Digisette Duo-64 AR-300 (08/18/2001)

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Review: Man,what a great and innovative product,not to mention an incredible value! I bought this unit(AR164)on sale at Fry's for $60.00 and found an online Mfg. rebate for $70.00,so basically I get $10.00 for owning it. Beyond the deal,this is a great product. The unit is sturdy aluminum,all the controls are laid out nicely. I down loaded some music(64mbs built in with expansion slot for MMC/SDC)played perfectly with supplied headphones,and played perfectly in both my vehicles. My indash Kenwood contolled the basic functions of the Digisette player,and the sound was very good,not as good as my CD's,the MP3's where done at 128kbps,there was a slight distortion on the high end,but otherwise fine. I just bought a 128mbs SDC(Secure Digital Card)from Fyr's for $35.00 with rebate which is another great deal. The expansion memory is only unlimited,I've seen 256mps which is pretty big. It has all the accessories you need to operate. Bottom line,this is a great item,you just have to treat it carefully as with any small electronic device. I don't know what's the problem with the neg. responces but I love it. I was going to buy this unit with or without the rebate,it was just a bonus. Contact me if you have ?. Jeff

Review: Doesn't work in my tape player. They wont replace it because i didnt buy it at one of their 5 official resellers even though i have a receipt.

Review: I Have a lot of MP3 files that I want to listen to, I got tired of carrying a lot of cassettes in the truck where they were subject to being stolen, and I couldn't leave them in the truck unless the truck was running with the a/c on in hot weather, this product solves the problem

Review: I was impressed with the concept but found that it was "choosie" about what tape player it was plugged into. Works on some, don't work on others. Battery life was excellent but after the third or fourth removing and replacing the battery the little cheap plastic tip of the battery door broke off... that's what keeps the battery door closed. Digisette did replace the unit but it took a while! I've since replaced it with another player.

Review: They don't tell you this until AFTER you buy it, but this player has compatability issues playing in many types of tape players, especially high end car players (mine wont play at all). Their suggestion: PUT A PIECE OF TAPE ON THE TAPE HEAD. It plays now but sounds worse than an AM radio. Another thing, I really thought that I wouldn't miss not having a display. WRONG. For one button to do one function you have to hold it down for 2 seconds. For another feature 3.5 to 5 seconds. VERY ANNOYING. One more thing. THE SOFTWARE SUCKS. It looks and works like a college students Visual Basic assignment. The box said that you can use Real One to transfer files. After I bought it they discontinued that. Do not buy this player. Looks like I'm going to keep using my old faithful Rio 500 for awhile.

Review: It's a very good and usable idea. Many people have access to tape players but may not want to pay for an mp3 cd player. With this, all you are buying is the tape and your hardware will work. $160 is a little much but still a good product.

Review: 1. RTFM !! For those who don't you will be overly frustrated with the AR-300 / DUO-64. Don't let its small size lull you into thinking it is a simple MP3 player, it is much more. 2. It comes with everything you need but a 64 Mb MMC card (Go to eBay and get one for ~$45). The MMC card max.’s out the player & will be well worth it. Don't get a Secure Digital card!!, they will not fit the DUO's!! They are too big. a. Two NiMH batteries (proprietary I might add, can’t go to K-mart to buy these). b. 12 VDC cigarette lighter car charger c. 120 VAC home charge (both charge the player or battery individually, with the supplied adapter cable) d. USB cable e. Cheap, ear bud headphones (come on, you already have a good set anyway). f. Cheap, but effective case (hey it is supposed to be in a player remember, not on your belt!) g. Software, audible.com rebate, etc. 3. Initially, the DUO did not work in both our vehicles. They have "high end" audio systems and did not play. Following the lead of another poster (who complained), I put a small piece of clear "scotch" tape over the cassette player head. This works! and well too. My best guess is that the tape acts like actual magnetic cassette tape, and clears the distortion/reflections by the metal to metal contact, while "dumbing down" the player for the higher end tape deck. The downside to this is that you will need to remove the tape to use it in older/regular tape players. Not bad considering scotch tape is cheap. 4. MP3 play back is great, it has pre-set equalizer settings (but does not remember them), file transfer is quick, and the software (although Win95’ish) is straight forward and easy to learn. Play back in both cars is clean, and the tape deck’s skip to next song work effectively. 5. The on/off switch can be a nuisance, but again read the manual, and know how it works, and you won’t be stupefied when things happen. 6. The biggest downside is that the DUO-64 is not Mac compatible. And as stupid as this sounds, all Digisette needs is a USB extension that treats itself as an MMC type card to read/write/delete files to. If it doesn’t exist yet, I sure someone will write this extension to do this. ** All in all, this is a good player, but be sure what your needs are for you day to day use. I needed something for the car without installing a special MP3 player and constantly burning CDRW’s. Also, I didn’t need a fancy LCD, nametags, and 15 different equalizer settings. The best thing is that I can play MP3 just about anywhere a cassette deck is without a lot of complex setup, and at 96 kbps bitrate, they sound good with just over 2 hours of music. This is not a lot; but, if I need more than 2 hours, I’ll be using a real computer at 192 kbps bitrates and higher.

Review: Its a neat product and the replacements products are affordable and it works well!

Review: works as promised, would like to see 128mb MMC and pouch for more MMC. Didn't realize it had an equalizer until I went back & read instruction booklet! Fantastic product! Would also like to see personal ID plate that can be inscribed w/name, phone, address and reward if lost! You may want to put a mail label in the event you lose it or leave it on an airplane.

Review: Overall, I like the player itself. It works as advertised and has good sound. The PC software included to interface with the product is subpar. It was very difficult to get it to transfer data consistently, and even when it is working well it lacks all but the most basic features and funtionality. It does not support playlists or ID3 tags, for instance. There is a plug-in for communication with Windows Media Player, but I had limited success with it.

Review: I like the idea of the cassette, but it's not even practical. Where the hell is the LCD!! that is what makes it so bad. You NEED an LCD to see what song you are playing next, but this doesn't have it so you have to guess. If you want a good player for this type of money, go with the SP250 by RIO SonicVolt . It its awesome for the price. DO NOT GET THIS. I AM WARNING YOU.

Review: I don't know what one of the posters was talking about...you DO NOT need to have the player plugged into the lighter to power it, and to fast forward it in the tape player you JUST HIS FF ON YOUR TAPE PLAYER! It's not that difficult to grasp...works like an MP3 player when you carry it, works like a tape when it's in your car. I've had NO problems with it, and it works like a charm. I love it!

Review: I love the idea of a Cassette-loading MP3 player (since I have a cassette car stereo that I can't replace), and this product delivers. The 64MB storage is adequate for my needs, and I can buy an expansion card if I need more. Downloads fast to the player on the new USB port, sounds great, love the improved scan fwd/rev functions, and the preset equalizer modes were a nice surprise. It puts out a lot of sound for such a small player! The only detractors : Music Management software is a bit clunky, and could use some simple features like "shuffle"; Lack of Low Battery indicator; and recessed switches are sometimes hard to switch (if you have no fingernails like me). Overall, a great player for the pedestrian MP3 Enthusiast.

Review: Great design. I download audible books and just insert the player in my car cassette, great sound, rechargeable batteries through cigarette lighter adapter.

Review: So how the hell am I suppose to fast forward to the next song in my car?????? This unit is a waste of money, and with only 64mb, the price is too high. I got the MPIO instead for the same price and 128mb.

Review: When I was looking into getting an MP3 player I saw the Duo-64 and after researching it, I was sold. Then I finally recieved it and played with it and I must say it is one of the best MP3 players out there. It's so compatible to any cassette deck that you can take it anywhere. I highly recommend it.

Review: I didn't want to shell out $800 for the BMW-branded CD changer, and even the Alpine version would have cost more than the Digisette - plus, I can listen to all those tunes I downloaded from Napster (don't tell Lars!) in the car, on my bike or walking the baby.

Review: Biggest drawback on this unit is the display, no suffle, no repeat. One of the problems if your thinking about getting this for your car is that you can't skip to the next song unless you pop it out of your car stereo. Avoid it at all cost, and do some shopping around for something much better.

Review: 1) No display 2) No EQ. 3) Can't jump to another song while playing in your car. What are you suppose to do? Pop it out, push the button and put it back in the car deck? 4) it's BIG 5) software sux 6) DON'T BUY IT!

Review: This player is simple, you don't need a display, you know what you put on your mp3 player. Further more it simply interfaces with the real world. I've gone to friends house and just put it in the tape players, the perfect party toy. Use the head phonejack and plug it into any stero. This is one of the best thought out products I've seen in years.

Review: Some minor annoyances.... Weak and small power switch, No LCD display I sometimes have problems getting my laptop to recognize the connection with the unit. The case that comes with the unit absolutely sucks. The case works just OK when attached to a belt but if you are a jogger, it flops around all over the place. I do like the fact that Realjukebox can rip and transfer names of the songs and artist. Comes with not one but two rechargeable batteries. I like the sound quality.

Review: I like this product 'cause it comes with everything I needed, including a battery charger, extra battery, car charger adapter, case, etc. I also really like the fact that you can pop it into a cassette player and start belting out tunes. Also it's well made - nice and solid. The transfers to flash RAM are fast. The transfers to added multi-media memory are slower, but I think that's because of the memory technology, not the player. It's really solidly built, which is important to me - I don't want to have to constantly worry about the device. The navigation is pretty good - you can scan files and jump from one to the next. With Audible.com files, you can also jump to sections within a file. So if I'm listening to a book and I jump temporarily to a music file, when I jump back to the book it's saved my place. Pretty cool. The problem is you have to read the directions and get used to the interface. It's worth it though. I did run into a problem where the Duo manager software didn't recognize the extra 64 meg of MMC I added. I reinstalled the software and the problem went away. It was a pain, but it was fixable.