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Page 2 of 3 When you connect the AU581 to your Windows PC it will be detected and installed automatically without needing any drivers just like any good storage device would or should, however just like the Audio Steno AU840 we reviewed last week, the transfer rate on this one is poor at best, averaging around 1MB per second or worse, which is USB1.1 speeds, nowhere near the USB2.0 speeds this thing is supposed to be capable of. To transfer 195MB of MP3s over my laptop’s USB2.0 connection took around 8 minutes, which is terrible to say the least. Included USB Cable  When transferring your MP3/WMA/WAV files over, you can’t make use of playlists with this Steno, but if you organise your music by folders you can take advantage of a ‘Play by Folder’ option within the AU581. Or if all your MP3’s have ID3 tags, you can also choose to play music by Artist, Album, Genre or Year. So even with 2 or 4GB of music on there, it’s still quite easy to keep it in order, and if you get bored of your music collection and don’t feel like waiting 2 hours for your computer to transfer over different songs, simply take advantage of the built-in FM Radio, but you better hope you’re in a good reception area, as reception is not the best with the AU581, but should be adequate in most built-up areas. While music is playing, the single colour OLED screen displays a few basic bits of information, such as time elapsed and song length, song title, battery level, track number, volume level and equaliser setting (7 different equalizer presets are available), which is quite a bit of information considering the screen size and resolution (128x32pixels). When no buttons have been pressed the screen turns off after 10 seconds to save battery, though this time length can be changed from the menu system in the player. Screen - Closeup  The sound out of the AU581 is excellent quality considering its size and price, the headphones which are included are a little questionable in terms of their quality and produce a bit of a tinny sound, but I plugged in a cheap set of Sony headphones and the sound is crystal clear, with well defined but not over the top treble levels, and good bass. Mess with the equaliser settings on the player and it’s just going to ruin things, it’s best to keep it on ‘normal’ settings. Included Headphones  Like many MP3 players on the market these days, the AU581 includes a voice recording feature which works very well thanks a rather sensitive microphone on the side of the unit. The 2GB model is capable or recording over 120 hours of voice into mono-WAV files, although the internal Lithium-Ion battery will only last for 9 hours, it’s still a lot of recording capability. Navigating the menu system on the AU581 is as simple as it can get, to simply start playing music you go ‘Music > Direct Play’ and it starts playing in alphabetical order. As we’ve mentioned earlier you can play by artist or album etc if you wish, this only requires one or two more simple steps, and it’s not confusing in the slightest. This I think is the best feature of the AU581, the fact it’s easy to use, real easy!
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