Home > Consumer Reviews > Rio SP50 MP3/CD Player

Bought this some time ago, and still works a treat. Created a bespoke MP3 CD with 11 albums on, ripped to MP3, and this plays them perfectly. Does not jump or skip if knocked thanks to the buffer.

This is not for everyone especially with the falling prices of USB drive MP3 players. But, for the price this is a good product.

I liked the idea of MP3 CD players since this means I can also play my normal CDs which I don't necessarily want to rip to Mp3. Plus I have easy CD-burning facilities at work and home and I'm not too stingy with using CD-R's for burning little things when ever I feel like it. So for me this inexpensive little device with fairly effective ant-shock buffer was quite ideal.

A small gripe I had with it is that the interface is not the easiest to use. The buttons are a little stubborn (I guess on the flip side this means you don't accidentally keep hitting them) and you have to push a sequence of buttons if you want specific tracks. The cross scrolling display provides adequate information on the current playing track but is not quite as easy to use when trying to select a specific track. I also found I kept forgetting the sequence of buttons I had to press when I first used this. With big MP3 players and MP3-CDS as well I think it's important to have the ability to browse intuitively because it's possible to store hundreds or thousands of tracks and without proper browsability, all you can do is play tracks in random order like some souped up radio station. I also wasn't quite sure what the default order for playing tracks on an MP3CD was - I think it goes alphabetically by folder name then by track name.

That said, it does provide all the facilities to browse and select tracks and you will remember it after a couple of goes. If you're also dilligent enough to use useful folder and tracknames it'll can be close to perfect. Personally I decided to be conservative and not completely cram every CD-R with as many tracks into it as I could - instead if you have a theme to each CD-R or limit yourself to putting only 3 or 4 albums on each it makes it easier to browse around.

In summary, I'll just offer a few reasons why you might want to buy it over other MP3 players.
- fits way more than most USB-drive/MP3 players
- allows you to play normal CD albums unlike non-CD MP3 players (think of this before you go buying a mini-CD MP3 player - in my oppinion these are the least useful)
- cheaper than almost every thing else out there that plays MP3s

Despite giving this product a relatively modest three stars, I would probably still advise most people seriously looking at it to buy it. The reason is this - the sound quality is very good (although a little weak with the bass boost off), it'll hold 15 albulms on mp3 and most of all, its cheap. It offers much better value than the more expensive HD players, often with less storage space. However, it eats batteries at an ammazing rate (this seems to be a problem with the low power shutdown on mine and might be an individual fault though) and being CD based, rather than hard disk it does have a tendency to skip if you're walking quickly or running with it.

This piece of kit does exactly what I want it to do. I put the batteries in and loaded it with 10 hrs worth of CD tracks saved as MP3s and set it to Random Play and it's fine. I didn't bother with the included headphones but stuck to my trusty Sony headset. I leave the base boost on all the time and it gives a pleasing sound without loosing the "top end". As it comes without an A/C adapter I used my Uniross variable voltage adaptor. I set it to 4.5 Volts, as instructed and made sure that the polarity was correct. Unfortunately the Riovolt switched itself off during MP3 loading on most occasions. When it did manage to load I couldn't get it to play any track without skipping within the first three seconds. I went to the Bluesonic website, sent an email describing the problem but received no reply after two days. I then decided to try reducing the DC input from 4.5 Volts to 3 Volts (on the basis that the max voltage from two AA batteries is 3.00 Volts)and, BINGO!, it works fine! Hope this info helps anyone with similar problems.

I'm afraid I had problems with this MP3 CD player from the minute I unpacked it.

1. Both slide buttons on the side - "Unlock/Lock" and "Bass/Normal" are stuck in position and cannot be moved at all.

2. The battery meter does not work correctly, one second it displays full battery power, the shows the batteries as having run out.

3. It does not play MP3 CDs! I have burnt numerous CDs on the Mac using iTunes and although they come up and play perfectly on a PC or Mac, the SP50 player refuses to play them, coming up with the message: NO CD MP3 DATA?.

Other problems include the sound quality - it really is very average (far inferior to audio from a computer for example) and you shouldn't expect much. It does play normal audio CDs perfectly though, with no gap between tracks, so it can still act as a (very cheap) walkman. I've also had no problems with the ESP anti-skip feature.

If you still want to buy this product, I would recommend you actually try it out so you aren't disappointed like me - you'd also have more chance of getting a refund from a real store!