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Summary: FANTASTIC! Diamond got it perfect this time!
Review: Diamond has corrected all the nuisances and issues with the previous Rio player. This version is excellent! More than enough memory, cool interface, and quick downloads from the computer. I couldn't ask for anything else!
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Summary: Great but expensive and limited gadget
Review: The Rio is fantastic --the ability to create a tiny portable collection of my favorite songs. For the price,however, I would except much more memory. I will probably go with the mini disc player which has more capacity for essentially the same price. You can get entire desktops for a bit more than the price of the Rio. Increase the memory, lower the price and I will definitely keep one with me all the time.
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Summary: My special use of the Rio and MP3 for speed learning.
Review: I give the Rio 5 stars in spite of some flaws. It is a new product, yet when compared to its unique features gets a high rating from me. I do use the RIO for music when walking, etc. However I have found it very valuable to me as an education cram machine. I bought a series of videos on SQL7 Database certification. Most of the instruction is audio (90%) which lends itself to the RIO audio player. What I do is digitally record each chapter as a .WAV file about 10 to 18 minutes each. I use soundforge software. I normalize to -10db. Then noisefilter the gaps for silence. I then do a time compression of about 30%; this seems to work the best, then convert the .WAV to .MP3 at 32 bits mono. This is about the lowest bit-rate before it sounds like Darth Vader. I am getting about a 1-10 file size reduction and 30% time reduction before loading to the RIO. I can load 4 hours of clean, clear voice instructions in one package. I play it when I walk, in my car and other free listening time. Great educational aid!
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Summary: Mini disc vs. Rio...
Review: I'm not sure why all the "mini disc" folks keep on posting their preference of mini disc over MP3 portables like the Rio...I guess it's sorta' like the threatened feeling all those who owned cassette players had when CD's players arrived on the scene.So what if mini disc produces audio quality at the is equivalent to 320kbps! There is a "threshold" to the human's ear in being able to resolve or hear the difference between 128kbps and 320kbps. I have done quite a bit of experimenting with different levels of bit rate recording with MP3 and I can tell you this...I am unable to hear any resolvable difference between 128 and 320kbps. Anything below 128Kbps degrades in sound quality quickly. I challenge anyone in a "blind" test to pick out songs recorded at 128 and songs recorded at 320! The point is...your premise that Mini Disc "still rules!" because of it's 320kbps quality is meaningless! For most people, like myself, I purchased the Rio to get me through a workout of about 1.5 and 2hrs. with good CD quality music. The Rio500 with a 32meg upgrade does just that! I don't think the product is geared for those who want to sit around all day with headphones on to listen to portable music. That is what a quality stereo set up is for. I gave Mini Disc a long hard look. No doubt that it is a great format to everything else out there including the recent CD recorders (Mini Disc is much smaller and user friendly). But I just could not pass up this great little player from Diamond. It's much smaller than even Mini Disc and of course lighter. And no moving parts! Thanks to the USB...downloading songs from the internet or from your hard drive is a snap! One other thing...about the extra cost of memory. You should realize by now that it is only a matter of time before memory becomes much cheaper. It won't be long when we see 300meg internal players at about the same price of the Rio500 today. Stick with your Mini Disc if you are happy with it and post your satisfactory review on a Mini Disc message board where it belongs.
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Summary: Minidisc still rules.
Review: Comparing the two items, the only area the Rio clearly wins is recording. Being able to download the songs instead of recording is great. However, the lack of storage space and the prohibitive price of memory expansion is what convinced me to buy a Sony Minidisc recorder instead. The compression techonology used by Sony gives quality equivalent to over 320kb/s. Using that kind of quality on a Rio would result in the amount of music being ridiculously low. Trust me. Spend the extra $50 or so and get minidisc. You won't regret it.
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Summary: The 500 is a substantial improvement over the 300....
Review: After briefly owning the 300 and now owning the 500 for about 3 weeks now...I think that I can do a fair job at outlining the improvements over the 300. However, there is one annoying area in which Rio did not address with the 500 and for all the criticism of this issue...it really puzzles me why this was not corrected. Let me turn this up a little bit so Rio can hear it...MORE VOLUME!! Geez! Again, Rio has cut the top end off the decibal scale short. However, I have recently found the solution to this. Until just a couple of weeks ago...I have never tried the "in the ear" type of headphones...better known as "ear buds". These type of phones seem to be more efficient and the increase in volume efficiency is quite noticable. At the top end of the volume setting (20)...it is more than enough for all my music and for many songs...too much volume. I find with these type of phones...the 18 volume setting is a good compromise for all the I music use on the 500. Ok...now that I got that out of the way. Here is one aspect of the USB connection that I have yet to hear mentioned. Besides much faster download times(about 2mins. for a 64meg. transfer)...the actual connection at the player end is much easier than that darn parallel connection for the Rio 300. For someone like myself who changes the music on my player 6 days/wk. (for the gym)...this is reason enough to upgrade to the 500. When I owned the 300...I got the darn player end of the parallel connector stuck in the player because I did not apply equal pressure to both sides of the connector head while pushing the retractable clips in to remove it. The connector was stuck at an angle and I had to do some careful tweaking to get it out. The USB connection does not have any clips that you have to push in and just slides in and out with great ease. The overall look, feel and functionality is also a big improvement. I love the various settings that I can manipulate with the side volume wheel. You have to push the wheel in to display these options. Also, the ID3 tag support. Here is an important note on the tags. If you are going to Rip you entire CD collection or part of it...choose you ripper carefully. I have 3 rippers on my PC...each for it's own purpose. MusicMatch, Real Jukebox Plus, and of course the RioPort software that you need to download MP3's to the player. If you want your ID3 tag information displayed in a particular format, as I did, then Real Player Jukebox is the way to go. Besides being the fastest ripper (average about 5x normal speed)... you can configure how the ID3 tag info is displayed in the options menu. I chose the following setup...Song Title-Artist-Album. If the total amount of display info exceed the width of the 500's LCD dispaly window...the information will slowly scroll from right to left in the play mode. This is the case for all my music with those 3 fields of display. The RioPort Audio Manager software is OK but I am really anxious for MusicMatch to support the USB download for MP3 transfer to the player. MusicMatch is superior when it comes to just playing the MP3's and MP3 management IMHO. The "auto DJ" feature is perfect for memory limited MP3 players like the 500. At 128kbps(Cd quality)...you get about 1min. of playing time for every meg. of memory. Just set the AutoDJ for 1 hour and at 128kbps...it will randomly grab 1hr.(about 60megs.) of MP3's from the specified groups that you choose. Why RioPort did not include such a thing with their software is beyond me. One last thing...I also purchased the 32meg. flash memory card. It is real easy to install and now gives me a solid 90mins. of great CD quality music. Make sure you first hit the "format" button in the RioPort AudioManager program before attempting to download MP3's to it. After formatting (just like you must do with the internal 64megs)...you are good to go. All in all...I consider this one of the best gadget purchases I have made in a long time. Particularly, because I use it almost everyday in the gym. It's small, lightweight, and just plain awesome. Just hit that play button and move the top slide lever to the lock position and let the music rock. No amount of bouncing around will interrupt the music. And I love the long, puzzled looks I get from my gym buddies as they try to figure out what that little black (I use the black holder with clip that came with the player)device is clipped to my side. "It's too small to be a cassette player...hmmm...what the heck is that"? I held back on the 5 stars because of the volume issue. And of course, just like hard drives, there is no such thing as too much memory...64megs is nice...but you know that is going to be minimal compared to what we will see in the next few months to a year from now. Later, Drew
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Summary: Completely Awesome
Review: It left me speechless, the best mp3 player I have ever used
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Summary: Pros and Cons of the Diamond Rio 500 MP3 Player vs CD Player
Review: The Rio PMP500 comes with standard 64MB of onboard memory but unlike any other portable MP3 players, the onboard memory can be upgradeable in the future to 96MB. The PMP500 still uses the flash memory cards for the extra storage. The removal of the parallel connector has been replaced with the new USB which offer transfer rates approximately 5 times faster than the parallel port. The new USB also offers cross platform compatibility but won't be able to connect to the older parallel ports, but an USB/parallel adapter (sold separately) can fix that. Besides holding more and being faster, it's more expensive. Plus, the extra cost of the 32 MB Card. But if you aren't in the poorhouse and prefer space, comfort, and easy setup to an extra hundred bucks, this prouduct is for you. And, if the economy continues at this rate, all electronics will go down, making the MP3 player the best of both worlds.
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Summary: Revolutionary New Technology for the Person on the Go
Review: The Rio 500 is the second member of the first wave of technology harnessing the awesome power of mp3. Mp3, which stands for MPEG Layer-3 (of course), is the digital music format that can compress music to 1/11 of the original size without a loss of intergity. Needless to say, this scares the music industry... Among the Rio's innumerable benefits are its lack of moving parts, which in turn means no skipping while you move around with your Rio. Also, the new Rio 500 has 64MB of flash memory, which will allow you to carry one hour of 128kps music (cd quality) or 2 hours of 64kbps (near cd quality). Flash card accessories will expand this capability another 1/2 hour at full and 1 hour at half quality. The Rio 500 is an absolute necessity for the technology enthusiast. (I recommend the teal :)
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Summary: This product is da bomb!
Review: Tis product the Diamond Rio make listening to music much more easier than before. Now you pay the price and then just download all the songs you want. Instead of going to the music store and saving up for those CDs that are getting more and more expensive buy this product. I give it 2 thumbs up.
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