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The Terratec M3PO is a hi-fi separate CD player that has the added ability to play CDs containing MP3 music files. And since you can fit around 10 albums of near-CD quality in MP3 format on a CDRom, this means you could make compilations of any CDs that you own, and leave them to play for a whole day without repeating.
Additionally, you'll be able to use your hi-fi to listen to any MP3s you've downloaded from the internet using your PC - or at least the ones that aren't protected by copyright, of course.
The M3PO resembles an ordinary CD player, albeit in 'clash-with-the-rest-of-your-system' silver, but the transport controls are decidedly non-standard. It's controlled using a large dial that also doubles as the select button when you push it. This seems fiddly at first but the menu system is well planned and easy to get to grips with.
The display contains four lines: the bottom shows the time elapsed and remaining, while the rest show the names of folders or individual tracks. You can scroll through the other tracks on the CD while it's playing, or search for a particular title.
For those who like practising difficult guitar parts alongside the original song, you can alter the speed of playback without affecting the pitch. You can also compile play lists and check a track's data rate.
But the real advantage to the M3PO is the option to fit an IDE hard drive of any capacity inside. Copying tracks from a CD to the hard drive is a simple procedure and once they're loaded, the device effectively becomes a huge jukebox capable of storing thousands of songs.
The M3PO's software can also be updated by downloading patches from the web, writing them to a CD and then 'playing' this disc on the unit. This would, of course, require you to have a CD writer.
See also:
Quality audio and plenty of connectivity on a card that is set on stealing Creative's Live! crown. 15 Nov 2000
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