Egoman LA310 CD & MP3 Player

The Egoman LA310 is an audio CD player with the capability to decode MP3 audio, and VCD files stored on a standard audio CD. Its manufacturing origin is in Shenzhen, China. It can play CD-R and CD-RW media, and decode MP3, VCD, and standard CD (CD-DA) audio formats. It has shock protection, and the internal memory can store 480-seconds for MP3, or 45-seconds for CD-DA audio data.

LCD Display

It has a generously sized Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) dot-matrix panel, which can display ID3 tag information such as the song title and additional track information. There is also an impressive looking graphic equaliser with five mode presets.

Power Supply

A pair of AA size batteries powers the unit, and there is also a supplied 4.5 V at 600 mA DC adapter for powering the unit from the mains.

On battery operation with a pair of standard dry cells, one can expect four hours play time, which extends to up to eight hours by using high capacity Ni-MH batteries.

Operating Modes

There are physical switches for directory navigation and controlling the unit. It has a switch for enabling the charge mode, and a switch to lock the controls. The modes of play are random, intro, and repeat.

Sound Quality

The audio output is 15 mW per channel through a pair of headphones with 32 Ω coils. The original headphones were of basic design, and I ditched those and used my Sony pair, which provided a better sound.

Review

Manufactured to a reasonable quality finish and designed in transparent coloured plastic, it was one of the earliest CD players with MP3 capability. One could have a CD filled with hundreds of MP3 files, which it would easily play. One disadvantage with this early version was that it was a little choosy with some of the bit rate formats, however later versions were much improved.

Specification

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