My RCA RP2485 - An excellent alternative......
Pros:
Inexpensive. Excellent sound. Excellent features.
Cons:
No radio tuner. No carrying case. Low quality cassette adapter.
The Bottom Line:
This is a very economical way to carry around and play an entire music collection. This player is inexpensive and operational costs are minimal. Great features and great sound. Recommended!
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
I received my RCA RP2485 compact disc player three weeks ago. Since then I have used it to play an MP3 encoded disc and a standard commercial music cd. The sound from this player is excellent. The RCA RP2485 has a built-in equalizer and a bass boost feature that allows the sound out put to be adjusted to the listeners taste. This player appears to be a basic portable cd player, but it's ability to read and play MP3 and WMA encoded music files, makes it very different than any other ordinary cd player.
MP3 and WMA music files are much smaller that ordinary WAV files, so far more music can be stored on an cd-r using either of these codecs (formats). I was able to get approximately 300 songs onto one cd-r by using WMA files. To accomplish this, ordinary music cd's have to be ripped, re-coded, and burned to a blank cd. The process is made easy by a software program that comes with the RCA RP2485 player. There are also many other available programs that can convert ordinary music files (WAV) to MP3 or WMA files. After the music files have been converted and stored in a computer, they can be burned onto a recordable cd. It is possible to fit 30 or more regular cd's onto one MP3 or WMA encoded cd. That's a lot of music on one disc, and unlike ordinary cd players, this player can play these discs.
The RCA RP2485 compact disc player comes with a software cd, clip-on earphones, a wrist strap, an ac adapter, and a car kit that includes a car power adapter and a cassette adapter. Once the power adapter is connected and inserted into the vehicles cigarette lighter socket, and the cassette adapter is connected and inserted into the vehicles cassette deck, one disc can provide over twenty hours of non-stop music through the vehicles sound system. The only weakness that I've encountered so far is; the cassette adapter seems to decrease the players volume output. This is easily compensated by increasing the volume on the vehicles sound system.
This portable cd player is constructed well using red and black hard plastic. On the cover of the player there are six chrome push buttons that are used for various player functions. There is also a square toggle button that's used to navigate menus, and a LCD screen that displays song information. Another toggle switch that is used to adjust volume is located on the side of the player. This player can also be powered by two AA batteries, or the included ac adapter. I don't know how long the two batteries will last, but I think it's more than ten hours of continuous play.
I think the RCA RP2485 compact disc player is a very economical alternative to much higher priced MP3/WMA flash and hard drive players (like my Rio Karma). Blank cd-r discs are very inexpensive and a music collection of 600 cd's can be stored on less than $2.00 worth of blank discs.
