Home > Consumer Reviews > Memorex MPD8505CP Personal CD/MP3 Player with 45 Seconds of Anti-Skip Protection

After using this CD/MP3 for over a week and reading some of the posts here regarding this player let me make some recommendations regarding using this playe, especially for people who are having problem with this player.

SUMMARIES OF THIS PLAYER PROS 1. Price it's an incredible price for what you get 2. Battery life - play at least 4-5 hours of MP3 with a pair Rechargeable Ni-MH batteries (not supplied by Memorex) 3. Read ID3 Tags and supports sub-directories 4. 45 second ESP shock protection 5. Reads CDR and CDRW 6. Acceptable sound quality 7. Read MP3 files up to 192 kbp (even though the manual says up to 128 kbp) 8. TRUE random file play

CONS 1. Awkard user interface 2. Even more awkard manual (I am ashamed of its English - Chinese is my first language too!) 3. No backlight 4. Resume doesn't work if the player powered down 5. Does not support 256 kbp files

MUST READ SECTION 1. If you are having problem with frequent clicks, skipping in the middle of playing, or skipping with MINIMUM shaking - return the player - it's defective. That's what happened to my first player. I returned it and get the second one which is a REVISED edition (if you flip the player over you will see a little sticker that says Suffix A which means it's a revised edition). Skipping while shaking is all eliminated and clicks/skips while playing is greatly reduced (though not 100% gone) 2. Thoroughly test your MP3 files on your computer first to make sure they don't contain pops and clicks. 3. Make sure you DO NOT use DIRECT CD to burn your MP3 disc - this has been mentioned before many times 4. EasyCD Creator is simply NOT a good program to use to burn MP3 because EasyCD only supports ISO-9660 Level 1 format which only supports 8 characters. Burn your disc with NERO 4.0 or NERO 5.0 which supports ISO-9660 LEVEL 2. Basically ISO9660 level 2 format supports file name longer than 8 characters. With ISO-9660 Level 2 my MPD8505CP displays the first 12 characters of the file name w/o any file name artifact associated with ISO-9660 level 1 + Joliet. This is the solution to file name problems people are having. 5. Currently I have not have experience with 700MB CDR or CDRW; once I test that I will post my thoughts

This player is excellent. By using CD format, this makes memory/playtime very affordable. This player supports ID3 tags, which makes searching great. It allows you to randomize MP3 playback as well as repeat within MP3 directory! I also like that it comes WITH the car adaptor as well as the home power adaptor-- it is ready to go right out of the box. They give you headphones to use with the headphone jack and have a separate line-out jack to connect to your existing stereo or even computer speakers. This product does not skip! ... .

I have been thinking about getting Phillips Expanium MP3-CD player (..) . Then I found this product from this website.I was just about to order when I saw an ad in the Sunday newspaper yesterday. ... at the Target Store. Not bad . So I bought one from there yesterday.

It comes with a car kit as well as AC adapter and headphone. When I got home, I inserted one of my MP3 disks. Sound was great but the player could not read all the files and it skips some files. I tried the other disks and did the same thing. Disappointed, I was ready to return it. But I stopped by Good Guys first and have them try my disks with their Phillips Expanium demo unit. Expanium did the same thing ! It could not read all the files (read only 91 MP3 files out of 190 files). So I thought hmmm.. maybe the disks not the players that make bad reading.

So I came back home without returning it. Instead of 10X speed burning, I tried slower 4X this time. Still same errors. Then I remembered someone saying some of those MP3-CD players do not work well if the MP3 disks are prepared with "Direct CD" software. So this time I used "Easy CD Creator Ver 3.5" with 10X speed. Hey !! All of a sudden, my problems were all gone. This unit read and played all the mp3 files. NEVER USE "DIRECT CD" SOFTWARE FOR THIS PLAYER !! It won't work.

It reads sub directories and can do file search, directory search, fast forward and reverse search. Random, repeat (within subdirectory or entire files), 10sec introduction for each song, program play. And it's very easy to use with those nice little buttons.

As I said, sound quality is good. Get a better headphone. It will be better. So far I have not tried with batteries. It says 4-7 hours. I connected the line out jack to my Sony Home Theater Receiver. Sound is great. I also tried it in the car. It just works great too.

I dropped it on the floor( not on purpose ) . The disk popped out. I put it back and no problem. I think even ... is still a good buy !

I would strongly recommend this product.

Bought it on Friday, January 26th, and loaded it up with 'used' alkaline batteries for the road trip back to Canada. Did not skip once. Used fully charged 1600 mah NiMH batteries on the 27th, and so far have had it play for 6 hours.

When I bought the unit, I was glad to see that I had the suffix A or revised unit, manufactured in October 2000. I was worried that I would have purchased the earlier model, which is purported to have severe skipping problems.

So far; a) flawlessly plays all of my old time radio shows (32 kbps encoding at 44Khz), b) flawlessly plays all of my personally encoded music CD's from 128-192 kbps. I've not tried encoding with VBR because I don't use that and believe that the unit might have trouble with it. It seems to have about a 95% + success rate when playing files downloaded from Napster. The files that choked were VBR or had other problems.

Before burning tracks, I check the integrity of the file with a program called MP3Utility (at least now I do). If a file has a problem, I re download it. It appears to read directories alphabetically and/or numerically, although I do not know which takes preference. I alphabetize my directories and number my songs/tracks.

A couple of interesting points; when using the 'previously used' alkaline batteries, I saw a low battery message appear on screen. Ignoring it, I did start to have skipping problems, which were cured by using the AC adapter.

For $99.99, the package included the player, an AC adapter, headphones, a cigarette lighter adapter, and a car cassette adapter. I'm happy with it, and would not hesitate recommending it.

If you buy it, I suggest using 1600 mah NiMH batteries, not burning with VBR, and numbering your songs (01 - filename, 02 - filename, and so on). Put whole albums into separate alphabetical directories. I use EZ CD Creator 4.02 and use ISO 9660 with long filenames as options.

Hope this helps.

Okay, After toasting nearly 10 discs, reading all the message boards, and trying many different writing modes and speeds, here's the way to geet around skipping problems:

1. Make sure your CD is written in ISO9660 format with 30-char long filenames as and option. 2. Make sure your CD writing mode is CD-ROM (Mode I)and NOT CDROM-XA mode (Mode II). 3. Use no greater than 128-bit MP3's.

The key is in the way your burn your CD, not the MP3 encoder you use.

That's it!

-gpg