wHAT do ya think of the iRiver brand of CD-MP3 players ?

[Richard Cranium]

The reviews for the iRiver players are very impressive. They almost always show perfect scores and I've read over 150 reviews.

It seems as if one of the RioVolt players were made by iRiver.

RioVolt's low end machines are reputed to be total junk, this I read after ordering one from Amazon. I promptly cancelled the order.

For $169, the upper end iRiver unit with FM radio gets rave reviews.

iRiver SlimX iMP-350 CD/MP3 Player with 8 minutes ASP and Upgradeable Firmware
"With its beautiful sound quality, royal good looks, and simple operation, the iRiver SlimX portable MP3-CD player sets a new standard for future portable units to follow."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...993501-1539854

What's our conclusion? This is the one of the top players, MP3 or MP3 CD, that we've come across in our trials and tribulations of digital audio hardware.
http://hardware.mp3.com/hardware/individual/3826.html


$100
iRiver ChromeX iMP-150 CD/MP3 Player with 120 Second ASP and Upgradeable Firmware
the cheapest price found, at Amazon. $85 !
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...993501-1539854

customer reviews
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...993501-1539854

[Richard Cranium]

Bumpage, Comon you guys, I KNOW there are lots of MP3 player experts here, before I plunk down $100-170 gimme some feedback )

[Richard Cranium]

I looked at the RioVolt 250.
It was cheaper than the iRiver 350 and had the FM tuner, however reading the user reviews showed dissatisfaction again->>

"It broke and no one will replace it. Becareful, it isn't the sturdiest thing in the world"

"it took 5 months for me to get it back... NOT WORTH IT! DONT BUY ANYTHING RIO! "

"Don't let the BRAND NAME fool you When I sent the email they told me to ship the item so they can replace it for me. It's been OVER 8 weeks and I haven't gotten A WORD. So there goes [money] down the drain. "

"Customer service siad the product should work fine if I put it on a flat table. That's obviously not what I bought it for."

"I've bought three different MP3 players from this company (including two of the SP250) and they have all been defective. They work for a couple months (just past warranty time) and then just "stop working" - no fix available. Getting customer support at Sonic Blue/Rio is impossible. Buyer Beware "

"I EXPECTED THE BEST AND GOT THE WORST "

"Another Buyer Beware, The first one quit working after about a year, and I bought a lesser model the second time and have only used it a month before it too stopped working. They were feature-rich players at first with little competition, which I think led Sonic to be a little lax in their customer service and quality"

"After only 5-6 hours of use, there is no longer any output on the left channel. I have tried other headphones and still no luck. Piece of junk. "

" the CD-rotating motor creates electronic noise in the playback. It is particularly noticeable (intolerable) when the anti-shock buffer fills after about 1 minute, and the rotation slows somewhat -- it sounds like a little steam-engine railroad. It's bad enough to give you a headache. I am returning it...! "

" Build Quality is BAD"

"I bought this product on Amazon, thinking the SP250 would be really awesome. All it did was give me a headache. I wrote this to warn you, the potential consumer, NOT to buy this piece of junk...I don't want you making the same mistake I did. I am getting the iRiver "

"Absolute Garbage, This product is worthless. I returned mine within 2 weeks."

"I got this CD player for Xmas, and its already broken... "

"Worked good for a couple months then after 45 days it just quit playing CD's....any CD's,, very poor. I will never buy another Sonic Blue product and whatever I buy to replace it won't be coming from Best Buy. "

"After 1 (!!!) day it just stopped. Completely, without any warning. Shouldn't be happening with a product that costs twice the price of a normal cd-player."

" it stopped stopped playing any kind of CD. The only thing it will do is play the radio.

Soon I discovered their support is nearly non-existant. Their online solutions library has never worked althought I've tried to access it many times. The rest of their website has no mention of this problem, although I've seen it posted many times here and on other review boards. I've email their tech support, but have yet to receive a response. I've tried calling which was another fiasco!

In other words... this product is a lemon. "

"Good for 30 Days, It ran fine until the return/exchange period ran out. Rio customer support is useless. "

"I bought one of these things from Amazon and it never worked. Not for one second. I let the batteries charge all night and it still wouldn't boot up. I tried different rechargeable batteries, but it made no difference. Between this and my Rio 500 which had to be RMAed 3 times, I'm starting to think Rio specializes in great ideas that they don't know how to make work. I'm moving on "

"RIOVOLT - CUSTOMER NO SERVICE,
Purchased an SP250 in December. Poorly designed lid latch broke in January. Tech Support indicated they were having problems with that....product is so far out on back order no idea when it could be replaced under warranty. Tech was supposed to send email with return instructions and RMA (Return MErchandise Authorization) next day. It is now February and still waiting. Company Tech Support number is permanently busy...then they forward you to a related company to tell you they can't pull up the support case on their system. But if I wait a few more days, they will send me an RMA.....Their support is nonexistent!! "

"Defective and apparently already obsolete
a month after I got it, it stopped playing audio CDs. (To its credit, it still played MP3 discs.) I returned it to where I bought it for an exchange, only to be told that the model has been discontinued. I chose an in-store credit instead, and will wait for the next generation. Why discontinue a model that has been out such a short period of time (though it's still available on RioVolt's website)? Is this unit having more problems than are reported here?"

"Poor Quality and Customer Service, With the track record of the two Rio units I have owned I would never buy a Rio product again. "

"I received it three weeks ago, a week ago when it stoped working. Since than I am trying to have it fixed under waranty - a huge phone bill and nothing to show for...."

" all of a sudden: SP250 no workie. On startup, it will spin slowly then after a minute or two of aggravating, teeth-clenching wait, it says "No Disc." I've used new batteries. I've tried using the AC adapter. Same thing. I've tried MP3 CDs and normal music CDs. I've talked to tech support who has agreed to send me a new one ... I think. There's a bit of confusion there since the tech person has to send a report to the people who actually does the replacing and they decide if I get a new one or not. (On a side note: Although, eventually I got the right phone number, their tech support computer lady asks you to press a bunch of selections and in the end says something like, "Sorry, I can't forward you to that number because I'm dumb but their number is 555-..." Pretty sad.) But she did mention that she has been getting some complaints like the ones I had so it might not be as rare as we'd hope."

"DONT BUY IT, I GOT THIS MP3 PLAYER FOR CHRISTMAS, IN A COUPLE OF DAYS IT BROKE. "

"Two bad units, The first unit I got would not even play normal CDs let alone MP3s, I cannot recommend this product. It looks cool, but it shouldn't be this unreliable. "

"What a joke, I hope this helps someone because I'm probably going to return this thing"

"AVOID if you jog/run!,"

"bad in functioning, its a total ripoff. wait for some better player"

[Richard Cranium]

Bump

[Yankees4]

doc, i am in the same boat as you, i could go for an answer as well, from what it seems, it looks like the iriver is better, cnet.com has reviews on both(iriver and riovolt)....i might end up getting the archos jukebox instead though (10GB) mp3 player or the nomad jukebox(6GB), check out the reviews at cnet.com though, maybe they can help, didn't help me too much though.

[aznlurkerz]

Go for iRiver SlimX iMP-350 CD/MP3 Player with 8 minutes ASP and Upgradeable Firmware, i got one and it stands up to what everyone has said, its soooOOooo nice

aznlurkerz

[DWBoswell]

I recently purchased SP250, tested OK when bought. Shelved for 4-5 weeks. Tried use today, not working.
I found loose front not allow CD door to activate trip release. Can hold tight and it will work, I removed screws and opened back, three of the five plastic stud screw receivers were broken and someone used superglue to re-secure them, to no avail.
I personally removed the player from the sealed plastic cryovac pack. Meaning this is either a re-furbished model being pedaled by Sonicblue as new, or they send out rejects to sale as new #1 products.
Either way, piece of junk, fraudulous and shady sale tactics.

Warn all future product buyers of this product.

[eagle1]

The iRiver is a good mp3 player but I really like the Pine D'Music SM-200C. Although is an old unit, it's one of the best I've seen. But since the iRiver is newer, I think you should go with that!

[crazyray]

What drives me crazy regarding MP3 players at this point in time is this: the Archos and the Nomad use hard drives but only allow USB connection for transferring data. The I-Mac uses a firewire connection, but is grossly overpriced and is limited to use with Macs...

I'd prefer to get away from carrying CD-R's around with me.