for a player in August 2001, then according to the newsgroups, this was the biz! And it is! I have around 50 MP3 and WMA CDs burnt on a variety of CD-Rs and CD-RWs, some good, some cheap, which I burnt for my PC in Joliet format, and so far I've had no problems on any of them!

Stick a disc in, close the lid, and it spins up and gives a 'Reading TOC' message. After around 10 seconds, it displays the first track. Pressing the Navigation button allows you to use the arrow keys to navigate up and down directories on the multi-line display. Pause for a moment, and it slowly scrolls the entire song title on the screen. Hit play, and, erm, it plays it.

There's more repeat modes than you need, including repeat folder (if you have individual directories for your albums). It has a load of menu options, down to the number of increments you want on the volume control - which is a moot point, because the loudest setting is a bit weedy - too weedy to listen to on my motorbike. Also on my motorbike, if it's sat on my tank bag, the vibration at anything over 70mph starts it stuttering (unsurprisingly). Slow down to 40 for a few seconds, it spins up, buffers another two minutes of MP3 into RAM, spins down, and I can open the throttle again for a bit. But let's face it - strapped to a motorbike's tank is a *serious* vibration test.

A firmware upgrade from Rio was easy to install, and gave even more menu options - hopefully more of these coming in the future. The case and build is flimsy - the battery flap permamently hangs open on mine - the headphone remote is a bit ugly but fairly useful - and the little dancing man on the LCD display during playback is plain pointless.

Overall, sound quality, volume, convenience, etc may be bettered by other players, but if you have an existing CD-R collection of MP3s, particularly a well-organised one, and want to use it without any hassle whatsoever - this is the player for you.

The RioVolt is better than any Discman you could want.

For a start, it has a 15 hour battery life. Really! Because it plays MP3s, which are much smaller in size than CD tracks, it can load about 3 minutes of music into memory and stop spinning the CD. So it saves vast amounts of battery power, and runs for hours on end on the same batteries. I use it at least twice every day on my journeys to and from work, and one set of batteries last more than two weeks.

I have my whole CD collection on MP3 now, and each of my MP3 CDs has about 200 tracks on each, with up to 20 hours of music. It reads both CD-Rs and CD-RWs for maximum flexibility.

The Remote Control is limited compared to the snazzy ones you see on other players, but who cares? It's functional, and with the latest firmware upgrade, the Equalizer button can be configured to perform any of the tasks that the fascia buttons do.

The shock mechanism isn't great on 10 second ESP, and a brisk walk with it in my pocket causes it to skip occasionally. But with the 40 second ESP, you'd have to be in a John Woo action sequence to get it to skip.

Sound quality? Superb. The preset equalizer settings allow you to listen in whatever mood you desire, and if you don't like any of them, you can set your own (with the upgrade). I have my MP3 files recorded in VBR, and unless you're a hardcore audiophile, you won't be able to tell the difference between this and CD quality.

I have to stress that you need to get the latest firmware upgrade though. Not only did it iron out any niggles that I had when I first got it, but it allows support for Winamp playlists, which is invaluable.

If there are any criticisms, I would have to say don't buy this if you want to use it as a recording source, as if you connect the Line Out to an amplifier the sound is very low in volume and you have to turn up the amp. But for personal listening, it can go loud enough to annoy the hell out of your fellow commuters. Trust me. I know.

For personal use, it is an amazing little gadget and I would be lost without it. It is a superb piece of kit and I would readily recommend it. Bottom line: Got a CD writer? Like music? Get a RioVolt.