Aiwa XP-MP3 Personal CD Player

This is my second cd-mp3 player after the Rio Volt 90, which was skipping discs too much. This Aiwa is much better, especially at a price I paid - much below $100.

It has a good LCD display with no stupid dancers like on the Rio. It has well pcaed ergonomic controls, and the overall design is quite nice. The case is made of plastic, silver colored with a hint of metallic blue.

It comes with an ac adapter, which is important for this fast-battery-consuming device. Two AA batteries last no longer than 5 hours, sometimes even less. I strongly recommend rechargeable ones, especially because the AC adapter can be used to charge them.

Sound quality is very good, with Bass enhancement option (DSL). Headphones are fine, they are the standard type - top of the head style. I bought a separate pair of smaller earbud headphones.

Navigation is good, the player recognizes directories on a disc as albums. However, Rio Volt is better in this because it reads the whole file structure into its memory and works faster when choosing specific files or directories. Aiwa is bad if you record all mp3 files on a disc without separating them into directories. Then you may have to push the FWD button 100 times to get to a song you want.

The only problem I have is an occasional squeaking sound caused by the volume control, which is a resistor with a turning knob, not electronically controlled volume (+ _ buttons) like in the Rio.