The MP3 format is by far a reliable source for sound reproduction when heard at the right bitrate using decent sound equipment. The Rio is definately what I expected of the first portable mp3 player; it would be good, but not the device that would change the world order of music (RIAA thought so). This device is tiny, uses a mere AA battery, and never skips. The sound quality is decent, but the bass is not perfect with the equalizer fuctions on board. The music loads very quickly, but there is a mere 32mb on board (30 mins of cd quality). Another thing that irked me was the omission of a ac adapter jack. If you mount it to a stereo system an ac adapter would be a great option to a battery.
An ideal competitor should release a player about the same size with at least 64MB onboard, bass boost, an maybe consider an FM tuner.

Hardcore MP3 freaks would probably want a larger player with a gig of memory (laptop HD), backlit LCD with song title listing, ac adapter jack, and a graphic equalizer.


In short this is a good product with some limitations, but being the first on the market it is a novel product. Wait for a better player if money is tight, or go for this if you want to listen to those mp3s and don't mind upgrading in the future.

Every time I read a review that says how good MP3's sound, I feel embarrassed by my foolish generation. You know why they don't have a bass boost on the MP3? It's not that they didn't THINK OF IT. For the price tag, you would think that the machine could have a f#*!ing bass boost BUT MP3's just don't have any low range frequencies. I don't know if it's specs admit that, but here is my experience. A friend of mine wanted to have a party where he didn't have to change the CD's all the time, so he figured that he would just make a song list on MP3 and play the whole thing. He asked me to set it up. With huge floor standing Yamaha speakers (not great, typical heavy on the bass and low-mid) and the Denon amplifier all boosting the bass to THE MAXIMUM, the sound still had no bass. We then ran it through another EQ to try to get some bass, but the only way to get decent bass was if we boosted the bass so much that you couldn't even make out the words. The sound had to be so altered that you couldn't hear the lyrics. Before you choose MP3 as your new favorite audio format, run it through your stereo system and play it loud. See if you can get a good sound. When you can't, and realize that the file compression is doing more than just making the file size smaller, you can thank me.

I bought the Rio as a possible replacement for my Panasonic SL-SW405 Portable CD Player. Overall, I am satisfied with this rather expensive ($330 Cdn) little gadget, but once the novelty factor wears off, you'll notice there is lots of room for improvement.
My biggest beef is the insufficient amount of internal memory. The 32 MB can store only 34 min of music at a bitrate of 128 kbps. Now the average length of the CD's I usually listen to when I'm on the go is about 50-55 minutes. This means that 64 MB is about the minimum I would settle for, as this would extend the play time to just over 68 minutes. I'm anxiously awaiting for Diamond to come out with 32 MB add-on flash cards for the Rio, but the extra cost involved is a little too much in my opinion.

I did some experimenting with lower bitrates to increase the storage capacity, but the only way to get the 60 minutes of play time I want is by dropping down to 64 kbps. The problem is that at such a low bitrate, the sampling frequency is only 22.05 kHz, which results in significant distortion in the upper frequency range (I found that high-pitched tones tend to either disappear or sound much too harsh). Now I don't expect the audio quality of a portable to rival that of a high-end stereo system, but you have to draw the line somewhere. In my opinion, the 64 kbps compression introduces unacceptable levels of audio degradation even in this context. Unless you couldn't care less about sound quality, it's better to stick with higher bitrates like 112 kbps or 128 kbps.

So what does 128 kbps music sound like on the Rio? Apart from the fact that the bass is lacking, quite good actually. As compared to the Panasonic portable CD, the sound is near-CD quality, although the sound does seem to be a bit more "full" on the CD (probably because of the stronger bass), and the left/right audio channel separation tends to be a little blurred on the Rio. I found that replacing the earphones that come with the Rio with better ones improves things quite a bit.

On the positive side, the Rio is small, light-weight, easy to use, skip-proof and lasts a good while on a single AA battery. Overall, I give the Rio three stars out of five. To earn a full five stars in my book, the Rio would need 64 MB of memory and a bass boost function.

I was already familiar with the sound quality of mp3s before i bought the Rio and figured for the convenience and lack of skipping that the Rio would be the ticket. I was RIGHT! It does everything that it advertises....tho the 32 megs really does need to be upgraded to 64 megs to make me TOTALLY satisfied. I was surprised at how loud it can play and how quickly the mp3s load. Overall i am very satisfied with it and have been recommending it to others

Music is definatly headed toward the MP3 world, and Diamond was one of the first to make money off of it. I own a Rio and think the technology is great. It's very easy to use and plays music with outstanding quality. My downfall with the Rio is that Diamond does not support Apple and there is no software for downloading MP3's from my Macintosh. I have a few gigs of MP3's on my Powerbook so my music is very portable but I would like to use my Rio more frequently. If Diamond ever figures out that there is a whole world of Macintosh users out there my Rio would be used much more then it is.

My nephew bought one of these. He absolutely loves it. I gave it a brief listen, and was astounded at how bad it sounded with some classical, and jazz that Rich encoded into the machine. Apparently my nephew is completly oblivious to sound quality since he listens mostly to hop hip music.
Even given the fact that this is a great gadget, it fails miserably in reproducing music.