Monolith Premium MX7000 1GB MP3 Player MP3 Player Best Buys

Amazing quality MP3 player. - 15 Feb 2006

0 out of 0 found this review helpful.

This player has everything. Build quality is second to none, with hard metal casing and solid-feeling buttons. Dual colour display (on black) looks very cool and navigation is a breeze after only a couple of hours use. Sound quality is second to none - it blows away every other player I've owned in this respect.
Battery life is also amazing - just plug the player into your usb port and in 2 hours it's fully charged and will give you 15-18 hours of music.
It's also loaded with features you don't see on most other players, such as the ability to make timer recordings from its FM radio, and preset up to 30 stations. It records straight from line-in or mic (built-in or external) with adjustable sample rates, and even lets you view text files. Throw in an auto-sleep function, wake-to-music timer, variable tempo control, stopwatch (the list goes on), and you have the most robust, feature rich and aesthetically pleasing player both in it's price range and well beyond. Did I mention it's also tiny?
It's extremely rare to find a product which is streets ahead in every department, but this player is one of those rare gems. Stunning.

Wonderful Product - 28 Jan 2006

0 out of 0 found this review helpful.

Just want to say that this is a wonderful piece of kit. Would be 5 stars but memory just too low...

Extremely easy to use, extremely easy to load music onto. If you are thinking of buying this, I recommend it wholeheartedly.

A timeless classic design. Can't wait for the next one to come out.

Beautiful item and an antique for the future...

Great little DAP! - 23 Jan 2006

1 out of 1 found this review helpful.

GREAT LITTLE DAP !!!
This isn't really a review, its more of a personal comment about the MX7000 Premium MONOLITH.

Within my family we have a Sony NWA3000, a Sony Vaio Pocket Music Player, a Creative Zen Micro and an ipod nano. The MONOLITH beats all of them hands down on sound quality. And LOUDness.

For years I've been searching for a DAP which has sufficient woomph to drive my very expensive but inefficient headphones - now at last I have found one. It also drives a pair of mid-range Sony EX71SL buds so hard that they hurt.

It is also built like the proverbial brick sh*thouse, feels as solid as a rock and snuggles in your hand - it oozes quality, even compared to the Sony kit mentioned. It hasn't quite got the elegance or panache of the Sonys of the sexiness of the Creative, it's more of the little rugged type with a few minor rough edges, with a chunky feel even if it is very small. It makes the ipod nano feel like a cheap plastic toy.

The MONOLITH navigation system is more akin to using a PC than a DAP or mobile phone - being folder and filename based rather than using ID3 tags which suits me down to the ground. Life is too short to spend editing tags - I know by filename who the artist is and what the track is called, why should I need my DAP to tell me that?

The OLED screen is nice and bright and has a definite 3D effect probably caused by the contrasting blue and orange colours. The darker orange status line seems to be slightly behind the blue info display, which is a pleasing illusion and is a nice change from the pretty garish colour LCDs which are in DAP fashion these days. In my day I would have said that the MONOLITH display has a lot of class, my son just calls it cool.

My only gripes about the MONOLITH is the design of the fonts and symbols used on the screen and the lack of a carry-case. A slightly smaller font would improve things in my opinion, the folder names are restricted to 9 characters visible at a time and filenames start to auto-scroll if they are longer than 12 chars. Of course a better solution would be to have a bigger screen with the same size fonts, but that would probably increase the cost.

My old MONOLITH II came with a nice carry-case, but the Premium doesn't have one. The price has dropped by ten quid though and considering the general improvements to the player I'm not complaining. It doesn't really need a case being built the way it is.

If eStarlabs can just deliver a 60gb version of this DAP I would be in nirvana.

Thoroughly recommended.