problem with portable cd-player

[KTpG]

I have the Sonic Blue RioVolt SP150. (I think that is the model)

I got it for Christmas, this past year, and have not used it a whole lot, but what I have noticed is this: sound through the jacks is not great. Nig deal, I use an amp. However, it kills batteries within minutes. As you turn it on, you can watch the battery power indicator go down to zero and turn off if the batteries are not BRAND new. If they are brand new, they will last a while, but if you leave them in during storage, even if the lock is on, they will die and never work again. Why is this?

 

[Duncan]

The only hap-hazard guess I can have, not knowing that model... is by knowing one of the features of my E10 MD... 'Instant Resume'... it stores 40 seconds of music 'data' in a buffer, which needs to be continually powered (if you look at the remote in a certain way you can see that it has a little bit of power running through it)

Does the RioVolt have that kind of function, and it needs to be deactivated?

 

[VolunTEN]

I have a Rio Volt SP50, and I found that the sound was horrible with the included earbuds, but there was a HUGE difference in sound quality when I used my Beyer DT250's, and believe it or not, this PCDP is good enough to power those headphones... and it actually sounds very good now.

I don't know if you experimented with better headphones before concluding that the sound was bad, but if you didn't then you should.. because I bet yours is like mine. Other than that I really can't give you any suggestions - the thing runs on 2 AA batteries so it wont last long with a headphone amp

 

[mekanoplastik]

do the batteries get hot ?

 

[jpelg]

I found that with my Rio Volt 100, that a pair of cheap NiMH (1.2mA) AA's would drain in about 36 hours if the player was simply left with the batteries inside, not being used. Battery life was about 50% longer with standard non-rechargables, as you would expect.

I updated to the latest firmware, turned off the RESUME feature, lowered the memory buffer, no remote usage, unplugged headphones - anything I thought could conceivably cause some kind of battery usage. None of those things had any effect. There does seem to be some consistent battery drain at all times with these units. The only solution I found was to take out the batteries overnight. This was not too much of a hardship, as the battery compartment is easily accessible, and the batteries needed to be recharged ever other day or so anyway.