Home > Consumer Reviews > Rio Volt Jr SP90 MP3 CD Player

Diamond Rio have really a lot to be proud about with the release of "Volt Jr SP90" MP3 and CD Player.
The vast array of formats that this compact wonder machine supports is extraordinary. Any personal music player that plays all formats such as CD, CDRW, CDR, MP3 & WMA has to be admired.
The 15-hour battery life lasts for a full "MP3- designed" CD making the process of charging batteries all the less tedious.
This allows multiple uses apart from casual listening including setting up the player to speakers for external playing. So rather than listening to a repeated 10-track CD in the supermarket it is now possible to hear different songs every time you walk in because of the 15-20 hour CD choice!!!
The sound quality is also excellent. As good as anything I've heard to date.
The headphones provided are of good quality also. They are far removed from the tacky headphones that are often provided with personal music players.
The only thing that is missing from this system is a radio connection. Therefore it is safe to assume that this system is directly targeted at the hard core music buff who solely wants to play his/ her own selections.
All in all, a bargain for under £89.99. Well recommended.

Cons
1: The picture gives you the idea you're getting a bright blue see through cover. Its a plane dark blue one.
2: You will have to buy an adapter costing from £5 - £10 to get the full enjoyment out of the device.
3: The look and feel of the device is cheap. It reminds me of a 1990 pocket calculater.
4: The anti shock is not great. It will skip every now and again. Aswell as this it is quite heavy compared to a disc-man. It isn't suitable for jogging purposes.
5: There is no "lit up screen" so is annoying sometimes.
6:You can tell of a slight quality defect compared to a disc-man.

Pros
1: It is fantastic the amount of music you can fit onto one cd.
2: You can sort out the songs into playlists. You do this before you burn the cd, on the computer. You then browse through the playlists rather than plodding through all the songs to find one track.
3: The ear phones are of good quality.
4: There is a shuffle mode on the device which is usefull to automaticaly browse through and pick songs for you to listen to.
5: While playing a song it scrolls across the name of the track on the large screen.
6: It is at a good price ...

Having said all this I would definately reccomend buying this. If you have an adaptor and you have it playing constantly on shuffle mode its like having your own radio station. I'm extremly happy with mine and have absolutely no regrets of purchasing it.

This player could have been a best value product if: 1. the battery cover stayed on more securely, and 2. the mode function was explained satisfactorily. (There are many combinations and it's difficult to know how the unit is going to play back in particular modes, e.g. Shuffle-All-Directory, without an involved analysis of the order songs are being played.) What could have been a wonderful three-line display is diminished by some silly dancing man animation on the third line.

On the plus side the main selling feature for me was the remarkable 15-hour battery life. I prefer this to a wall charger any day. It's a good unit for the money. It could have been a great unit for the money.

Much better than I expected based on the reviews I'd seen. I don't think it looks cheap either - got a nice matt finish to it. Good sound quality (which is important to me) but not with the supplied headphones. Really pleased with its ability to store partially read tracks therefore limiting the amount of cd spin required. I would have preferred to have paid extra to get the adaptor with it but then you can't have everything. Overall, very impressed.

After discovering there were CD players that played both CDs and mp3 CDs I wanted one! Having just bought a new car and opting out of the £400 CD player option, I wanted something that would sit nicely in it and suit my needs. I read about another Diamond MP3/CD player, and started to worry a little. Complaints of sound quality and so on.

However, this is perfect! I first tried an audio CD in, fine, and then an MP3, even better! I also bought the RIO cassette adapter so that I could plug it into the car stereo. A mixture of both systems and the music is amazing.

As for size, i think it's compact and perfect. It fits nicely in the little glove compartment below the cassette player, out of the way. Now all i have to do is get all my mp3s onto one CD and everything's sorted! Perfect seeing as I'm driving to Austria from England. I don't want to have to stop every 84 minutes to change a CD. This is like listening to a radio without the adverts!