Home > Consumer Reviews > Creative Labs M-100 CD-MP3 Player

I was looking to buy a RioVolt cd/mp3 player because Creative Labs had only jukeboxes untill last month. When I saw this player in the market I just grabbed it 'coz I was confident about getting a good sound quality in this brand [Creative Labs makes audio and video cards]. The sound quality is really good when I connect it to my music system and my car.

PROS

plays wmas, mp3s, apart from regular music cds; backlighting; 8 min anti-skip/shock feature [virtually skip-free MP3 CD and audio CD playback]; plays recordables and re-writes.

Crystal clear Signal-to-Noise Ratio [greater than 85dB] . You can queue your MP3 directories and songs with the smart Program function. 6 Equalizer presets, can see the scrolling artist and song displayed as you listen. It also reads joliet file formats (some mp3-cd players make you change the format to ISO 8.3 format).

I feel these features along with a good sound quality is more than enough to listen to songs while you jog or travel.

CONS

The batteries supplied can be rechargeable ones. A good pair of headphones could be supplied instead of the earphones...BR>Needs option for remote w/LCD, current remote needs more functionality.

Would have been nice if it came with a dc power adaptor. Other than that this is a great buy!

I also have a RioVolt SP90, and stacks and stacks of MP3 CDs. This Creative unit works fine. It's played every disc I've tried, and it behaves pretty much exactly the same as the SP90. It even works with the SP90's AC power supply.

My only criticism of this player -- and this has been true of every MP3-CD player I've tried -- is that on audio CDs where the tracks are crossfaded it inserts a pause where there shouldn't be one.

I'm particularly impressed by how mechanically quiet the M100 is, and its audio performance is also quite fine. There's no audible residual noise even at maximum volume.

The rest of the unit's features are typical: the wired remote is handy; there's plenty of output to drive my Sennheiser headphones; it navigates MP3 and WMA folders quite easily; the display is backlit; the earbuds sound terrible (they're identical to the Rio's).

I bought this from another vendor that was offering a substantial mail-in rebate and free shipping, so its net cost was lower than any other comparable player. I really fail to understand the source of the problems other owners have been having. I use various brands of cheap 80-minute blank CD-R's, and rip using Easy CD-DA Extractor at fairly high bitrates. Some of my files are VBR and some are CBR; the M100 doesn't seem to care about that or about the bitrate or about anything else.

Pros:Excellent sound quality, great design, sturdy, great price, works great.

Cons: No lcd on remote, Does not save settings stuff like turning of the lcd backlight on and off and your equalizer setting.

Verdict: If you want a mp3-cd player that is sturdy, sleek and has lotsof functionality this is for you. BUY IT!

I bought this player and took it to a 2 weeks vacation abroad. It proved worthy. It easily played my mp3 CDs. It did it both if the songs were in directories or if they were in the root directory, though most of the time they were in directories. Only once in a while it locked up, not allowing me to do anything. It wasn't necessarily when starting the player, but also when changing a song. Anyway, the disc was not rotating and I just had to remove a battery or the adaptor jack. It was a little pain, but very rare.

All in all it was a good purchase, it plays my 12 hours mp3 CDs without problems, displays the song name, nice remote, and huge anti shock - I could just not skip it. It reads the whole song (or the first 8 minutes) in a second and plays it with ease no matter how much you shake it. The sound quality is good, at least to my ear, and it could easily defeat the noises of busy places, and even plane engines with a little more increase to the volume.

This is not a good cd player. When playing MP3 cd's the player will skip several seconds of the song even if it was just stitting on the table. The sound is not very good either. I ordered a second one and it had the same problem.