iRiver iMP50 MP3 / CD Player with Car Adapter

[Archived in CD Players, CD Players With Car Kits, MP3-CD Players, Portable CD Players, Products, iRiver]

Manufacturer: iRiver
Price at amazon.com: $49.99
This item is not stocked or has been discontinued.

Product Features:

• 4 Line Display
• Reads all CD types
• 16 Hour Battery Life (2 AA)
• Car Cassette Adapter
• iRiver Earphones

Product Description:

The innovative iMP-50 comes stacked to the gills with features like broad format compatibility, pre-buffering anti-skip protection, firmware upgradeability, a graphic LCD with multi-language display, and packet-write format readability so the player can double as a hard-drive extension (using data CD-RWs). The player supports music CDs, home-made CD-R and CD-RW with MP3, WMA (Windows Media Audio), multi-session discs (discs burned at different points over time), and Microsoft's Advanced Systems Format (ASF). New formats such as AAC, MP3 Pro, and so on can be supported in the future through a simple firmware upgrade. The iMP-50 also supports Winamp playlists as long as they use the file extension *.m3u (maximum 20 lists). The player gives you a healthy four minutes anti-skip protection for MP3 and WMA files. By applying iRiver's own special algorithm, the iMP-50 provides better performance against shock than standard anti-skip algorithms. At the same time, iRiver maximizes protection at the beginning of songs through pre-buffering. The iMP-50's graphic LCD that supports multiple languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, other alphabet-oriented fonts, Korean, Japanese (Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji), and others. It supports a total of 36 languages. With MP3 and WMA files, the iMP-50 can play for 16 hours on two AA alkaline batteries (supplied) or seven hours with audio CD playback. Additional formats such as AAC, MP3 Pro, and so on may be supported in the future through a simple firmware upgrade. Eight equalizer presets, a custom EQ mode, and separate electronic bass and treble controls are all at your disposal when it comes to tailoring the sound to your taste or compensating for speakers, headphones, or listening environment. A hold switch prevents unintended interruptions in playback and saves batteries by negating playback when the player is stopped. Other features include repeat and shuffle play, resume, bookmarking, sound fade in, intro scan, and track programming. What's in the Box CD player, earphones, car cassette adapter, 2 AA batteries, and a user's manual.

Description from Manufacturer: The innovative iMP-50 comes stacked to the gills with features like broad format compatibility, pre-buffering anti-skip protection, firmware upgradeability, a graphic LCD with multi-language display, and packet-write format readability so the player can double as a hard-drive extension (using data CD-RWs).

The player supports music CDs, home-made CD-R and CD-RW with MP3, WMA (Windows Media Audio), multi-session discs (discs burned at different points over time), and Microsoft's Advanced Systems Format (ASF). New formats such as AAC, MP3 Pro, and so on can be supported in the future through a simple firmware upgrade. The iMP-50 also supports Winamp playlists as long as they use the file extension *.m3u (maximum 20 lists).

The player gives you a healthy four minutes anti-skip protection for MP3 and WMA files. By applying iRiver's own special algorithm, the iMP-50 provides better performance against shock than standard anti-skip algorithms. At the same time, iRiver maximizes protection at the beginning of songs through pre-buffering.

The iMP-50's graphic LCD that supports multiple languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, other alphabet-oriented fonts, Korean, Japanese (Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji), and others. It supports a total of 36 languages.

With MP3 and WMA files, the iMP-50 can play for 16 hours on two AA alkaline batteries (supplied) or seven hours with audio CD playback. Additional formats such as AAC, MP3 Pro, and so on may be supported in the future through a simple firmware upgrade.

Eight equalizer presets, a custom EQ mode, and separate electronic bass and treble controls are all at your disposal when it comes to tailoring the sound to your taste or compensating for speakers, headphones, or listening environment. A hold switch prevents unintended interruptions in playback and saves batteries by negating playback when the player is stopped. Other features include repeat and shuffle play, resume, bookmarking, sound fade in, intro scan, and track programming.

What's in the Box
CD player, earphones, car cassette adapter, 2 AA batteries, and a user's manual.Average Customer Rating:

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Comment: Great Player Great Features Great Price Rating:
Pros:
Supports packet written CDs - Use your CDRW disk like a hard disk

Supports multiple .m3u playlists - control what songs are played and in what order through .m3u text files.

Will resume EXACTLY where you stopped - a must if you listen to radio programs and audio books.

Has bookmarking feature - great for returning to an audio book or radio program point after listening to music.

Firmware upgradable - Unit ships with version 1.0 - I highly recommend upgrading to version 1.3 which is available on the IRIVER international site at the time of this writing.

Supports track queuing - select the next song to be played while listening to the current song.

Easy to program - shows filename while selecting songs to program

Many more features

Cons:
No backlight.

In summary, the IRIVER IMP-50 gives you more features than many MP3 flash and hard drive players at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of media cost - 700 MB CDRWs are way under a $1 a disk. It's features blow all other manufacturers' CD MP3 players away. I highly recommend this or any other IRIVER CD player product.

Linux and other non-windows OS notes.
Supports Linux packet written CDRWs.

You MUST use Joliet extensions when creating your file system for the firmware upgrade disk.

.m3u playlist text files MUST be terminated with CR/LFs (DOS) not just LFs as is the standard in Linux.

.m3u playlist files take the following format:

\directory\im_no_angel.mp3

\directory\my_life.mp3

Note that the DOS \ character MUST be used as the file separator.

For best results, use only 1X-4X speed CDRWs.

RTFM and online documentation.

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Comment: iMP-50 is a heck of a deal, no matter the complaints! Rating:
This puppy deserves a 4.5 really, because there is no such thing as perfect, but then again, for this price, this is a screamer.

What is important:

The sound quality is great, even with 128kbps MP3s, sound like regular CDs, and I am a picky former musician.

Price, well gee, this price for an iRiver is great, Thanks AMAZON, and you shipped it free, but so fast!

The headphone buds sorta suck, but they *are* free, and are easily better than anything in a discount shelf. This player deserves headphones with neodymium magnets to be really appreceated!

So many features! Man alive! There are plenty of others, that cost more, and don't have anywhere near the controls and adjustments available.

Firmware upgrade went easy as pie, you need a computer with a cd burner, but doing the upgrade is as simple as putting the burned disk in the player, hitting play, and leaving it alone until it shuts off after a few seconds.

With upgrade there are 8 EQ presets, and 3 user adjustable presets that can be done with base level and crossover settings, and then the same with the treble end. Pretty nice for a cheap toy (it doesn't deserve the title cheap, really)

Battery life with MP3s ain't too bad, just not nearly as much as they claim so far that I see, but I am still testing these puppies.

I have two of them, and both run great.

Loading the disks in the bottom/back of the drive is wierd, and the cover/back is a little bit flimsy, but within the scope of the price, and I don't really see it as an issue if you take care of it, but I would recommend getting a shoulder holder or something and not using it in the pocket to be safe...

On some of the weaker MP3s the volume will be just adequate, I hoped for a little more margin, but it is very acceptable.

Four line display a big plus, this player has all of the major features of their most expensive models, just not a remote, and no illumination and a few more things.

The free cassette adapter is a real plus, and considering the price, it is acceptable though a little bit sad that there is no car or home power adapter... But this *is* their entry level product, and they did a very respectable job, if you complain, you are asking for too much!

The buttons feel perfect and the placement isn't too bad.

With bass settings higher, it is good, even without the bass boost, though a bass boost button would be nice because each recording responds to the EQ settings a little bit different. I will take the great EQ over bass boost any day, though.

Anti shock not too great with cd, but with MP3-cd, wonderful, and both have 3 settings, off, medium time, long time based upon seconds.

I was able to setup the thing within a few minutes and it was fun in the doing. The manual is really pretty good, just an occasional Grammar error.

Get this puppy as a second player, an entry level player, a nice gift to a friend, a walk around that you won't cry over too much if lost or stolen, though the thief would be getting too good a thing.

This isn't a slim thing, but it is smaller than the photo makes it look like. Totally acceptable.

A very good product for a very low price.

Thanks Amazon and iRiver. I hope that they are good with the warranty, if so, this is a no brainer!

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Comment: not great for car usage Rating:
i got this cd player for my half hour commute to work. It's a great price, but the design is inconvienant. to change cd's you have to turn the player over on it's back. the battery cover opens quit frequently and subsequently ends up scratching the hell out of cd's- because the unit continues to spin the cd.

however the battery life is much better than my old cd player that was about 13 years old. the buttons are different sizes- so it's easy to feel out what button you want to push... but it's still a little awkward. it's a great price and the sound is good quality. i just took away 2 stars because it's not very utilitarian for road warriors.

Posted at November 11, 2003 06:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)