Home > Consumer Reviews > Rio Volt MP3 CD Player

I am absolutly thrilled with my purchase, however, there are a few things you should know about.

Firstly, the output is relatively quiet. This appears to be partially fixed when you upgrade teh firmware. It is fine for listening on the included earphones, but if you are trying to play it in the car or through your hifi, you may have problems.

The instructions are not comprehensive, even when you download updates from the website. It is not clear how you organise MP3 (for example) files on the disk to make full use of the rios features.

Although not a great problem, you can only use CDs with a maximum of 255 tracks. Could be a pain if you have lots of MP3 files.

Above all, do not buy this machine unless you have a CD writer on your PC. Upgrading the firmware is an absolute must.

As with most people I have hundreds of music CDs. So, being to compact 9 or more albums onto 1 CD was just what I was looking for. Before I bought this from Amazon I read all the reviews here, checked prices elsewhere and consulted mates and few other places on the Internet. Did I get what I wanted? Yes, it's everything I was looking for. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to get a few hours of their favourite music out of 1 CD.

The sound quality is excellent - even for MP3 encoded at 96Kbs which is not CD quality as many people are fond of pointing out. Still, the differences - to the human ear - are minute and to be honest, the only real benefit of encoding MP3 above, say, 128Kbs is you want to convert your MP3 files back to WAV inorder to put back on CDs so they will play on your hi-fi.

One thing you MUST DO if you buy this is download the latest Firmware from the Rio home page. It resolves most of the bugs which are talked about in the rest of the reviews here - mechanical 'tap' etc.

My favourite things about it is the way it loads some of your MP3 files, from CD, into memory. This is why the CD stop spining after a while. If you select a different song or MP3 or it needs to load in more songs/MP3 files it just begins spinning again. What this means it that since the song is in memory there's no moving parts and you can be guaranteed of skip free music.

Okay, so nothing is without it's imperfections. My main gripe is that you have to remember to set the sleep function each time you switch it on. Since I mostly listen to my music before going to bed it means that if I don't do this the batteries run down or I wake up in the middle of the night and it's still playing. The only other gripe is that it can eat through batteries. I think the manufacturers might be taking a few liberties saying it lasts 15 hours in normal mode, but that's just my opinion.

So, in summary. If you've got a CD-R writer - or can get access to one - and want a large part of your CD collection compacted down to a few CDs then you should buy this.

When I first bought this player, I remember thinking: what the hell am I doing spending this much money on this thing. Now 6 months later I have to wonder what I ever did without it. I was quite amazed that just by upgrading the firmware (which was pretty easy) the volume level was doubled - I didn't know that they could do things like that. I converted all of my mp3s to wmas, and this allowed me to have twice as much music on a cd-r/cd-rw, with even better quality (although it can also play mp3s, even alongside wmas on the same cd). The wma format allows you to have over 300 songs on an cd, which is quite amazing (you can play wmas in Winamp and Windows Media Player, and I'm surprised that Microsoft aren't promoting this format more vigorously).

Another good thing about this player is the ability to play from cd-rws (re-writable cds), which means that you can quick-format the cd in about a minute using a cd-recorder, and burn another 300+ songs on the same cd. You can also have different folders of music (just like on a computer) and the Rio doesn't get confused by this. The graphic equalizer function is quite good, and the remote control is a real Godsend, because it allows you to navigate the cd without actually taking the player out of it's pouch. The supplied pouch itself is very nice, although I don't really use it. I don't think that it would be a very good idea to walk down the street with a pouch with the words 'Rio volt' (albeit discreet) imprinted in big letters on the side. You might as well put a sign on your back saying 'mug me'.

I can't get over the fact that it can also play normal audio CDs. As I am so happy with this player and it's basic functions, I haven't bothered to access all of the other features. No doubt I will do so in the future. I can't recommend this player enough - it's the business!

Some of the reviews on here don't do this product justice at all - Whilst the remote does feel a little weak (not terrible though), the player is well made and the display is clear. The sound quality is great with both standard CDs and MP3, and the ID Tags work flawlessly.

This is probably the best player you can buy on the market, certainly at this price range. Why spend £60 extra on the SP250 when this one is so good? Unless you want the FM Radio, save yourself the money and go for the SP100 - You won't regret it.

I have been considering buying an MP3 player for a while, but the cheap ones, (£ 150 or less) only have 32mb of flash memory. Although it will still store an hours worth of music and everything, I wanted more. Enter the Rio Volt. Everything I was looking for really. A multi function device which will play MP3s on a CD and play a normal audio CD. 225 songs on one CD, now that will last a while! The only drawback of a device like this is the size, it is as big as a CD player, and the case which comes with it, is not very useful. It does not include a slot from the LCD screen, so you do not know which track you are on. the case requires you to wear a belt, and to remove the belt before you can put on the case! A clip would have been so much better! So I will have to look around for another case soon, before I can go anywhere with it.

It is a great compromise if you don't want to spend a lot of money on one of the hard disk solution devices, and the advantage it has over those, is the ability to play normal audio CDs as well. I would recommend this unit to anyone who currently has a discman, and is looking for a great value replacement which will play a lot more music, without having to carry multiple CDs around with them.

The firmware update was handy, it added a lot of features which would have been missing otherwise. Make sure this is the first CD you put in your Rio Volt. Maybe on the next update they could get rid of those dancers? I have no idea what they are there for!

Overall this is an excellent player. It was just what I was looking for! Forget an hours worth of music! I have been listening non stop for 15!