RCA Lyra 64 MB MP3 Player
See it at Amazon.com for $99.99Average Customer Rating
(3.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
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(5 out of 5)I use it for my workout
I recently purchased one of these and so far really like it.
-The armband is wonderful. Spandex material with velcro means it hugs my arm tight without cutting off circulation. Plus it's small enough that it doesn't get in the way when I'm doing arm exercises.
-The 64MB holds enough for my 75-90 minute workout, especially if I use 96kb instead of 128kb encoding for the mp3s. I do plan to get an add-on 64 meg card just because I have a gift certificate to use up.
-The button locking feature is key. At first I forgot to lock it, and when I'd adjust the armband, I'd accidentally hit 'stop' or 'next'. With the buttons lock I set it playing and no problems.
-I didn't even bother with any of the software it came with. Straight out of the box I plugged it into Windows 2000, it recognized the 'USB drive' and I dragged and dropped a CD of mp3s over. Easy as that. No need for the Musicmatch.
However:
-The headphones it comes with are awkward. I purchased a $5 pair of ear-buds and that works great.
-The volume doesn't go quite high enough. I like it to blast so that I can't hear any outside noise. This only goes up to very loud, and not deafening loud.
(5 out of 5)All a true HARD ROCKER could ask for!
I bought this mp3 player for three reasons. The price, the brand (RCA) and the portability. I hated space eating, annoying, hassling Cd-rs. I had a pile of them, Chris's favorites 1-89. I don't like all artists songs or one genre. I have a top 40 than i get sick of them and make a new cd-r of my new favorites. But with this i just delete and the just drag and drop. This little hand held unit has some BIG sound in volume and quality, all from a single aaa battery. It stores many songs. But the secret is to use windows media player to convert the songs kbs a lower rate. I have all my songs at 64kbs it takes about 1.8 of a mb per song. I can fit mabout 2 hours of music and dont even notice a change in quality. I love it and its well worth the money.
(4 out of 5)Good buy.....but
The player itself works fantastically. It produces plenty of volume to keep away distractions during my workout and is small enough to stay out of the way.
Two problems:
1. I wasn't able to sync this Lyra with my computer. Granted, my machine runs on Windows ME...I had to take it to a buddy's computer to load music using his XP machine.
2. The earphones that come with the Lyra are [bad]. Like a previous reviewer, I use a pair of ear buds and they work just fine.
Overall, a good buy.
(4 out of 5)A few minor details
Well, it's a great lil machine. It's compact and fits right into my back pocket. I just have to remember not to sit on it. There are a couple downfalls to it though. One is that it doesn't have a backlight on it. That would come in handy in so many ways. And the other one is that it battery doesn't last long at all. Sucks up the juice waayyyy too fast. Or maybe it's just me because I use mine a daily basis, but still. But other than that it's a great little tool. I like it!
(2 out of 5)Should have spent more for better product.
Maybe it's just my particular unit or it's the SD card I have but every other time I try to play a large file off my SD card, the Lyra crashes. This occurs at least half the time I try to use the MP3 player. I have discovered, through trial and error, my own remedy (as the manual is pretty useless and there is very little effective troubleshooting assistance provided). I have to take out the SD card, take out my battery. Reinsert the SD card, reinsert the battery. Turn it on. Take the battery out again after it crashes. Put the battery back in. Turn it on. Take the SD card out. Put it back in. Repeat above (not necessarily in that order) until such time as the Lyra actually plays the file.Also, there is no driver for Windows ME. The manual claims that there is, but when you try to load it, there isn't one. I e-mailed RCA customer support. Their response: There isn't one. They may offer one in the future.How likely is it that they will create a new driver for a product that is being replaced with newer models?In fact, I can't download any files to my RCA at all --since I have no driver. Fortunately, my digital camera (the WONDERFUL Casio Z4) uses the same SD card so I can actually use the camera's software and cradle to upload MP3 files to the SD card and then use the SD card with my MP3 player. Really, though, it doesn't say much for the RCA Lyra when I can't use it without using a digital camera as an interface to my computer.While I'm complaining:The manual is a thin booklet that offers very little information.It doesn't play the latest file formats.It eats batteries.The unit feels cheap (it has a plastic housing).The battery compartment door looks like it's going to fall off any minute now (and I only had this unit for a few weeks).The display is not backlit so you can't use it in the dark (or heavy shade, for that matter).On the other hand, the volume gets pretty high.It's tiny and very light.
Addendum: A couple of months later, it just died. It kept freezing up more frequently and the control buttons kept getting harder to use (you had to start pressing them harder and harder).