Why would this be relevant to bikes? Well, Goldwings have stereos, so why not other bikes? I've fancied a CD discman type player, but never seen one I really liked and never saw one I could justify. With quite a lot of touring riding over winter I started to get bored on motorways and A roads, leading to ever increasing cruising speeds to relieve the boredom. What I needed was on bike entertainment. I didn't want a solid-state player due to limited capacity, or a normal discman due to having to carry lots of CDs about for music.
In steps the Volt - it takes normal CDs (shows CD-Text if your cds have it), CD-Rs or CDRW discs, and has a host of features. So, what do you get for your 120 beer tokens? The unit itself, a leather carry pouch for threading onto a belt, a wire with a remote control, earbud style headphones, AC adapter, 2 AA batteries (Duracell for me), and two cds - one with online manuals and so forth, Real Jukebox and the other with Adaptec cd burning software.
The unit is about 2cm bigger in diameter than a CD, and has a grey/blue colourscheme. Build quality is good - it has a reasonably solid feel to it, but the buttons feel a bit plasticky. The layout is good, and the screen is backlit and legible. It has a socket for plugging in to mains power, a line out and a headphones out. The audio connectors appear to be gold, as are the supplied headphones, but as this isn't a listed feature I wouldn't swear to it. The supplied headphones are good - far better bass response than some sony jobs I've got, and they sound better than a budget pair of sennheiser earbuds I've got. The audio quality is excellent all round.
The operation of the unit is almost fool-proof. If you can't work it with normal CDs you shouldn't be allowed out on your own, and MP3s are similarly easy. Just select your favourites, burn to CD and play it. It's that easy. ID3 tags are displayed on the player so you can see what you're listening to. You can program it to play certain tracks, but the latest firmware update means the Volt can read Winamp playlists and play those too. For more details of the features go to www.sonicblue.com - it's almost a home HiFi in a discman.
After extolling its virtues how does it work in the real world? Walking around with it on the belt it plays music fine unless I'm walking in a hurry where it skips a little, however I did have the MP3 buffer set to 30 seconds instead of 60. It reads MP3s into a buffer, so most of the time the cd isn't spinning. Skipping only happened at the start of songs where there was no music buffered. The remote control is very handy and easy to use. Time to take it out on the bike.
Putting the Volt in a map pocket and connecting up (first snag - it's murder to get your helmet on with earbuds in!), I was ready. I did feel kind of odd haveing never ridden along with music playing before. On the move I found it easier to use the larger buttons on the unit rather than the remote and the display was big enough to read at a glance. There was no skipping through town riding which was where I'd expect it so I headed out to set up a test. Starting a new song as some lights changed I gave it the beans for as long as was prudent and found that in touring conditions the unit would be perfect. In fact, unless you're giving it some serious welly it won't skip, even on 30 seconds music buffer. It goes loud enough to hear it at
triple-figure speeds (alledgedly) too.
In short, it's fantastic. Want music on the move and you've got a CD writer? Get a Volt. Want a radio too? Get the Volt SP250.
Summary: Rio Volt SP100.
Pros: Upto 15 hours from 2xAA batteries, 20+ hours of music per CD, upgradeable to new standards and new features, very little/no skipping, features too many to list.
Cons: It doesn't recharge batteries, no display on the remote.
