Home > Consumer Reviews > RioVolt SP100 Portable CD/MP3 Player with 120 Second Anti-Shock

I originally bought this back in 2001, and in a few years had transitioned from the thrill of piling several CD's onto a CD-R as MP3s, to simply using an iPod for everything. The Rio was stored away, perhaps never to be seen again...

Then I bought a pair of Sony MDR-7506 Studio Monitor headphones to use at home, and plugged them into my iPod. The sound was atrocious. Distorted lows, tinny highs, essentially every limitation that a compressed music file can show came out of these headphones.

Out of curiosity, I dusted off the Rio to hear what a regular CD would sound like on the Sonys, and I haven't put it away since. I never realized how full, sharp, and muscular the sound was on the Rio before, probably because I was using earbuds.

With the Rio EQ adjusted to my liking (Bass = 12, Treble = 8) I listen to CDs at home almost exclusively with the Sony headphones now. I don't have a home theater/surround sound setup, and that obviously is the way to go for home audio, but for portable CD listening at home from a sound quality standpoint, the Rio blows away any MP3/AAC/WMA player I've ever heard. This is a classic personal audio gadget with unmatched range.

When you buy a used item you take the 50/50 chance that what the seller says is true. I bought this item from a private individual. The player eats batteries like termites eats rotten wood. I was using Duracell batteries and the battery indicater shut the system down after only four hours of play. THe batteries were dead, I measured the voltage. Last, the manufacture does not have a product support system for their products.

This little bugger has been in my possession forever now. I've had it for years. I got it when I was in the later years of high school, looking for a cheap mp3 player. (Portables were expensive and small back then).
I burned a sleu of mp3 CD-Rs, and headed out. This thing lasted for hours. I could carry a case of CDs and MP3CD-Rs and and it would work beautifully. The batteries would last forever. I could go for about 10 hours on Mp3 mode. I took it to college, and it outlasted my 2nd gen ipod (which was pretty unstable in its own).
It still works. I posted this review, because I dragged it out today, and I decided to see if it still worked..and it did. I have dropped it, had it in my pocket and fell off a porch while intoxicated, and just used it constantly for a while.

All in all, it has some nice features. The display could be a little bit bigger. The skip protection is not that great...even though it says it is. Its wonderful for Mp3s, and is an all right CD player, even though the skip protection isnt all that great.

i must have had this since the first week of its release. my dad got 2 for free somehow, and this thing can take a beating. This thing runs as smooth at the day i got it, and i've dropped it like crazy. this was much better than any other mp3 on the market in the past, and its still one of them now.

Ok where to start...
It's bulky
It eat batteries like no other. About 4 hours max on battery life.
I dropped it from about 2 feet and the lid broke; now I use the case to keep it closed.
It does scroll and that is probably the only good feature. However, you cannot organize your music in anyway. So you might be scrolling through a 170 song playlist.
I would suggest buying and Iriver SlimX 350 or higher.