A-MAX Technology is one of the leading companies specialized in design, development, manufacturing and distribution of high quality computer related products. A-MAX shares its... more
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A review by ajpaynter on A-MAX Technology CD / MP3 player May 22nd, 2002
Author's product rating:
Sound Quality
Good
Ease of Use
Average
Look & Design
Poor
Range of Features
Limited
Value for Money
Very Poor
Advantages:
200 track MP3 CDs
Disadvantages:
Skips like hell
Recommend to potential buyers:
no
Full review
Too many times, I have made the mistake of buying from an unknown brand because a product is cheap. I bought the Napa DAV-315 six months ago from Jungle for around £65.
As soon as the thing was delivered I could tell that its price was not the only thing that made it cheap. The blue plastic gives it the look of Tomy's My First Land-Mine. Not a good start, but I could forgive it its ungainly appearance and bulkiness if it could do what it claimed - after all it would be in a bag for 99% of its life.
When you turn it on, it spins the CD for about 15 seconds and detects tracks. To its credit it detected all the tracks on an MP3 CD despite them being different bitrates and within countless folders and subfolders. After this, the CD will be cued to track one, which it will then load into it's 2Mb memory buffer. This takes about five seconds, then the CD stops until around two minutes have been played, at which point it spins up again, with the aim of buffering the next section of the song. In theory, this should provide seamless play without skipping, but in practice this is not the case.
As I mentioned, I keep the player in a shoulder bag. It's too big for a pocket and so it makes sense that most people would carry it this way. Unfortunately, the bag naturally swings as it is being carried and this seems like too much of a shock for the Napa. When your two minutes are up, it will try to read the next part of the song, but it gets confused, loading bits into memory and then constantly trying to re-buffer. This causes endless repetition of parts of the song, sometimes it will advance to the next track. Other times it will stop playing or turn itself off. Again other times, the display will freeze, there is no sound, and you have to turn it off by opening the CD lid and closing it again.
I don't run with this CD player. I'm not even walking fast. I don't jump about. I don't swing my bag and hit it into lamp posts. But listening to the output, you'd think I did all of the above. The only times I've been happy with this unit are at home with the player dead still (where I could listen to the MP3s on my PC anyway), or on the train. 90% of the time, it will work fine if placed on the table in a train.
I bought a cassette adaptor to let me listen in my car. This was no use at all. I won't bore you with the details, but just don't try it. If it stops while you're driving, the temptation is to try and restart it. Not wise...
After spending £65 on this, I've given up. I've just ordered a hard disk-based MP3Pro player from Thomson (a reputable company with experience in the area). It cost me just over £200 but has all the features I wanted and can hold up to 10Gb of MP3Pro files (half the size of conventional MP3s - this equates to 400 albums. I'll be reviewing that in a couple of weeks, with any luck.
Perhaps the high-end MP3CD players are better - I'm sure they'll improve with time. But stay well away from this bargain basement rubbish. It may seem cheap, but now you know why...
Advantages: Plays vcd's and mp3's (though just!) Disadvantages: No anti shock on cd's, useless battery, mp3 search poor
...I bought this product for £100 a couple of months ago but ended up selling it as it is flawed.
The premise is excellent, a portable remote control CDplayer that also plays vcd's and mp3 discs, which means in the compressed mp3 format you can get 13 hours of music on 1 CD.
As soon as it was delivered I set it all up and connected it to my TV which wasn't too tricky as the manual was fairly good, and all the leads a mains adapter and headphones were included. I tried a normal audio CD for a start and so far so good the sound quality was not going to set the world on fire but it was okay. I then tried a VCD and that was okay too except for the remote control only worked every now and then.
My problems started when I tried my mp3 discs. As there are about 140 tracks on 1 disc trying to find a particular track is a nightmare unless you...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Good value for money (at the time), feature-packed Disadvantages: Some quite big problems
...Two years ago, the Napa DAV310 was one of the first MP3/CDplayers on the market. Its RRP was about £120, and I bought mine for £85 - which is not too bad, even by today's standards.
The DAV310 is a combined CD-audio, MP3 and Video CDplayer, runs off an internal rechargeable Li-Ion battery, and comes with an infrared remote control - unusual for a portable player. Its white and orange casing is garish to say the least - an optimist would call it an anti-theft feature. Its buttons are well laid out and adequately sized. Build quality is reasonable - the lid is a bit flimsy, but when shut, the unit feels solid. The remote control is a credit-card sized unit with flattish buttons, not unlike the remote controls you get with modern camcorders. You get a pretty basic manual in the box, but it covers everything and it's not bad...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Plays mp3s, CDs and VCDs. Disadvantages: Poor playback of VCDs.
...I bought the Napa DAV 311 from Dabs for about £80 because I discovered that our £500 sony DVD system would not play recordable CDs. This appeared to be the perfect product to play all my home movies that I had recorded as Video CDs.
In the box you get:
The player (obviously)
Cables to connect it to a TV (red, white and yellow)
A remote control.
A power adapter.
Some earphones.
The DAV 311 is quite large (14cm W, 15cm L and 2.5cm H) compared to most portable CDplayers, but this is to be expected, due to its ability to play mp3s and VCDs as well. I personally quite like its aesthetics, but that's just a matter of taste. Despite its large size it does not seem very durable, although mine still remains intact, the small clear plastic section in the cover is just waiting to be knocked out. The lid could be brocken off...
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Equaliser Factory Presets: Normal, Rock, Jazz, Pop, Classic
Equaliser Factory Preset Qty: 5
Cd system
Type: CD / MP3 player
Media Load Type: Slot-load
Playback Modes: Programme play, intro scan, random play, all tracks repeat, one track repeat
Response Bandwidth: 20 - 20000 Hz
Signal-To-Noise Ratio: 90 dB
Shockproof Memory: 40 seconds
CD Track Programming: Yes (32 tracks)
CD-R/CD-RW Compatible: Yes
CD-RW Compatible: Yes
Supported Digital Audio Standards: MP3
Headphones
Headphones Type: Headphones - binaural
Connectivity Technology: Wired
Sound Output Mode: Stereo
Manufacturer's product description
A-MAX Technology is one of the leading companies specialized in design, development, manufacturing and distribution of high quality computer related products. A-MAX shares its skills and experience in different area and utilize its resources and advantages to make A-MAX a world reputable IT company. A-MAX is one of the leading companies specialized in design, development, manufacturing and distribution of high quality computer related products. 'Making Technology, Meeting superiority' is always the mission of A-MAX Technology. It urges all staff to keep its leading status in the global market and meet all customers' needs. A-MAX offers its super anti-shocking audio player DAV315. The player possesses well-developed anti-shock feature that provides an extraordinary ESP function of up to 120 seconds for MP3 and 40 seconds for CD, making it impervious to the skipping and jitter experienced during moving. Unique Multi-session CD playback supports your multi-session CD, allowing you to periodically update files and folders to your CDs.
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25.06.2001
04.08.2002
