RCA Lyra RD2204 (64 MB) MP3 Player

Pros: Great Overall Player
Cons: Um...

While most of my friends at school were strutting around with CD players, I was walking around with a state-of-the-art MP3 player! The RCA Lyra. I had purchased a few months after it came out, back in march 2000, and have learned a lot about it since...

Pros: excellent idea, small, easy to use, great user interface, long battery life, equalizer control
Cons: clumsy setup, must use RealAudio, cumbersome and inconvenient hardware setup, car performance EXTREMELY poor

A few months ago my friend purchased this Digital Player from RCA. I tried this thing out, the Lyra they call it. Interesting, I thought.

Now I love music, in fact I love it so much, that if it doesn't sound as good as it...

Pros: It does its basic job - its a light, portable mp3 player.
Cons: Bad design, bad interface, annoying encoding......

Ok. It sounded good. Boy, did it sound good - for 100 english pounds (140$) I could have a brand-spankin-new mp3 player with 64mb of flash-ram. It was cheaper than the competition (by a long way) and the statistics easily measured up. When I got it I...

Pros: light, easy to use, no skipping, high quality sound
Cons: flash cards need to hold more

Well, I am the queen of gadgets. I am always looking for the latest in high tech fun. So, imagine my surprise when Christmas morning I unwrapped an RCA LYRA. A small walk man type device that I had never heard of before. My family was ecstatic that...

Pros: Easily upgradable, sounds good, batteries last a while
Cons: Parallel Port drive has problems, included Jukebox software is poor quality, LCD screen may break

I ordered the 64MB version of the RCA Lyra about a year ago. At the time, I was familiar with MP3 files, and had just discovered Napster. I chose this player over others, because it was the only one I could find that used CompactFlash memory, as opposed...

Pros: Lightweight, Skip-Free, Competitively Priced
Cons: Loss of sound quality when compressing files to fit on Flash Card

I admit it I had MP3 Player Envy. Everytime I went to the gym I noticed people with these incredibly small players enjoying their skip free music. I tried many options, I listened to the radio, but really wanted to pick my own tunes. I burned a few...

Pros: It works
Cons: It is hard to use; parallel port; required use of Real Juke Box

This product is a nightmare to learn to use. You'll need to be a good gambler or guesser to figure out all the quirks with the Lyra and more particularly with its software.

I did not buy the product, but was asked to review it at my job. I...

Pros: Quality, Convenience, Adaptable
Cons: None I can think of - yet

As with anything new, and not yet familiar to everybody, there is lots of mumbo-jumbo, fast talk, and those that ‘have’, really try to fast-talk the ‘have-nots’. Yeah, so let’s get down to some straight stuff about this new gadget that keeps popping into...

Pros: Fast, simple file transfer, Belt clip
Cons: Lags on startup, Buttons can be bumped easily

I have owned both a Lyra and a Nomad and I preferred the Nomad. They both have strong and weak points, which I'll summarize quickly, then go into greater detail.

Pros for Lyra:
Lyra lets you transfer files to the player a lot quicker and...

Pros: Bat. life, display, software, options, price
Cons: Cons?

The RCA Lyra is an all-around great digital music player. I bought it because I wanted something that I could customize and put my own choice of music on. It plays both mp3 and RealAudio G2 format files, and is upgradable to handle future music...

Pros: everything is great
Cons: the memory card cost too much.

I just got the Lyca mp3 player last night, even though I was having a little trouble with the program and the memory card a bit, but after I got everything figured out, man, I love this mp3 player.
It sounds just like the real mp3 from my computer...

Pros: Best song display, great sound quality, backlight
Cons: Drains batteries like crazy, poor headphones, why does it have to load software?

RCA was one of the first large corporations producing MP3 players. When it first came out people were reluctant to buy it because people were used to buying players made by computer manufactures. The Lyra ended up shinning anyway. First of all the player...

Pros: upgradable, nice backlit screen, CF memory
Cons: awkward FF/REW, power off on 1 minute pause,

I've been watching portable MP3 players for quite a while now. I've watched them start out as dinky little devices barely capable of holding more than just a few songs. I've seen them with nothing more than a digital numeric display to tell the user...

Pros: Easy to use. Nice big screen. LOUD! Nice equalizer.
Cons: Nothing special about it. Encryption scheme.

Summary

Don't get me wrong; the Lyra is a capable MP3 player. The only problem is, that's it. There's nothing that sets this player apart from all the rest. Well okay, there's two differences, it's bigger than most other MP3 players out there....

Pros: Easy to use, extremely easy, great sound, 5 band equalizer, backlight is awesome
Cons: No hold switch, RealJukebox is not cool, memory card has problems

(Here she is, my update of the RCA Lyra Player)

Ah yes, this little sucker has been outdated for a LONG time now. But, hey, why not fix my review anyway!?

The RCA Lyra, one of the pioneering and most well known MP3 players there...