Portable USB MP3 Player Roundup - PAGE 9
Anthony Roberts - Friday, July 28th, 2000
Sensory Science RAVE MP 2200 Cont'd
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| Behind the MP-2200 |
When we switched to a different set of phones, the sound quality was much improved, and I noticed right away that the music was smoother, with a nicer range of notes that actually dropped off nicely on the high and low ends. Bass was smooth and strong, which lead me to believe that the stock phones just had very poor bass response. The unit comes with 5 EQ presets (including normal mode), and though they did little for me in general, they were very subtle in their effects on the sound, and I would think that they could be appealing to some of you more so with a nicer pair of phones, because on the stock earphones the EQ changes were lost in the indelicacy of the sound.
Normally if a player comes with earphones that turned out to be the audio quality bottleneck, we would recommend that you can still get the player and replace the phones with your own, better listening earphones. Unfortunately, in this case, the stock phones are attached permanently to the inline remote control unit, and thus you would have to give up the remote in order to use better phones this is definitely a BIG blunder, and perhaps a little bit presumptuous on the part of the engineers. Many current day portables with remotes will have remotes that actually have 1/8 inch audio jacks to accommodate most standard sized earphones
this gives you the option of changing earphones without having to sacrifice the use of the remote.
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| MP-2200, Earbuds & Remote |
Sound quality aside, the unit is a very, very earnest attempt to capture the essence of MP3 portable music, and it does so with a fair deftness that is nearly astounding. The sheer number of features makes this THE player to get for all round use (voice recording comes in handy a lot more than you would at first think), and I think that the combination of an fast decoding engine with the ability to have great at a glance info on the LCD make this a very friendly player. There are some quirks to the user interface that make it a chore to work with at times, but for the most part the user is manageable. If only the stock earphones were of better quality, or if the engineers had thought to allow you to swap earphones without sacrificing the remote, this player would have been something to REALLY be excited about. As it is, the MP2200 is definitely a worthy contender, and we salute the amazing work that must have gone into its making.
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