Questions regarding iRiver iMP-550 Options

[Sebastian Mares]

Hello!

I was looking for some good and cheap CD based MP3 players and came across the iRiver iMP-550. I also read some posts here on Hydrogenaudio. Some users are very happy, some users claim that the chasis is somehow fragile or that they have other problems.

Anyways, the iMP-550 seems to be the best choice. Before buying the product, I would like to ask some questions.

1. Does the iMP-550 work with "normal" batteries, or does it come with some proprietary accumulators?
2. Does it have any problems with MP3 files (VBR in particular)?
3. Is Ogg Vorbis support limited to certain bit-rates? IIRC, someone said that only -q6 would be supported. Is that correct?
4. Which tag formats does the player support?
5. Does any of you have problems with track playing order? A user on HA stated that his player wouldn't respect the track order and that it would play 1, 10, 11, ... , 2, 3 ... He also wrote that he was able to fix that problem by tweaking some Nero / EAC options, but wasn't specific.
6. Any other things I should take care of?

Also, according to the technical specifications, the player should have a pretty good quality. What is your opinion (CDA, MP3 and radio)?

Edit 1: Anyone tried playing 90/99 minutes CDs with it?

Regards,
Sebastian Mares

This post has been edited by Sebastian Mares: Jul 19 2004, 12:39