Excellent features; Plays all CDs flawlessly.

Warning; all those who enjoy to hear/listen to their music.

With my new computer software allowing me to download Mp3 music to a CD; I was rushed into buying something, anything that could play MP3 on a CD. So, I went to Best Buys and came across this player. At first it looked like a dream, it could play CD-R, MP3, and even CD-RW which was a first, at least for me. Plus on top of that, it had a nice buffer of electronic skip protection(ESP). Another reason I bought it was because it came in a great package that included quality ear plugs, and a car kit.
It looked almost too good, but then the intial excitment wore off. At first I thought it was just the ear pieces or maybe just the cd. Any ways, I'll get right to the point, my player played extremely low. It didn't matter how high the volume was turned up. Maybe it is just my player; or I'm unexpectedly lossing my hearing. But it's just my review, so Be Warned. And Don't Say I Didn't Tell You So!

Similar Products Used:

None as of right now, that have all these capabilities.

Plays both audio and MP3-CDs
Great audio quality for MP3s
Comes with AC adapter and car adapter kit
Decent battery life
Great ESP

NO ID3 TAG SUPPORT
initial waiting time for MP3 CDs
slow between switching tracks (any kind)
crappy included headphones
expensive
no shuffling of individual albums on an MP3 CD
cannot play both audio tracks and MP3s on one CD

The ability to burn MP3s on a CD and take them with you anywhere is worth the price of the player. (Assuming you have a butload of mp3s already on your computer that you listen to.) There are cheaper ones out there, but I heard this was the best, so I bought this one. I have to nitpick to find faults with this device (other than the included headphones... but I'm sure you already have a pair you use). I don't have any complaints about the MP3 quality, although they sound better on my computer due to the equalizer editing.

It doesn't support ID3 tag support (it should) or pre-loaded playlists. It's a bit expensive, but I don't have a problem with that. I highly recommend this to anybody who uses MP3s most of the time. If you are not already very familiar with MP3 encoding and CD burning, wait a few generations of products for them to become more idiot proof (no offense).

Similar Products Used:

My computer

Simply will not skip, line out, bass boost, comes with a lot of extras like tape adapter and AC plug.

Ear buds are crap, but most headphones that come with players are. My main gripe is that the volume just can't go that high. Normally it's not a problem, but sometimes (depending on the track) it's too quiet.

Bought this before any CD/MP3 players had ID3 tag support, so I can't knock it down for not having ID3 tags. The unit is very durable and it hasn't skipped in the 6 months I've owned it unless the disc was severely scratched. It will work with multiple directories and sounds very clean though the headphone output is a bit under powered.

No skipping. No crashing. Good sound quality.

car adapter didn't work. Headphones suck. No ID3 support. Wish display was Indiglo so I could see the thing in my car!

I love it. I bought the NAPA DAV-311 about 5 months ago and was horrified. I had to return it. The thing crashed whenever I tried to skip ahead more than a couple of songs at a time. And it took about 30 seconds to play the next song. Not so here. The eXpandium has great playback and doesn't crash. I use it solely in my car and the quality is great. Takes about 15-20 seconds for the first song to play when you put the mp3 cd in, but then it only takes about 3 seconds when you skip between songs. I love the album feature that lets you group songs together and skip from group to group (instead of having to press skip 199 times!).

Similar Products Used:

NAPA DAV-311 (horrible!)

No fast forward or fast reverse for MP3 files. High price.

I was hoping to use this player to listen to longer MP3 voice files where I may want to fast forward or backward but this player does not have this function for MP3's, only for CD's. The manual says this function won't work for MP3 files and it didn't. So this product was useless for me.

Similar Products Used:

Audiophase DM9119 CD MP3 player

Plays MP3 from a CD..........that's about it

No ID Tag, no LCD Light, ESP doesn't work well while Jogging. takes too long to start up.

Well, it plays MP3. ESP works great, but when it comes to jogging, you can just forget about it........i dont know if the speed of jogging is a factor, but i jog at 6.5 miles per hour. car kit is great.
i also bought monster cable so i can connect the player to my analog plugs of my receiver...and it sounds GREAT.....good cable, but the player must be great too.

i think people will like it.....but not a sports pack really.

Similar Products Used:

none really

sound quality, shuffle play, non-skip feature

no id3 tag support, included head phones, long start up time, price

I've been using the expanium for about 8 months now and it's been a wonderful product. It has played to perfection any disc that I've burned. That includes cdrw's also. It still is amazing to me that you can carry around that many songs on a disc. When I have it hooked up to my main stereo I almost can't tell the difference between a regular cd and an mp3.

Similar Products Used:

none

165+ songs on one cd, albulm feature

no id3 support, time to play mp3 files, auto power off

I wanted a way to listen to my 7gb of mp3 files at work and on the road and the included car kit and ac adapter facilitated both. Now I know it doesn't have id3 support but most of us know the songs we like and can identify them by the first 5-10 seconds so I don't think this is a problem. And with the albulm feature you can group songs together. Plus for the price its actually alot cheaper to use then most other alternatives. But don't buy this if you don't have or don't plan to buy a cdr/cdrw drive.

as far as time on average it takes about 20 seconds to start playing a mp3 cd from power on and about 5 seconds to start playing an mp3 file when switching songs.

overall though I like it despite it annoyances and for the most part the annoyance are easy to overcome with some creative thinking.

Similar Products Used:

none

can play mp3's on a cd.

bulky, headphones are bad

good product. if you have a CD burner great deal.

Good sound quality and battery life

limited search interface

Hi,

I'm back from my earlier review of this product.

Sent in the player to Philips and they could not do anything, they claimed that there was something wrong with my discs, and offered no further advice on how to burn the CDs. The engineers appeared to be very untrained in this field of MP3s, CD writing technology when I spoke to them.

It's only when I spoke to a rival manufacturer (Compro) of such CD/MP3 players that I learnt that I have to use software like Adaptec's EasyCD to burn the CDR or CDRWs. Such software burns CDs that conforms to a certain ISO format that makes them compatible with most equipments.

Everything is working fine now, 5 stars to the player and 5 stars to Philips' support.