RCA Lyra2 - Digital Media Player & FM Radio

Introduction

The first version of RCA's Lyra Personal Digital Player, as noted in our report elsewhere in this section on portable digital media players, was one of the most full-featured digital audio walkabouts. The US$299 Lyra2 adds to the utility of the original with features like a built-in FM radio tuner and a handy belt-clip control that duplicates the Play/Stop/Skip and Volume controls found on the player itself.

Most of the features of the 1.0 release are still present, but a few features have been added or improved: there's still a built-in digital signal processor (DSP), with settings optimized for rock, pop, jazz and even a 5-band graphic EQ for defining your own styles. The DSP also supports the Lyra2's new FM tuner, delivering enhanced bass response for radio broadcasts.

Missing in action are options available for the 1.0 product such as a battery charger with rechargeable NiMH batteries, and the AC adapter option that converted the Lyra 1.0 itself into a NiMH battery charger. The Lyrazone website also seems to be playing down the existence of the parallel port-connected version of the CF adapter -- it isn't even listed among the available accessories for the new unit.

The  unit known officially as the RD2211 uses standard AA batteries, but ships without the optional AC power adapter. The package does, however, include a car cassette adapter that allows a car equipped with a cigarette lighter and a cassette player to play skip-free digital media files without hassles.

The package includes the player (about 4.75" H, 2.52" W, .98" D), a set of hat-friendly "back of the head" headphones, a pair of Duracell AA Alkaline batteries and the above-mentioned car cassette adapter, USB adapter and CompactFlash card, as well as documentation and a CD of applications, drivers and sample files. The Lyra2 lasts up to 12 hours per set of batteries and powers down after being idle for 60 seconds.

CompactFlash

The Lyra2 includes a CompactFlash (CF) expansion slot and ships with a 64MB CF removable memory card, providing storage for up to 128 minutes of digital audio. By purchasing one or more additional CF cards, you can easily carry around hours of music. (Note, however, these suckers are expensive! The 48MB module sells for a whopping US$199. This makes the US$299 price of the Lyra2 seem pretty reasonable by comparison.) You can eject the memory card from the player and insert it into the included USB-connected adapter for your PC (running Windows 98SE, Windows Me or Windows 2000) or Mac running Mac OS 8.5 or newer).

One attribute of the 1.0 release that unfortunately hasn't changed is the annoying pause that occurs while the system switches between the radio and digital media player, or switching between downloadable music formats. Switching from the FM tuner to digital media playback, for example, takes the Lyra2 no less than 15 seconds.

Not an MP3 Player?

Have you noticed that we haven't mentioned anything about MP3 files yet in this review? There's a good reason. This product does not play MP3 files. For a product sold as an MP3 player, that's pretty shocking, but it's true, and it's the reason of a great deal of grumbling in the Lyra user community. The package comes with RealJukeBox and MusicMatch Jukebox. These programs allow you to convert MP3 files into a special encrypted format used on the Lyra.

Moreover, the system is only partially compatible with Microsoft's Windows Media Player (versions 7 and 8). On the surface, it looks encouraging. The Lyra2's USB adapter is compatible with Microsoft Media Player and the USB adapter is directly recognized by Microsoft's "Portable Devices" manager. With it, we were able to easily move MP3 files to the Lyra2. The problem is: the resulting files don't play on the Lyra. Instead of music, you just hear static. What's weird about all of this is the fact that the Lyra is specifically mentioned at the Microsoft website as being Windows Media Player compatible.

We also tested the enhanced Windows Media Player features found in Windows XP. Again, it seemed to work like a charm with the Lyra2, once we downloaded the updated driver from SCM Micro, the maker of the CompactFlash USB adapter. We even managed to test the unit successfully on a USB 2.0 port. However, appearances were deceiving. MP3 files could easily be transferred to the Lyra, but the files wouldn't play.

This limitation, according to the unofficial Lyra FAQ at Planet Lyra, appears to be deliberate. (In fact, the same problem afflicted version 1.0 of the Lyra.) Any Lyra file, it notes, whether MP3 or G2, is encrypted by RealJukebox before being copied to the CF card. Any attempt to circumvent this process, e.g., copying files to the card without RealJukebox, leads to an unplayable file. The fact that Windows Media Player isn't encoding the MP3s into a specially encrypted format is the reason the resulting files don't play on the Lyra2. Thus, the supplied MusicMatch Jukebox or RealJukeBox titles provide the only easy ways to convert existing audio tracks from CDs or other sources to the encrypted MP3 format supported by the Lyra, known as "MPx." This is due to the unfortunate fact that RCA for some bizarre reason (pressure from the music industry?) has decided to encrypt MP3s and RealAudio files into a proprietary format for playback on the unit.

Here's another twist for you conspiracy theorists: We found that when using Microsoft's proprietary Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, this problem doesn't exist. We were able to plug the USB adapter into our PC and simply drag suitably encoded WMA files from our music library right onto the CF card, which appears to the system as a removable drive -- identified on our system as Drive E.

In fact, this drag-and-drop capability really starts to shine under Windows XP. With it, when you connect the USB adapter, a dialog pops up asking you if you would like to play the files, or mount the device as a folder of files. You can choose to select one or the other by default, if you don't want to be presented with this option in the future. Let's be clear about this, though: this feature is incompatible with the MPx files required by the Lyra.

Songs in MP3 format behave the same as WMA files on the desktop side of the equation, so why not on the Lyra2 player? You can simply drag-and-drop WMA files onto the Compact Flash card "drive" and then pop the CF card out, insert it into the Lyra2 and hit "play." Surely, we're not the only ones who want to be able to do this with MP3s, too. After all, the Lyra ships with a USB adapter that displays the contents of the CF card as a Removable Storage device with drag-and-drop file transfer capabilities, but you can't use it. The Lyra's inability to deal with MP3 or Real Audio files handled in this fashion is asinine. This is, we think, the way a portable digital audio player ought to work. Not being able to do this with an MP3 is bad enough, but having the system seemingly allow you to copy the files over, only to discover that the resulting file doesn't play on the Lyra2 is inexcusable. And, of course, the oddball MPx files the Lyra is capable of playing won't play on your desktop computer, either.

This is doubly annoying if you've ever used a Pocket PC handheld device, which not only plays unadulterated MP3s and WMA files, but allows the files to be seamlessly transferred from the portable device to the desktop computer or vice versa.

Down-converting to 128K

If, however, you use the supplied jukebox tools and don't care about this forced encryption, there's still another "feature" of the Lyra2 that may disappoint. The Lyra automatically downsamples any file recorded at a bit rate higher than 128Kbps. What's odd about this down-conversion situation is that it's apparently unnecessary -- the software decoder doesn't use this parameter during playback. This forced conversion not only slows the downloading process, it presents a problem if, like a growing number of MP3 enthusiasts, you prefer to encode files at 160Kbps or higher (although undocumented, the Lyra2 can play files with bit rates as high as 256) for optimum audio fidelity.

Here are a few tips and tricks we discovered while testing the unit.

1. Don't use Windows Media Encoder v7 to encode files. The files it produces play back as nothing but silence on the Lyra. Instead, use an earlier version of Microsoft's Windows Media converter or a third-party utility with an appropriate WMA codec, such as is found in the Shuffler Music Converter, or its successor, the dBpowerAMP Music Converter (dMC), at dbpoweramp.com.
2. The minimum bit rate for Windows Media files is 64K. WMA files encoded at lower bit rates won't play back on the Lyra. MPx files, however, can be encoded at rates as low as 24Kbps. This rate, while far too low for acceptable music quality, is adequate for audio books, such as may be found at www.audiohighway.com

Conclusion Our successful tests with current and next-generation Windows operating systems suggests that Lyra2 buyers shouldn't have any problems with the unit if you upgrade to a new version of Windows in the future.

Mac users, as usual, have to put up with a limited feature set (MusicMatch is the only option) and a current incompatibility with OS X, which can't even detect the USB adapter shipped with the package. And MusicMatch's features, which are not all that hot on the PC (the PC version's 16-character filenames make a mess of the majority of MP3s currently in circulation) are even worse in the Mac edition, which truncates names to DOS-style 8-character file names.

On paper, the Lyra2's ability to handle MP3, Windows Media and RealPlayer files right out of the box would seem to make it one of the most flexible players on the market. We also liked its cassette-deck adapter, which allows the player to be conveniently used in the car.  It's a pity that RCA continues, for whatever reason, to favour Microsoft's proprietary WMA format and bizarrely encrypted variants of MP3 and RA files, over more widely supported MP3 and RealAudio formats. If the overzealous attempts at copy-protection were eliminated and downsampling was made optional, this player would be much more flexible.

For Further Reading:

• Press Release - RCA MP3 lineup now includes K@zoo!, three Lyra models, and MP3/CD.
• LyraZone.com - Product information about the Lyra2.
• Windowsmedia.com - A list of other digital audio players.
• ttscoa.tripod.com - "Planet Lyra," an unofficial FAQ site.
• groups.yahoo.com/group/rca-lyra-mp3 - User forum.
• home.knuut.de/frank.friemel - batch file processor for converting MP3 files to WMA.
• www.mart-fischer.de - Technical information.
• interbug.com/lyra - how to change the Lyra's startup screen.
• O'Grady's PowerPage: RCA Lyra Raises the iPod Bar  [Jan. 21, 2003]