[Thasp]

My little comparison. It won't be completely in depth though. I don't know what people want to know, ANY QUESTIONS WELCOMED, I'll answer what I can in this thread.

Why the Panasonic rules and the iRiver(which was replaced TWICE) sucks;

1) Anti skip. With audio CDs, burned, with the 10 second anti-skip on the panasonic, it never skipped. Walking, shaking in my pocket hard. Running neither.

The iRiver, with enhanced anti-shock mode on, skipped constantly. Even with pressed CDs, anything. It has, officially, the weakest laser of any CD player I've ever tried. If I walked with it, and it started skipping, if I put it down on a flat surface, it'd take quite some time to get it to play again. Sitting down.

The iRiver is immobile. Walking with it is just not going to happen. It's picky. After two weeks, a month or two tops, it WILL wind up working like crap.

2) The remote on the iRiver is big and clunky. The remote on the panasonic is small and compact.

3) The panasonic and the iRiver go to the same max volume to me. Call me nuts, but the panasonic powers my good aiwas, http://www.us.aiwa.com/default.asp?p...oduct&prod=392 , very well. Good sound quality, and goes loud enough for outside use.

4) It's $30 less than the iRiver.

5) Buttons are on the player too, so you don't need the remote if you don't want it, the iMP-550 needs the remote to be used.

6) The panasonic doesn't have a pause button on the remote, the only annoyance.

This player owns. I got it for $127 off of amazon.com , the best investment I've made in audio stuff in some time.

 

[bangraman]

I think you've made it clear you made up your mind before you got the Panas

I'll have to keep an eye on the skip. I haven't really had a chance to use the iRiver that often so I will make a point of using it more. I did hear problems at first, and also gaps in playback (twice in a couple of hours). Any problems like yours and I will return or exchange it.


The remote takes quite a bit of getting used to. I had the same problems with the iMP-400, it being the first player on which I had to read the manual before being able to use it beyond Play

Once mastered, it's great. Bit over geeky, but the level of control is excellent. I think I prefer the iMP-400 remote though. The new one has a different layout which I don't like as much and the headphone extension cable is a bit silly.

 

[Ryan1524]

the headphone extension is not necessary, i use my MDR-G73 without it. i compared the plugs and they're indetical. i don't know why iriver suggested using that adapter. except for adapting an 'L' shaped plug to a straight one, since the 'L' shape wouldn't plug all the way in.

i hope it won't have any adverse effects on the player, althou i highly doubt it will.

 

[blr]

Well, It's clear you like the Pana more.
To me iRiver still has some advantages, appart from its sound quality which can be subjective

1. Firmware upgradable=futureproof and new features will be added too
2. Good equalizer to tweak the sound
3. Very good display giving a lot if information
4. Allows a lot of customization.
5. Best battery management of any portable I've seen. It doesn't fry the gummsticks. I think it's the first player to offer a real overcharging protection (-dV perhaps). Other players have great battery life at first but after a year or so the gummsticks are damaged from overcharging and the batt life is only half of what it was initially.
6. Outputs digital data from mp3 discs. This is very usefull for home listening. I can connect the 550 to the DAC of my MD deck (in -DA mode) and it sounds very good with well encoded mp3s plus I can go digitally to MD.
7. Lastly the first CD player out there that comes with usable earbuds. Not a big deal for most of us here perhaps but for newcommers it would save them the expense on purchasing better phones at least initially.
To sum it up in terms of features/functionality it is quite a bit ahead from the rest. Now if the iRiver can solve the audio CD problem they will have a true winner.

 

[Thasp]

Ahhh, yes. The EQ on the Panasonic is ass.

I saw a few posts here saying that the xtreme EQ was making is skip more though.

The panasonic doesn't have a radio either.

If the iMP-550 had a better laser, it'd own. I really disliked having to stop walking, so the player wouldn't move, just to change a track, and just stand there like a moron while the player got it into buffer.