Home > Consumer Reviews > RioVolt SP250 Portable MP3-CD Player with FM Tuner and 8 Minutes Anti-Skip

After reading tons of reviews and demoing several CD MP3 players, I finally decided to spend my hard earned on this wonderful little device. The Rio Volt SP250, in my opinion, is as good as they come... and better!

It has just about every feature you could dream of in an MP3 player, including: plays MP3's (of course... one would hope - haha), WMA's (with WMA files you could easily fit 20 hours of music on a single CD), it reads audio on CD-R's, CD-RW's, regular Audio CD's, and can be upgraded with firmware that you download from the Net to make it compatible with future formats (this is awesome because the player will never be outdated as far as usability is concerned; you will always be able to use it even when new music file formats come out later). The SP250 has an awesome, loaded, easy-to-read display and the coolest looking backlight ever (Indiglo blue baby!!), and it has an excellent EQ and the bass boost rocks! You can program this thing to play songs just about every way you can imagine and songs can play in order, at random shuffle or repeat. The shock protection is amazing! This sucker just won't skip!!! I sat there shaking the darn thing just to see if I could make it skip and nothing! The battery life is great too. The longest I think of any of the CD MP3 players. 15 hours of use easy with this one and what's better than that??? How about RECHARGABLE BATTERIES!!! YES!!! IT ACTUALLY COMES WITH RECHARGABLE BATTERIES!!! When the batteries get low, just plug the SP250 into the wall and it will recharge (takes about 5 to 7 hours for a complete charge - I just plug it in overnight and I'm good to go)! AWESOME!!! No more spending 6 bucks for a pack of batteries after a few hours of playing on your regular old walkman.

It comes with a wired remote that is so easy to use you only need to play with it for a couple of minutes to figure it out. All those people whining about a... manual just need to open their mind (grin). I didn't read a thing and was having a blast with thing in no time. The stock wired remote is very cool and easy to use, but for... you can order a wired remote that also has a LCD display on it. That would be cool. Too bad it doesn't come with the SP250, but that's such a minor concern because the remote it does come with is still great and all of the other awesome features just drown out the little things... And think about it anyway, how many CD walkmans come with remotes anyway. This is a nice bonus!

I noticed while reading reviews about the SP250 that a lot of people seem to complain about the headphones. ...it isn't enough that it comes with TWO,... styles how come no one mentions that they sound fine... oh, and did I mention it comes with TWO styles of headphones? Most regular CD players you buy that are worth anything don't come with anything but the player and maybe a cheap set of phones, so who can complain here? This thing costed less that my old SONY car discman and it just blows that old SONY away! So headphones? Minor detail. In fact, I thought the stock phones sounded great. That wasn't a big deal to me anyway because I mostly use the player in my car. I already had a car kit from my old player and it plugged right into the Rio (except for the power supply) so I was pleased as punch! If you do like listening with headphones a lot though, I would agree that you can buy a much better pair.

The good news also about this player is that it has a lot of power in the volume department!!! You can crank it loud on the headset!!! I just hate it when you get a player that has nothing when you wanna crank it. The Rio does just fine in this department!!

The SP250 also comes with a very nice protective carying case. I have one of those clips on the dashboard of my car for my cell phone and it works just as great for putting my SP250 on it while in it's case! Sweeeet!

The FM radio is a bonus too. In fact I was having so much with all the features on this thing that I forgot it came with a radio. When I accidentially switched on the radio I was then totally excited. How can this thing be any cooler? It has everything necessary.

Now, you might be asking me, do I think there are there any reasons not to buy this thing? NOPE! I can't think of one! Please, don't spend your money on an MP3 player just because it's half as expensive as the Rio Volt SP250. In fact, don't even get a step down from this model (i.e. SP90). I almost did that and I am so glad I went ahead and forked out the rest of the cash on this unit. It is true; YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!! This item has a $200 value if you ask me! I would have paid that for it. I got mine...at a store and I know there are some sites that have it a few dollars cheaper, but here's the deal, whatever you pay for it it's worth it. It's a good machine, quite durable, a ton of nice features, AMAZING SOUND QUALITY, and a very intuitive design. Anyone that's ever operated a regular discman can figure this thing out in no time! You will be happy!!!

I just love it and highly recommend it. The only thing I wish it had was a car power adaptor. Currently they don't make one for this, but I'm sure one will be on the way given this things increasing popularity. In the mean time it's not so bad because the battery life is fantastic. Just charge it up at night and your set! If you're like me and only get to listen to CD's in your car for maybe an hour a day or less, then you'll love how many days this thing will keep playing before needing a recharge.

A great buy! A great product! 5 stars easy! Amazon's a great store too and you should get it here if you can't find it at your local store.

This player is awesome in terms of decoder and sound quality. It can read some VBR songs that my previous Philips could not handle. There is no skipping. I love its huge buffer, which means it will only spin the CD for a few seconds to read in a song, and then play it from memory.

Now to where Rio could have done a little better:

(1) User manual: The manual, which comes as a 35 page PDF document, is a let down. E.g. it does not explain how to recharge the batteries. It spends 15 pages describing in excruciating detail how to set the 20-some functions and for each of the functions, it repeats how the 4 navigation buttons work. However, it fails to explain the *meaning* of many of them. And that leaves it to you, the user, to experiment around and find out what the options really do.
(2) The unit operates 5 shuffle modes, but only 2 of them make sense. There is for instance a "shuffle 1" mode, which keeps shuffling the same single song. This is really the same functionality as their "repeat 1" function, and makes no sense in the shuffle menu.
(3) VBR bitrate display: Most of my MP3s are VBRs (variable bitrate encodings). Many people including myself believe that VBR gives you a much better quality / size ratio. Unlike the popular Winamp software, the Rio does not display the average bit rate of the song. This should be a piece of cake to calculate though, since the unit already knows the length of the song and the file size.
(4) The "eq/+10" button. Two functions put on the same button that better should not be together. If I want to get to the equalizer and do not press the button long enough, I find myself all of a sudden skip 10 songs (the "+10" feature).
(5) radio reception quality: The quality is good at mono, but at stereo it just does not measure up to my little Sony FM/Cassette walkman.
(6) radio presets: It has 20 presets. In my town there are only 8 stations that I like though. Unfortunately, the firmware does not let me eliminate the remaining 12 presets, such that when I cycle through the presets, I have to skip over 12 dead stations.

Well, I did not mean to bad mouth this unit. It is probably still the best portable MP3/CD player out there. Among all the rave reviews, I just wanted to point out some of what I think are weak spots. Fortunately, the firmware is upgradable, and hopefully they will at some point have a fix for some of the above issues out there...

Everything I buy, I research thoroughly. EVERYTHING! So when I got interested in MP3/CD players, I spent many hours on the internet reading their complaints and praises in the reviews. It's hard to know what to believe. One person says a product stinks, while another thinks it's great. I finally chose a RioVolt SP100 because I could use it with my iMac
computer. But the store I went to also had the new RioVolt SP250. It cost a little more, but has been well worth it. It has tons of fantastic features (...). This player DOES NOT skip! 45 second shock protection for CDs and 8 minutes when running MP3s.Lots of information on a 4 line, backlit and contrast LCD display. Totally programable for CDs and MP3s. An FM radio circuit that works great. 5 presets and 1 adjustable equalizers. Easy to understand and use file directory. Clip-on remote with headphone plug-in. Sleep and stop timers. Bass and treble boosts. Bass and treble corner frequency adjusts. 10 second song intros. Hold switch. 10 file jump feature. AC adapter. Aux line out jack. Sampling, compression, and codec displayed. Stereo channels graphic display. One YEAR warranty. Easily upgradable off the internet. Zippered, windowed, clip-on carry case and shoulder/belt strap. Two rechargable AA batteries. Many other controls and adjustments using the 26+ setup menu settings options. The sound is great as long as you have a decent pair of headphones. It comes with earbuds which are fair,AND an earbud headset which is poor. Actually that's the only negative thing I can find so far (...).

I just have to write this review to say that this thing is probably the most amazing piece of electronics I have ever bought. I just got it and have already figured out most of it's plethora of features. I am not usually one to buy the model with all the features, but every feature on this thing is totally usefull. Rio really thought of everything with this unit. The sound quality is awesome. The EQ adds a great edge. Navigation through folders and files is so easy-I figured out how to navigate in about 10 minutes. The only drawback is that when you browse through files it reads the filename instead of the id3 tag, but so far I have had no problem with id3 recognition. The coolest feature is that you can be listening to a CD, take it out, put another CD in, then put that first CD back in and it remembers where you were! The remote control is great-you can do almost everything that you can do with the buttons on the unit. You can even customize what some of the buttons on the remote do. As other reviews have stated, it does not get excellent FM reception. It is usually a matter of sitting it in the right position/direction. If you are deciding between this and the SP100, this unit is definately worth the extra 30 bucks. The display in itself is worth the extra money-it is so much better that the display on the SP100. The navigation seems to be much better too. Overall, the unit is totally intuitive. This is a really well designed product. You can use the AA rechargable batteries that it comes with, or a pair of regular Alkalines. I have the Kenwood in-dash mp/cd player in my car, which I loved until I got this thing. Now I realize how a CD/mp3 player is supposed to function. This player is everything that my in-dash player is not. There are so many features, and you can customize just about anything within reason.
I've never written one of these review, but just wanted to emphasize how happy I am with this product. I'd say buy one if you're thinking about it. Hope this helps.

Ok. first off i have been doing this MP3 gig for about 2 years now. I first bout the original RioVolt.... which was revoltingly bad - skipped while just walking..... so months later i purchased the Rio 800..... nice unit but only hold 128MB ... which in MP3 terms is only 2 hours..... all these solid state units that claim 4 hours with 128MB... assume you want to convert all your MP3s to WMA....... a very painful process even with good Software like MusicMatch.

So I am about to embark on a oversea trip so I need something with some major play action. Should I go HDD unit like Nomad or should I try MP3/CD again. Well I did both. I tried the Nomad 6GB and Archos 6GB systems..... both were ok, but VERY heavy. I was always fearing that I would drop the (...) and that would be it for the system. Plus they seemed really bulky no matter how i carried them. So they both went back.

While returning these units I decided to take a look at MP3/Cd again. I starred at the SP250 box for a week. Read every review here and on CNET. Well everything GOOD about this unit is TRUE.

Here is a summary of improvements and key features.
1. NO SKIPPING. In both 45sec and 8MN mode I could not make this thing skip.... AMAZING!!!!!!
2. Carrying case.... ok its not leather (as many have stated) it is a pleather product..... but DAMN it works AWESOME... best CD/MP3 case I have ever used bar none. It has a belt clip and a carrying strap for either use....
3. Controls and Display. Just AWESOME. Many have compared it to the rio800.... well I own a Rio800 and will say this display is WAY Better. Much cleared easier to read.
4. Rechargable batteries. They are just AA NiMH batteries. If you have ever used these types of rechargables you already know that they are great. I will say charge time and play time were much shorter then what is stated (more like 6 hours play time and 12 hour charge time). I recomend buying the Eveready NiMH charge and some extra batteries... its an awesome product too.

Ok, the BAD. Both pairs of headphones.... suck. I would recomend noise cancelling ear buds from Sony. Does the same thing as the $(dollar amount) Bose ones... but are very portable and only $(dolalr amount). If that breaks the bank, I would recomend the silver earbuds from Sony $10 at any Target. They work great too.

Hope this helps.