We were a bit wary when we first saw the controls, which are small buttons on both of the earpieces. The Volume, Hold, and S-XBS (for bass enhancement) buttons are on the left; controls for playback, pause, fast-forward, rewind, and playlists are on the right. But while all the buttons are small, it took just minutes of toying with the player to become perfectly familiar with the location of all of them. Getting songs on the player is simple with the included RealJukebox software. The SV-SD05 supports AAC files (which you can rip from CDs in RealJukebox) as well as MP3s. We did find downloading music to the player to be fairly slow for a USB connection, but it wasn't unbearable.
The S-XBS button is the only way to adjust that the player's sound quality. There's no equaliser, and pressing the S-XBS button adds a preset level of bass to your music. The maximum volume was also a bit disappointing, although this isn't surprising, given the single AA battery powering the unit. (A rechargeable battery and charger are included.)
A headphones-only player has some natural disadvantages. First and most obviously, you can't use your favorite headphones with the unit. If you're not happy with the sound quality (we didn't have any problems in this area), you can't substitute a better set. Because there's no sound-out jack, you can't connect the player to your stereo or get a cassette tape adapter for your car. The display doesn't include ID3 tag support, although of course you can't see it while you're listening to music anyway.
Perhaps most importantly, the small size comes at a price. The SV-SD05 costs at least AU$200 to AU$300 more than most MP3 players that ship with twice the memory, such as the Intel Pocket Concert Audio Player and the Sonicblue Rio 800 128MB. You can buy more SD cards to expand the memory, but they're also expensive (USAU$150 for 64MB) and don't come any bigger than that yet. (Sizes up to 1GB are expected eventually.) We like the convenience of a wireless MP3 player, but we're not sure the price is worth it.
--by Jesse Berney
Panasonic SV-SD05 Audio Player Headset
Company:Panasonic Australia
Ph:13 26 00
Price: AU$999
Rating:
4%
2%
