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This is a printable version of the article found at http://onepc.net/reviews/0027/ To print, press CTRL + P on your keyboard now. |
By Kelly Lu (kellylu@onepc.net) - January 29, 2001
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In case you have been lost in a forest for the past few years, MP3 is an audio compression technology that can take an audio file that would normally take up, let's say, 50MB as a WAV file into a little file no more than 3 or 4MB in size, with almost no audible loss of quality. This allows for two important features that have contributed to the success of the technology itself: ease of transfer and storage. The former enables a full-length song to be transferred through a network such as the Internet in less than 15 mins on a 56kbps connection or can be played almost instantly on a broadband connection such as cable or ADSL. The latter allows the storage of many more songs in the same amount of space than traditional forms, which permits the creation and success of the MP3 players that we're talking about here.
Such MP3 players first came in the form of tiny devices that used memory to store the data. The first-ever MP3 player that just happens to use this technology is the Diamond (now known as S3) Rio 300. The player included 32MB of memory for storing "up to an hour of music," so Diamond had claimed, but realistically, only about half an hour of MP3 files at a bit rate of 128kbps, which brings us to the main disadvantage of using memory for storage. Since memory chips are still quite expensive to manufacturer, makers of such MP3 players are limited to including only small amounts of memory to keep costs down; early MP3 players such as the Rio 300 commonly had 32MB of memory with some makers now including 64MB of built-in memory, which is enough for about an hour of high-quality audio. Seeing this problem, manufacturers have often stuck expandability features into their players, often in the form of Compact Flash slots. Unfortunately, Compact Flash memory cards were not any cheaper, leaving the majority of MP3 player owners stuck with their small 32-64MB of built-in memory.
Fortunately, alternatives were being introduced throughout the year 2000 to combat this limitation. One of these alternatives comes at a time where CD-RW drives are becoming more and more popular and are basically super-charged CD Discmans often called MP3/CD players for, well, their ability to play MP3 files recorded onto CD-R's. The first of these hybrid devices is the device that we're reviewing here, the Genica Tavarua. The advantages and disadvantages of these MP3/CD players are obvious; their storage medium, CD-R discs, allow for a whopping 650MB of music storage (this allows for the user to carry around 150 songs, each about 4-5MB in size compared to the usual hour or so of music that regular audio CD's can hold) but require that the user own or have access to a CD burner. Furthermore, because CD's are greater in physical size than memory chips, these MP3/CD players are often giants when compared to their memory-storage-MP3-player-cousins.
Aside from the above-mentioned disadvantages, the Tavarua has all the features that one would find in any high-quality CD player. The 50-second Anti-Shock Protection system is longer than usual and the ability to use and recharge rechargeable batteries will save users a lot of money for purchasing one-time-use alkaline batteries. Also useful are the multiple line-out jacks: one for headphones and another for your speaker system or home theatre system.
The Tavarua came in a very plain white box with some pictures of the player itself. Upon opening the box, I was greeted by a bright yellow piece of paper "WARNING!" in big letters at the top of the page and stating to:
The last of the three statements is quite acceptable, but the first 2 were a big odd for a CD player. First of all, I've never had to remove alkaline batteries from any CD player that I've used in the past before using an AC adapter and I've never had to power off any CD player before removing it from power because it usually automatically turns itself off. Nevertheless, by keeping these three warnings in mind, I went ahead and took out the rest of the package.
Included in the box is the Tavarua MP3/CD player itself, a users manual, a mid-sized external AC adapter and a set of ear buds.
The manual, I believe, is a little too brief and doesn't spend much time to explain how to burn the CD's so that the player will organize your MP3 files the way you want it to (for example, I would like to know what it means when "files will be played in the order written to the disc," something that the user manual doesn't explain at all). It does, however, explain how to use the player and how to work each of the unique features on the player quite well, with very few words at that.
The ear buds included with the unit are quite, well, terrible, to say the least. They do give out some fair sound, but they don't even come close to the Panasonic ones that I had purchased quite a while back. Put simply, the bass is non-existent and the treble is weak.
So now, we finally reach the unit itself. The first thing that I noticed was how thick it is. I don't know how much more "stuff" Genica had to put into their Tavarua to add the ability to play MP3 files, but it sure seems like a lot when comparing the Tavarua to any other modern CD player. The gold color was quite stylish to me and the little buttons on the unit adds a bit of elegance to it. Unfortunately, the functionality aspect of these buttons is reduced because of how small they are as it became quite hard to hit them with my fingers. Two more gripes that I have about the Tavarua's buttons are that 1) the "previous track" button is actually labeled "Preview" (it doesn't even make any sense!) on the Tavarua instead of the usual "Previous" that I've grown used to seeing and 2) the "Next" and "Preview" buttons are backwards from each other. Usually, the "Next" button would be to the right of the "Previous" button, but Genica had placed it, oddly enough, to the left of their "Preview" button-very strange.
Another thing that struck me was what looked liked to be 2 headphone jacks, plus a line-out jack, along the side of the unit. I had often thought about how useful it would be if someone included 2 headphone jacks on a discman because of how there's always a large number of my friends who wants to listen to my discman at the same time using only the two ends of my ear buds. Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, I noticed that one of the jacks was actually for a microphone… yes, you heard right, you can plug in a microphone into this portable MP3/CD player. And yes, that was the same reaction that I got from myself when I found out about this feature. It turns out that you can actually use the Tavarua to record a quick audio sequence into its memory-the same memory that it uses for its 50-second Electronic Anti-Skip Protection feature (now mentioned as ESP, here forth). I was quite surprised that Genica had not used this unique feature to help promote the Tavarua.
The first feature that I tested out was the regular Audio CD feature, since, at that time, I didn't have any MP3 CD's made for testing yet. Unfortunately for this first experience, I was overly disappointed. I stuck in the audio CD, pressed the Play button and after a few seconds of loading the tracks, music was streaming out of my ear buds; so far, so good, right? Wrong! What I noticed when the player was finished playing the first track and was about to skip through to the second track was that it repeated the last 2 seconds of the first track before it moved onto the second. This created a 2 second gap in-between all the tracks and I wasn't sure why this was happening because I had burned the CD using Disc At Once (DAO) and none of the other players that I've tried this audio CD in gave me this 2 second gap. Although this shouldn't be a problem for casual listeners, it could be very annoying for some, especially when playing those "dance mix" CD's where the music from each track flows into each other.
Other than that, the player played my audio CD fine. The sound quality was excellent and is right up there with any high-quality Discman and the bass-boost feature did its job very well; however, what I was the most impressed about was its ESP. I took the player as it was playing, shook it, banged it and smashed it and not once did the music stop or even skip a beat. Awesome!
Following that, I set aside some time for my very slow (6x2x2) burner to burn a CD filled up to the edge with MP3 files. After the CD was completed, I stuck it in, pressed play and after waiting a few seconds for the player to index all of the files, it was playing my MP3 files. Wow! I thought...
Curious to find out what type of CD I could play properly on this thing, I burned some more CD's, each using different settings found in Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4.0 (i.e. 1 session on CD, multisession, DAO recording, etc.) and different CD types (650MB CD-R, 700MB CD-R and CD-RW). The following is a chart of my findings:
| 650MB CD-R (TAO and DAO) | Yes* |
| 700MB CD-R (TAO and DAO) | Yes* |
| 650MB CD-RW (TAO and DAO) | Yes* |
I was quite impressed about the flexibility of this device when it comes to the different types of CD's that it can play, especially when it comes to it being able to play CD-RW's! Even though it's specifications didn't say that it could play it, through some testing of my own, it played my Acer CD-RW disc perfectly fine. This means that I won't have to waste multiple CD-R discs each time I wish to change my "to go" songs collection and that I will just be able to dedicate a CD-RW disc to the player! Excellent!
I had mentioned above about how the bass-boost feature did a very good job in accenting the low tones when playing an audio CD, but, unfortunately, I was very disappointed when it came time to test out the multiple preset EQ modes for playing MP3 CD's. Genica had included 5 preset modes that are supposed to enhance your audio: normal, extra bass boost, bass boost, treble boost and extra treble boost. Sadly, these settings ended up distorting the sound so much that it rendered them downsides of the device rather upsides. For example, when turning on the extra base boost or even the base boost, it added a distinct "farting" sound to the deep bases and when turning on the extra treble boost or the treble boost... well, who would want to boost the treble anyways? It stings your ears!
I was also quite impressed with the amount of thought that Genica has put into their product; they thought of everything! For example, imagine having to skip through 150 songs by repeatedly pressing the Next button. Not fun eh? Well, the folks at Genica have solved this problem by adding a feature into the Tavarua that will quickly skip through tracks if the Next button is pressed twice and then held down. I found this feature to be very useful and quite easy to use once I got used to it.
Aside from the rapid skip, they've also added support for directory playing. This means that before you burn your CD-R's full of MP3 files, you can copy your MP3 files into different directories and the Tavarua will be able to play through all of the files in any directory of your choice. This feature can enable the user to, for example, copy multiple albums onto a single MP3 CD-R and then can pick which album they would like to play. Very cool! Unfortunately, it does take a while to get used to browsing directories as it requires quite a few button-strokes, but, like the rapid skip feature, once you get used to it, it becomes a very useful feature. Of course, one can always choose to have the Tavarua disregard the directories for simplicity's sake.
Finally, a few days ago, I got a chance to test out the Tavarua's recording feature. By simply plugging in a microphone and flicking a switch on the side of the unit to "Record" mode, one can record up to an amazing 8 ½ minutes of audio! Although the sound quality wasn't the best possible, it's quite amazing how much you can store in 50 seconds of anti-shock memory. There is, however, a downside to this feature, as after you record what you want, you must keep the unit on for it to retain that recording. During this time, you can either play it back (through speakers or headphones) or play it back while recording it into some other source such as into an MP3 file if you plug it into your sound card's line-in or microphone jack. Either way, it's a neat little addition to an already feature-packed player.
Warning: Low Battery Life Ahead
I had mentioned before about how Genica had included a bright warning sign in the box, but what they should have used the warning sign for is to warn the user about the Tavarua's terrible battery life. To test out the batter life of the Tavarua, I purchased some regular Energizer alkaline batteries (you know, they keep on going and going and going and going… you get the point) for the task. Running the unit at a normal volume level and playing an MP3 CD straight through, the Energizer ran the unit for a total of around 3 hours. That's not so bad, if you think about it... but I haven't finished yet! After running the unit for only 1 ½ hours, it began to take incredibly long to switch from track to track (sometimes 5 seconds, sometimes up to a minute or two!). So, sure, you can still get sound coming out of the unit after 1 ½ hours, but there would be these huge gaps in between songs. Thank goodness for the built-in NiCD battery recharger!
After using the Genica Tavarua for the past month or so and even taking it along with me during my 3-week vacation during the Christmas break, I can safely tell you that I absolutely love this player! Sure, the device does have some downsides such as its incredibly large size, but in the end, there's nothing like being able to take about 150 of my favourite songs with me on the road. The short battery life has gotten on my nerves quite a bit, but a quick solution to this problem is to always carry an extra pair of AA batteries with me. At home, I even find that I've been using my computer less and less to play MP3's and that I've been using the Tavarua more and more instead. I just plug it into one of my spare speaker systems (using the handy Line-Out jack of the Tavarua) and voila! For a mere $90 USD, which is about the same as a good CD discman, the Tavarua is now part of my "essential devices" listing.
Bonus! Genica Accessory Kit
On top of the base Tavarua model, Genica has also created an accessory kit that you can purchase for a suggested retail price of $29.95. I received one of these kits and was very impressed with it. Included is another set of headphones (not ear buds, but headphones this time), a car kit and a neat little booklet entitled "The MP3 Manifesto." The book is very neat as it explains virtually everything you would ever want to know about MP3, including the technology itself, how to obtain MP3's, how to play MP3's both on and away from your computer and much, much more; perfect for anyone interested in listening to digital music. The car kit is also a very nice addition to your Tavarua as it allows you to play your MP3 files on your car cassette deck. The headphones, on the other hand and much like the ear buds included with the base Tavarua unit, were absolutely terrible: not only was the sound quality terrible this time, they were even very uncomfortable. Nonetheless, the accessory kit is a nice addition to your Tavarua player for a mere suggested retail price of $29.95 (although Genica has informed me that you can obtain it for only about $19 at some online retailers).
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