Welcome, Music Lovers! **audiofilez**

For a long time, I've been wishing and waiting for a portable MP3 player based upon the mini-CD (8 cm) format. With the introduction of the Philips EXP431, I thought my wait was finally over. I was almost right. Unless you enjoy spending money on not-quite-ready-for-prime-time products, or enjoy being "the first on your block" with some cool new technology, I do not recommend buying the EXP 431, particularly as it is currently offered (in a decontented form) in the United States of America, which is the unit being reviewed here.

Form factor
Sound quality
Firmware upgrade
Cute, inexpensive mini-CDR[W]s

U.S. recharge ripoff!
Remote ergonomics
Resume/Hold switch
Minimal tone controls
Included headphones
Philips support
No crossfader/gapkiller

The EXP431 is a member of Philips' family of "Expanium" CD players. These portable players are capable of playing data CDs of MP3s in addition to regular audio CDs. The EXP 431 is a "Pocket Expanium" -- it is based upon the mini (8 cm) CDs that fit in the smaller inner circular ring in the tray of your CD drive or player. These recordable 8cm CDs hold a maximum of between 180 and 210 megabytes, enough for more than 2 hours of very high quality MP3s.

To begin with, the volume control is a rotary potentiometer. This is a nice touch, as it permits infinite adjustability, remembers its position, and works even with all the input control buttons locked (hold mode, to prevent accidental keypresses). OTOH, the keylock cannot help prevent inadvertent volume changes, and the display cannot reveal the volume setting.

The included inline (headphones) remote control is comprehensive. It has a liquid crystal display to show track (album?) number and time. It has controls to go forward or back for album# and track# (hold down for scanning at approx. 8X playing speed). It has its own (ie, a 2nd) rotary knob volume control, which acts in series with the main unit's -- in other words, the knob on the main unit can be used to set the maximum possible volume level, and the knob on the remote can set the volume to any level between zero and the level determined by the setting in the main unit. It also has a key lock (hold) switch, which is nearly impossible to access without accidentally pressing other controls which completely surround the remote, making it difficult to hold without pressing a control. Also, even though only the edge of the disc-shaped volume control knob is barely exposed, the knob itself turns with virtually zero friction, making it far too easy to inadvertently (and perhaps drastically) change the volume setting.

The earbud headphones (earphones?) are unique, at least in my experience. Instead of a foam cover, they have a solid rubber cover around their edges. Without the foam, which compresses to fit the shape of the wearer's ear canal, the fit of these included ear buds is more hit-or-miss (those of you with perfectly round ear canals might not notice this). They include something (a tweeter?) that protrudes slightly into the ear canal, making them appear even less comfortable than they are. Alas, they are too bright-sounding (emphasize treble too much) for my taste. The EXP431's tone settings ('flat', more treble, more bass, still more bass) are better than nothing, but could do nothing to tame the overly-bright-sounding included earphones.

I gave up on the inline remote control, and most of my listening has been done without it. The connections are all standard 1/8" (3.5 mm) stereo (3-conductor) jacks, so I just plugged a set of favorite plain old stereo earbuds directly into the main unit.

The main unit is also illogical. There is a semi-recessed 3-position slide switch on the rear (bottom) of the unit for locking the main unit's keys against accidental keypresses. I've never before owned a unit in which the key lock control was so difficult to locate. The middle position is for "Resume", but it is difficult to use and does not always work properly. It has not failed since the firmware upgrade, but it remains too tricky to access. My only other CD player -- a fairly high-end Sony -- ALWAYS resumes right where it left off. Why Philips would want to make it so difficult to make the player resume right where it left off puzzles me: I need the player's help to resume; I do not need the player's help to go to the first track (of the first album) on the disc every time I press Play...

Meanwhile, two very prominent buttons on the face (top) of the unit are for using its "Favorites" feature. This is even sillier! How many of you are going to be buying 8cm MP3 CDs that contain tracks you wish to skip? I will be burning my own discs, and do not intend to waste limited disc space on tracks that are not my favorites, even though Philips did waste precious control (and firmware + memory) space on buttons for this purpose.

Too bad Philips did not implement support for playlists (.M3U files) of MP3 files. Make sure your compilation/album tracks are (re)named to include the track number first, because the EXP 431 only plays the tracks within an album (a directory/folder of files) in alphabetical (or shuffled) order.

Of course there are the typical buttons to permit you to scan fwd/back (though I was unable to scan backwards from/past the beginning of an MP3 track), skip tracks fwd/back, skip albums fwd/back. There is a button to switch among various text displays for file name, artist name, album name, and track name based upon each MP3 file's ID3 tag info. The main unit's LCD has one 12-character line for this text; lines longer than this will scroll by horizontally, slowly, twice, then reappear, truncated. However, this info is only visible on the main unit's display (in your pocket; this is a Pocket Expanium, remember?) but not on the remote control's LCD (neither LCD is backlit).

There are two other ways in which the Philips engineers missed the boat. There is a Mode button that, if pressed enough times, lets you select among repeat/shuffle modes. The new mode takes effect once 1 second has elapsed since the button was last pressed. But as soon as it takes effect, it springs into action, interrupting whatever song may have been playing at the time! Thus it is practically impossible to shuffle one's way through the disc starting with a desired song.

Another annoyance is that the unit has a keyclick (keybeep) to acknowledge keypresses. This beep can be turned on or off. But if you have it on, and you enable the keylock, the unit dutifully acknowledges keypresses that it has been told to (and will otherwise) ignore. When I'm listening to music with a portable player and I don't want the music to be disrupted by an accidental keypress, I also don't want the music to be sonically punctuated by accidental keypresses. Dammit, Philips, if the keypress is being ignored, don't sonically acknowledge it!!!

Here is where the unit really falls down, though when it's behaving itself, the unit's sonic qualities should be high enough to satisfy anyone who is going to use the device as intended, provided one does not use the included earphones.

Occasionally when the EXP431 gets to a new track, it just sits there, with the counter showing 0:00, forever (or until the batteries wear out, whichever comes first). No sound, other than that of the laser pickup being continually mechanically re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-repositioned.

I have heard lots and lots of little "dropouts" while listening to this unit, even while sitting still, typing away at my PC's keyboard. I am using only Memorex CD-Rs and CD-RWs, as they hold 210 MB of data. If I am limited to 8cm CDs that can only hold 180 MB of data, I'm not interested in owning the unit, so I have not tried other discs (the unit does, by the way, come with a blank 8 cm CD-R of 180M capacity). The problem seemed worse using CD-RWs than CD-Rs. (Update: v4 firmware seems to have fixed this problem.)

So I called Philips customer support to find out if the EXP431 should be able to handle the 210MB CD-R[W]s or not. This was a total fiasco. Philips should be sued for non-support! Their support people -- once I was finally able to reach them -- were almost completely ignorant about this product. The better ones seemed capable of reading to me from the owner's manual, at best. One told me the unit could handle either 650 MB or 700 MB CDs! Two told me that I could call a 900# ("no phone sex, thanks; I just want a straightforward answer to a simple question!") for "tech support". Twice I was promised calls back from "supervisors" within 48 hours, but no such calls ever materialized.

The Philips EXP 431's firmware is user-upgradable. The owner's manual mentions going to http://audio.philips.com to check to see if firmware newer than what's in the player is available, but there was nothing about firmware on their web site*...

The EXP431 is powered by two AAA 1.5V batteries. This is a good thing, as portables powered by a single 1.5V cell tend to be insufficiently loud for outdoor settings. The EXP 431 is sufficiently loud for me, provided the MP3 being played was not encoded at a very low volume level. The unit also comes supplied with a 115V AC power adapter. This could have been a good thing...

The EXP431 is reasonably well laid out physically. I like the "form factor" overall. The 2 AAA batteries are under a small cover under the disc. The pair of batteries will only last for 2 (but not 3) CDs worth of MP3s. Personally, I find it a bit on the expensive/wasteful side to spend $1 on a pair of disposable batteries just to listen to 2+ discs, and annoying to have to open the unit and remove the little CD in order to replace batteries. My other CD player -- which cost about the same as the EXP431 -- came with rechargeable batteries and an AC adapter, and I just plug the unit in when I'm finished using it, and the reusable energy storage devices are soon ready for the next use...

If you visit the Philips EXP431 product page, you will see that the EXP431 is available in "North America, Europe, Asia Pacific", and that it comes with "ECO-PLUS Ni-MH" rechargeable batteries and has a "Built-in recharge capability". However, my unit came with no batteries and Philips customer support was completely ignorant regarding the alleged recharging feature or its use. So I took it upon myself to purchase some NiMH AAA cells to see if an additional expenditure would turn my brand-new long-awaited EXP431 into a decent portable music playing device. But, alas, I have been unable to stumble upon any kind of "Built-in recharge capability" in my unit.

It is bad enough that U.S. customers do not get the NiMH rechargeable batteries that are included with the unit in other markets, but by removing the recharging function from the unit itself, Philips has gone too far!!! This is a portable unit, and the AC power adapter was intended by the unit's creators to be used to recharge the batteries (without having to remove them); not to sit still and listen to music in the vicinity of an AC power outlet. "Americans" do not need any help from the Dutch Royal Philips Company when it comes to wasting [energy] resources. This omission (deletion!) is inexcusable.

Also on the inexcusable list is Philips' Customer Support, and the way the unit sometimes "gets stuck" at the beginning of a track. The bogus keylocks are only slightly less excusable.

Despite how long I have been waiting for a device such as the Philips EXP431, it will be my pleasure, given the unit's many foibles, and especially given Philips' total inability to support the EXP431, to return this unit to Best Buy for a full refund.

For this kind of money, the unit needs to come with rechargeable batteries and built-in recharging capability, an external battery pack (2 AA(?) cells), and probably an FM/AM(/TV/WX?) tuner as well. And, of course, EVERY MP3 PLAYER OUGHT TO BE ABLE TO PERFORM YOUR CHOICE OF MP3-GAP-KILLING OR 12-SECOND CROSSFADES ON-THE-FLY.