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| Hisonic 1GB Wireless Headset-Style MP3 Player, MH-601 | 
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| Brand: Hisonic
Category: Sports
List Price: $79.95
Buy New: $59.95
You Save: $20.00 (25%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 23369
Media: Misc.
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 10 x 2 x 7.5
MPN: MH-601
Model: MH-601
EAN: 6926688200782
ASIN: B000NU6NHQ
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | 6-Style Equalizer: Normal, Classical, Pop, Rock, Jazz, Bass | | • | 7-Color Back-lit LCD display: Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, Purple, Cyan, 7-area | | • | 6-Language selectable: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korea | | • | Auto power-off timer: 10/30/60 Minutes | | • | Display song title and lyrics |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
This Sport MP3 Player, is perfect for those people constantly on the go, enjoy music while you work, travel or exercise. Fold neatly together into a pocket, weighs a little over 3 Oz, very light to carry, excellent sound quality. Best of all, no wires dangling around while you are exercising. The MH-601 supports both MP3 and WMA, is able to delete files without connecting to PC, CD recording to MP3 format, has selective playback modes and listen in, A-B repeat function, 7 color back light LCD display, Songs title/lyric display, EQ effects: Normal, Classic, Pop, Rock, Jazz and Bass, auto power off and USB flash disk.
This newest model is plug-and-play, no software is required.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
Great but the 2GB model is a better deal for the money. June 4, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Now that Hisonic's 2GB model is available for $49.95 plus $7.50 shipping from Kaito Electronics (or in some cases, free shipping), why buy the 1GB model when you can get twice as much storage for only 10 dollars more?
(Updated October 4, 2008).
I now own no less than 3 of these phones. As it takes about 20 to 25 minutes to load 2 Gigabytes of music (about 16 to 24 hours' worth) from my computer to the phones, I like to load them and keep them loaded with different styles of music. I just grab whichever phones hold the type of music I am in the mood for and go about my business (I like LOTS of variety - I'm funny that way). Besides, one never knows when the first one is going to go bust and I never want to be without one. Yes, it is that important. Music is my life.
However, my original headset was made under the Frisby brand (my second and third are both branded "Hisonic" but are identical to the original "Frisby" - for the most part). After 14 months of use, the Frisby is starting to die. A couple of months ago, it was still working fine. That is to say, it would run for 12 hours on a fully recharged AAA battery. In the last couple of months, the MP3 player (and/or battery) is losing playing time and failing prematurely. It still works but not as long, in fact only about 30 minutes.
I originally suspected that sweat was shorting out the battery connection to the player because of exposed screws at the bend/swivel joint in the band as well as where the band connects to the player and battery shells. So, I wrapped electrical tape around those exposed screw heads to keep the sweat out. Alas, it was to no avail. The player died after 20 minutes of use today. Upon returning home, I placed a fresh battery in the chamber and turned on the player. It's battery icon in the display showed it as being fully recharged -- for about 10 seconds. Then it displayed as being empty and the "low battery" warning displayed and the player shut down. I am beginning to think that sweat is not the issue after all (although, it might be). It is simply old age (not mine, the player's).
I believe you can expect at least one year of reliable service from this player. After that, it will slowly degrade in service until it quits altogether a few months after that. Note: My other two newer Hisonic players still work just fine. They are 4 months and 2 weeks old, respectively.
Is a year's service worth $49.95? You betcha!! Despite the player's shortcomings, I wouldn't be without it. There is nothing better or more reliable out there in Amazonland. "You pays your money; you takes your chances" (so to colloquially speak).
Read more details of the player's operation and features in my original review below.
(Below text revised August 12, 2008)
Having researched the web, I found models from Aiwa, Coby, Nextar, Zopid and Frisby (a division of Comsis Computer). Frisby sold the patents on this model to Kaito Electronics which now markets it under the "Hisonic" brand.
Clearly, this Hisonic (formerly "Frisby") model is the winner. While some of the others were less (and more) expensive, they all had less storage space than this Hisonic model.
This Hisonic model does have a few minor drawbacks. It seems to be somewhat flimsily constructed in folding sections that are not very ergonomically correct or comfortable to wear for extended periods despite the rotating earpieces. The connecting bar at the folding joint rubs against the bone of your skull behind your ears requiring you to hook the bars over the tops of your ears in order to prevent the earpieces from slipping and falling off. This makes the tops of your ears stick out. Aside from making you look silly, it is somewhat uncomfortable at first although one gets used to it after a while. I find that it helps to point the connecting bar as far down the back of your neck as possible.
How does it sound? The overall sound quality of this Hisonic model is, in my estimation, "adequate but not breath-taking". However, I doubt if any of the other brands of phones in this style sound any better than this one. Any headphone that sits ON the ear is not going to yield as much bass response as those earpieces that are lodged INSIDE the ear canal. But then, with the IN-THE-EAR plugs, you have to deal with those annoying cords and who wants that?
The Hisonic has 6 equalization (tone) settings. The only one of the settings I found to be satisfactory is the one named "Bass". Incidentally, the louder you turn the volume, the more bass there seems to be in relation to the mid-range and treble.
To save space on my hard drive, I ripped most of my CD's into WMA files (using Windows Media Player) with a variable bit rate of 85 to 145 kbps (the intermediate setting). This may account for the lack of "highs" in the WMA files. You may be able to achieve better results by adopting a higher bit rate during the ripping of your CD's to WMA files (though it will take up more space on your drives) or by choosing to save the files in MP3 format.
This Hisonic model runs on a single AAA battery. Regardless of what the manufacturer is claiming, I recently placed a fully recharged rechargeable battery in this headphone and listened continuously for 12 hours before the battery finally quit. I think that is pretty darned good. Alkaline batteries may last longer.
Incidentally, if you are going to use rechargeable AAA batteries, don't use Sony brand (they are just a millimeter too long to fit in the battery compartment of the Hisonic headphones). Instead, I found that Eveready Energizers (also available here on Amazon) will fit just fine in this model.
How many hours of music will it hold? I was able to fill up 2 Gigabytes of storage space with 484 Monophonic MP3 files of 3 minutes duration each (taken from CD reissues of old 78 rpm records). That brings the total to a WHOPPING 24 HOURS! (Hisonic also makes a 1GB model for less money but the 2GB model is a much better value for only a few dollars more). Depending on the bit-rate at which you copied the MP3 or WMA files from your CD's, you may get variable results. WMA files may take up less space on the flash drive if copied at a lower bit-rate, but they won't sound as good. You will just have to experiment to find a happy medium between longer playing time and better upper frequency response.
AAA batteries are small and easy to find. A spare is easy to carry in one's pocket. So, if you have a spare battery (or two) in your pocket, you can listen practically ALL DAY without having to repeat any music! It is like having a Juke-Box in your head only much less cumbersome.
At least one other reviewer said he had a problem with the battery being drained somewhat during file transfer from the computer to the headphones. While that is possible, it should not even be an issue as the battery need not be installed at all in order to transfer files. In fact, the instructions recommend removing the battery before transfering files. Whatever power the headphones may need for file transfer (if any) is derived directly from the USB port of your computer.
The Hisonic is VERY programmable and you can choose to play the tracks in the order in which they were loaded or in random shuffle order and some variations there-of. It even has folder partitioning capabilities so you can jump directly to other music genres depending on your mood without having to crawl and wade through many contiguous files to get there.
The thin lever on the underside of the right earpiece that is used to enter the display menues and navigate through them is somewhat flimsy and seems as though it might break if handled clumsily or carelessly. However, I have not experienced any malfunctions in 12 months of intermittent use so far. It is somewhat confusing at first to figure out how to manipulate this lever to get to where you want to go. Pushing it forward or backward simply moves it to play the next track or the previous track. To enter the menues and sub-folders, you have to push the lever straight in upon itself and then move the lever forward or backward to navigate through the menues and functions.
As others have observed, transferring MP3 or WMA files from your computer to this headphone's flash drive is simple and easy but somewhat slow (about 20 to 25 minutes to load 2 GB worth of music).
I need to mention one IMPORTANT 'caveat emptor' here.
The new Hisonic models have a file pre-loaded on the flash drive labeled "MICIN.DIR" which did not appear in the models previously manufactured by Frisby.
It is important to remember to place the MP3 files OUTSIDE of this "MICIN.DIR" file in the general "F-drive" (or "Removeable Disc") file instead of inside the "MICIN.DIR" file. If you place your MP3 files inside of this file, your headphone display will not recognize the presence of any files.
How much does it cost? The Frisby brand formerly sold here on Amazon for $100 and subsequently $80. The exact same model, now marketed under the Hisonic brand, has been reduced to $70 and then $60. Oddly, Amazon seems to have this exact same model listed three different times with three different prices. In one instance, the price shown is $49.95 with $7.50 shipping direct from Kaito Electronics. In some cases, shipping is free. You'll need to do several searches on Amazon until you find it at that price (or just follow the link to my other reviews).
While not perfect, the Hisonic 2GB MP3/WMA player is simply the best cordless, headphone-enclosed player of its kind available today.
I hope this review has been useful to you.
Dan (private consumer not affiliated with any company).
Good product for the price February 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this player to use when working out, and it is a good value for the money-- at Amazon's "save 50% price," anyway.
That said, it has its little quirks. For example, although it allegedly supports WMA files, it will not recognize them when made in lossless mode (which of course is the whole point of using WMA instead of MP3). And while you can "sync" from Windows Media Player, as a way to automatically convert your songs to a format the player can handle, that doesn't work terribly well with a mixed selection of songs. Ordinarily the player just plays all the songs loaded into it one after the other. Or, you can put different groupings of songs into different subdirectories which lets you to play songs just in that subdirectory. But if you "sync" a playlist of songs from different albums from Media Player, it will put the songs into different subdirectories-- which means the player will not play all the songs as planned. The only solution I've found to that is to manually go into the filesystem for the player while it is connected to the computer and move all the songs into one directory. So drag and drop from your music library to the player, as suggested in the manual, is quicker unless you must convert the files due to the WMA format problem.
Another quirk that threw me off at first: supposedly this system is "plug and play." But keep in mind that when the manual says "stop all processes" before connecting the player, it really means stop *all* processes. The first time you connect it you must shut down your computer, connect the player, and restart it or it will not work.
All in all, it works well for my purposes, though it sticks out a bit more than I'd like at the sides when I'm doing some of my stretches. It probably can't be helped, though, as there must be room for the AAA battery on one side and the electronics on the other.
 Cheap September 26, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Worked Great for the first week. Now it will not turn on, it just quit working. It was not dropped, hit, kicked or abused in any way it just broke after 1 week.
 Awesome Player September 14, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I always used a CD walkman when I worked out. My kids insisted that I needed an mp3 player and bought me one for my birthday. I wanted something compact without cords that I could run with. At first I was a little intimidated. This is my first mp3 player and I wasn't even sure how to dowload files. But it is so easy to use and the sound is awesome. I would definately recommend this player.
Very Good, not perfect - but died after 7 months August 23, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Excellent for working out. A convenient mp3 player. It could be improved with a lower profile - sticks out to the sides a bit much. Nice design though.
Follow-up: My player died 7 months later during playback. The price, however, is so good and the product is so nice that I'll probably get another.
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