Rio Volt SP50 MP3 CD Player $20 after $20 MIR & $10 MIR at BB

[Praxis]

From Amazon description (where it is $44 after $20 MIR):
Features:

* Plays CD-R and CD-RW discs and standard audio CDs
* 120-second anti-skip protection (above average)
* Adjustable EQ, Repeat and Shuffle play modes and programmable playlists
* Supports ID3 tag title display
* 10 hour battery life using only two AA batteries
Most customer reviews are unenthusiastic (3 stars out of 5 in 31 Amazon reviews). It is not stoutly built, so don't expect it to last too long or survive hard service. It can be picky about which CDs it reads. Battery life gets mixed reviews. It sounds like it works best as a car or bedside unit, and often doesn't do well if you are walking. Sound quality is indifferent. That said, $30 isn't too bad and it might be just the ticket for some users. I plan to use it as a camping stereo with rechargeables & AC speakers and I hope get a thousand hours out of it.

Title edited to reflect second MIR. -Praxis

 

[ojai00]

Link to SP50 ($49.99)
Link to $20 rebate (from Amazon, but isn't retailer specific)

 

[Alphacow]

After the $20 rebate there is also a $10 bestbuy rebate making it $20 AR The $10 rebate requires only copies of the upc and reciept, the $20 requires the orginal upc

 

[rattrap]

Awesome addition Alphacow! I saw the original ad in this morning's BB ad...but you just determined where 20 of my dollars are going.

 

[Epinephrine]

I confirmed what Alpha Cow said - Making it $19.99 + tax. Great deal!!! Now to find a cheap 4.5 V AC adapter...

 

[Gnurb]

Thanks for the deal!

 

[Jonnybaby]

Best Buy will sometimes have returned, open box cd players for a little cheaper, if you want to get closer to free after rebate.

 

[ojai00]

Originally posted by: Alphacow
After the $20 rebate there is also a $10 bestbuy rebate making it $20 AR The $10 rebate requires only copies of the upc and reciept, the $20 requires the orginal upc

Nice job Alphacow! I saw the $10 rebate also but I didn't check to see if they were stackable. Extra $10 back is awesome

 

[YisSerL]

Here's the $20 rebate straight from SonicBlue website:
$20 Rebate (from SonicBlue)

I just ordered one too. It's a great Christmas gift for someone!

Thanks for the post, Praxis!

 

[YisSerL]

Oops, just saw the SonicBlue one is actually same as the Amazon one posted by ojai00. It's just bigger!

 

[bit]

also available online at bestbuy.com. just search for RioVolt.

 

[sglurker]

Originally posted by: YisSerL
Here's the $20 rebate straight from SonicBlue website:
$20 Rebate (from SonicBlue)

did anybody else notice that the $20 manufacturer rebate says "all claims must be post marked no later than Feb 2002?

is that a misprint? would it matter?

 

[bit]

Originally posted by: sglurker

Originally posted by: YisSerL
Here's the $20 rebate straight from SonicBlue website:
$20 Rebate (from SonicBlue)

did anybody else notice that the $20 manufacturer rebate says "all claims must be post marked no later than Feb 2002?

is that a misprint? would it matter?

must be a misprint. i don't think it would matter.

 

[Praxis]

The $10 rebate can be accessed from here, by the way.

 

[JubJub4]

ive read a lot of reviews on this player and they are all bad. they say it has a huge delay between songs, sometimes 15 seconds. me personally, im gonna wait till slimx is affordable.

 

[Praxis]

I bought this thing yesterday and was prepared for the worst, but it isn't as bad a POS as I expected. I was able to walk for over an hour with the thing in my pocket and it didn't skip too badly, except at one juncture (maybe there was a scratch on my CDR). The controls aren't great, but I've seen worse. The sound was pretty thin using the included ear buds, but I didn't turn on the bass boost (I figured I didn't need to use it, since I was listening to Mahler, Bruckner and Indian ragas).

I actually ponied up the extra $7.50 for the two year Best Buy protection plan. Normally, I would never pay for an extra warranty, especially a third of the final price of the unit, but I think it may make sense with this gizmo. It is very lightly built and seems to me to be designed to fail after a number of hours. I've heard that Rio (Creative) has terrible customer support and RMA. I figure as long as I don't drop-kick this thing through the goal posts of life, I can get it replaced every couple of months when it no longer accesses MP3s. Anyway, tonight I intend to use if for many hours while taking in the Leonid meteor shower. I'll report back if it doesn't continue to perform adequately.

 

[Grimm1]

My local store is out of stock. Also I can't order it online. You can add it to your shopping cart but under the desc. it says "Not available for delivery at this time
Not available for store pickup" and it will not let me check-out with it.

I got a raincheck but I think the $10 rebate requires that you purchase by this saturday.

Anyone know of a way to price match this without losing the $10 rebate?

 

[Grimm1]

I just took the BB ad and the printout of the $10 BB rebate to Circuit City. CC also has this on sale for $50 and are aware of the $20 rebate from Sonic Blue. I told them to price match it they would need to sell it to me for $40 because if I buy it at BB I would be able to use both the $10 and $20 rebate. The guy dissapeared for about 10 minutes but when he came back he gave me the price match of $40 that I was after.

 

[DukeOfAnandTech]

by the way, RIO is not produced by creative. Rio is a product distributed by SonicBlue and initially developped by a smaller company called I-River. I-river developped the RioVolt SP-100(I-River), the Riovolt SP-250 (I-River II), but did not sell sonicblue the I-River IMP-350 Slim-X design for some reason.

Now as for the Riovolt Sp-90 & 50, I'm not positive who the main developers are, but i'm pretty darned sure it's not creative.

 

[scoreadeal]

Scored one, what a deal... they were almost out though.

I ordered mine online with store pickup option and got the notice I could pick it up the same day.

I'm actually impressed, this basic model came with a bass boost. The ear buds they include are alright, but this player sounds just as good as my PC with Winamp when I use my Sony headphones...

 

[Gtroop]

This is a really good deal and I remember doing this deal or one similar a while back. My experience with the sp50 has been pretty horrible unfortunately. The player would cut off, unexpectedly, despite different power sources. It takes a longer time than usual to load each new song, and I noticed horrible playback (skipping, gargled sounds)even when keeping the player very still. Maybe the player is optimized for 128 kbit and most of my mp3's are in 192. But after struggling with this for a few months I would spend the money and try out the sp100 or other one. Test them out first.

 

[Praxis]

I'm afraid I have to agree with Gtroop, the SP50 is pretty lousy at playing MP3s. Even when it is resting on a stationary surface, it simply stops in mid song for what seems to be forever and it tries to spin around and reload its buffer. Sometimes after 2 minutes it will continue playing where it left off. Sound quality is also mediocre to poor. That said, mine seems to play regular "WAV" CDs acceptably well, for the moment (few drop outs, quick reacquisition). I have a lot of regular CDs, and the SP50 is cheap after rebate, so I guess I'll keep the unit, however I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wants to play MP3s on it.

 

[ETan]

Originally posted by: Grimm1
I just took the BB ad and the printout of the $10 BB rebate to Circuit City. CC also has this on sale for $50 and are aware of the $20 rebate from Sonic Blue. I told them to price match it they would need to sell it to me for $40 because if I buy it at BB I would be able to use both the $10 and $20 rebate. The guy dissapeared for about 10 minutes but when he came back he gave me the price match of $40 that I was after.

thanks for the great idea. I did the same deal, and got it for $43 or so after tax.... no need to wait for the $10 BB rebate.

great deal. Now I just hope it works.

 

[ETan]

Does anyone know if I can get a generic auto and ac adapter for this? I have a sony auto adapter and it doesn't work... I thought that was pretty generic / standard. It would suck if I have to pay $20 to get an adapter from rio.

So far I think playing mp3 has been decent, but playing regular cd's it skips at times... weird. Does anyone else have this problem?

Also, it doesn't have a "resume" button... this really sucks. Wonder if there's a way to hack it...

 

[duke]

Originally posted by: ETan
Does anyone know if I can get a generic auto and ac adapter for this? I have a sony auto adapter and it doesn't work... I thought that was pretty generic / standard. It would suck if I have to pay $20 to get an adapter from rio.

So far I think playing mp3 has been decent, but playing regular cd's it skips at times... weird. Does anyone else have this problem?

Also, it doesn't have a "resume" button... this really sucks. Wonder if there's a way to hack it...

It works fine with my 4.5V Philips brand auto AC adapter. Check the polarity of your Sony adapter. It also works fine with my generic AC adapter.

I agree with you. A resume feature would have been nice. It also forgets settings after the player is turned off so, for me, this means I have to reset it to random play everytime I turn it on....I'm starting to get sick of listening to track #1...

The search function is almost useless too. Definitely get what you pay for. I can't wait for the Riovolt SP350.