Philips eXpanium

[Oscar1613]

amazon.com has the Philips exp40117 (8 cm portable MP3-CD player) on sale for $99 here.

or the exp30317 (full size version with car kit) for $139 here

and circuit city has exp50317 (full size with id3 tag support) for $179 here

the first one is probably the only hot deal, but i recently discovered that the expanium family supports AAC files, which have the same quality as MP3 at a lower bitrate (ex: 128kbps MP3 sounds almost the same as 96kbps AAC) so you can have the same quality song in a 30% smaller file or have a better quality file at the same size as the MP3.

for more info on the player and AAC try here

merry christmas!

 

[dvdchance]

If anyones in the market for a nice mp3 player, I'd recommend the RioVolt Sp90. Circuit City has it for $99 - 20 MIR. I got one any it's a super player.

I didn't know how much I'd enjoy an mp3 player till I got one, a great purchase.

 

[Oscar1613]

yeah, up until now i would have recommended that one too... but then i found out about the AAC support of the expanium... i think the AAC support puts the expanium past the RioVolt considering you can have higher quality in the same amount of space, or same quality with more songs... only problem is there are no AAC file sharing apps that i know of, so you would have to either decode and re-encode or rip and encode all the files yourself...

 

[dvdchance]

I must admit that this is the first I've heard of the AAC format. I would imagine if the format gets widespread use, Rio would add support via a firmware upgrade.

 

[Thyme]

AAC will only help if you are ripping your own music into AAC (And of course, you have all the music on retail audio CDs... <cough>). Cross-encoding is bad. I am waiting for an Ogg-CD player so I can rip classical music nicely

 

[Oscar1613]

<< AAC will only help if you are ripping your own music into AAC (And of course, you have all the music on retail audio CDs... <cough>). Cross-encoding is bad. I am waiting for an Ogg-CD player so I can rip classical music nicely >>



it will only help you get better quality if you rip it yourself, but you could always get smaller file size with the same quality if you just encode it... and AAC is considered better quality than Ogg...

 

[vir]

BTW, buy.com has Philips eXpanium Portable MP3/CD Player for $79.99. Just got ad from them.

 

[Thyme]

<<

<< AAC will only help if you are ripping your own music into AAC (And of course, you have all the music on retail audio CDs... <cough>). Cross-encoding is bad. I am waiting for an Ogg-CD player so I can rip classical music nicely >>



it will only help you get better quality if you rip it yourself, but you could always get smaller file size with the same quality if you just encode it... and AAC is considered better quality than Ogg... >>



It's still twice the artifacts. And Ogg has channel coupling which is better for classical music.

 

[Maverick319]

More info on Flashing the SP90 Firmware below. Remember this voids your warranty, so proceed at your own risk.

 

[dvdchance]

Maverick,

Actually the SP100 / iRiver 100 firmware can be "modified" to upgrade the SP90. I've done it myself and it's a snap. My 90 is using the latest 2.10 firmware with playlist support. More info is on the mp3.com message boards if interested.

The backlight is indeed missing though.

 

[Maverick319]

I stand corrected. I was under the impression that it was unable to accept a new firmware, but am glad to see someone figured out how to do it.

Thanks to DVDChance for the info!


One post on the SP90


More direct and to the point.

 

[Oscar1613]

<< Oscar1613, you do realize that the SP90 does not allow you to upgrade the firmware, don't you? That is the price point, as it is a stand-alone MP3 player. You will not be able to upgrade to a different format should one come along. Just a word of caution. >>



hey now... why are blaming stuff on me that i didnt even say?

oh and as far as wide spread use and upgrading firmware for existing players for the rio... i doubt dolby will let very many players use AAC as it is under very strict licensing terms... so strict in fact that they have made numerous web sites take down the info on the license :Q:disgust:

 

[mdplayer00]

Ugh, hard choices.

The portability and the overall better design (looks better) of the eXpanium 401

VS.

The practical (cheap full size cdr) and easy of use (i can just pop in mp3 cds I already have) Rio SP90.

The eXpanium is impractical because i have to get mini cdr and re-record all my mp3s into that format. But I can show off the size of it against my cousin's MD player and how it looks better than his overall. It's just a cooler gadget to show off to friends and family.

The SP90 is like a work horse. Nothing pretty about it. It just does it's job and does it's job well. I can just pop in MP3 cds that I already have and it can play it. I don't have to fiddle around with compression formats and whatnot because it naturally holds more than the eXpanium.

Which one should I choose?

 

[Burnt]

I stand corrected. I was under the impression that it was unable to accept a new firmware, but am glad to see someone figured out how to do it.

Thanks to DVDChance for the info!


One post on the SP90


More direct and to the point.

Thanks alot for that info. I'm getting the sp90 from my friend for my birthday present. I'll let you know how this works. I already modified the firmware upgrade(using a hex editor). If anything happens...I'll just bring it back to best buy because Im getting the replacement plan (my friend works there).

 

[dvdchance]

Burnt,

Which firmware did you download?? I used the riovolt_210-firmware.exe
file from the Rio site for the SP100.

If my experience is any guide, it shouldn't give you any problems. The only little issue I had was that it took a few times for the CD I burned the upgrade on to be recognized. So don't be discouraged if it doesn't work on the first try and you get the no disc error.

 

[Oscar1613]

<< Ugh, hard choices.

The portability and the overall better design (looks better) of the eXpanium 401

VS.

The practical (cheap full size cdr) and easy of use (i can just pop in mp3 cds I already have) Rio SP90.

The eXpanium is impractical because i have to get mini cdr and re-record all my mp3s into that format. But I can show off the size of it against my cousin's MD player and how it looks better than his overall. It's just a cooler gadget to show off to friends and family.

The SP90 is like a work horse. Nothing pretty about it. It just does it's job and does it's job well. I can just pop in MP3 cds that I already have and it can play it. I don't have to fiddle around with compression formats and whatnot because it naturally holds more than the eXpanium.

Which one should I choose? >>



well you could go for the exp303 or 503 instead... they're full size mp3-cd players, but they're a tad bit more expensive ($139 and 179, respectively)... the difference between the 303 and 503 is that 503 has a full lcd screen for filename/ID3 tag display, and both have AAC support. so if you feel like jamming in the most possible songs on one cd, you can re-encode as AAC and squeeze in a few more per cd

 

[Burnt]

dvdchance: I downloaded the sp100 firmware (exe file). And used a hexeditor program and I changed the SP-100 to SP-90 and followed it with two "null" signs. Haven't tried it yet because I haven't gotten it yet. But I will as soon as I get my hands on a burner (using laptop over christmas).