Home > Consumer Reviews > Rio 500 64 MB USB MP3 Player (Gray)

This is my second plunge into the world of MP3 players and the experience has been considerably better than my first. The Rio 500 offers about as much as you could expect from an MP3 player these days (outside of the cheap headphones). The USB upload is considerably faster than the parallel ports that most MP3 players utilize. The sound is good and the software program that is included makes transferring audio from CD to the player a snap. Transferring downloaded files is just as easy. My only real complaint is the terrible directions/manual. Instillation of the drivers (Windows version) was not adequately explained. I'm somewhat of a computer geek so I figured it out in short order, but somebody unfamiliar with plug and play instillation could easily find themselves stuck with the player unable to communicate with his/her computer. Outside of that this player is, in my opinion, the best available.

I just purchased the Diamond Rio 500 and after you get it working it is super but don't look to Diamond for any kind of support. The technician I spoke to didn't even seem to know what a MP3 player was much less how it works. He referred me to a manual on the CD that doesn't exist and provided nonsense answers to my questions.

I purchased the Diamond Rio 500 for both music and Audible books. The Diamond technician stated it doesn't and never would work with audible books.

I was ready to return the Diamond Rio 500 to the store for a refund but I decided to call Audible first. The Audible receptionest was very helpful. I found out that the firm ware to run Audible books on the Diamond Rio and other MP3 portable devices is expected to be out the 2nd week of December.

They have a prototype Diamond Rio 500 and Audible's receptionest said the quality was excellent better than thier own player which can be purchased from them for $99.00.

The receptionist at Audible knew the answers to all of my questions about the Diamond Rio 500 even the ones unrelated to the Audible books. THE SAME QUESTIONS THAT THE DIAMOND TECHNICIAN COULDN'T ANSWER.

Thanks to Audible I have the Diamond Rio up and running and it is fantastic. I am anxiously waiting for the firm ware upgrade so I can listen to books while I exercise or do housework.

Due to the lack of documentation and support, I would not recomend this player to anyone without a lot of patience. Anyone who just wants to just "plug it in" and start using it is going to be disappointed.

After researching and reviewing a number of mp3 players before making this purchase, I decided on the Diamond Rio 500, mainly for its 64megs of memory on board.

A week after the purchase, I could not be more impressed. Within 15 minutes of opening the box, I had the software and drivers installed and the first set of songs uploaded. I also upgraded the firmware from the Rio site, which gave me several more preferences and options (equalizer, program play, backlight options, etc.)

A few points for consideration when purchasing, which took me days to gather and confirm:

** I can get anywhere from 13 to 17 songs on the 64 megs on board. That is more than I expected, but I will be investing in a 64 meg Smart Card (which the Rio can accept once you upgrade the firmware) to have more songs at my disposal.

** The Rioport Audio Manager software (what you use to transfer songs to the player) is not great, but not nearly as bad as I had read. It is not intuitive and does not come with directions, so it's a trial and error thing. I will try MusicMatch or Real Jukebox to see if it's any easier.

** The player itself comes with very weak documentation. I suggest going to the Rio website and looking for the manual, which is slightly better. I usually learn hardware without the book anyway, but if you are manual-dependent, this may be a problem.

** I'm up to about 7 hours on my first battery, including 3 transfers of songs. This is not nearly the battery hog I expected it to be. I have purchased lithium batteries because I read that I can get more play time off them, but I'm still waiting for the first battery to die!

** The song quality is excellent, both with mp3s I've downloaded off the web and those I've converted from CD. I will complain about the headphones. Not because they mess up sound quality but because the pads keep falling off them! They aren't as comfortable as I prefer.

** I use the Rio for jogging/walking and 90 minutes of train travel to work every day. It is small, compact and impossible to make skip. It suits my needs (compact, ease of use, more mobile than a CD player) just fine. It has also been dropped once with no ill effects.

I could not be more pleased with this purchase, and highly recommend it for others looking for mp3 players!

After purchasing (and returning) a number of other mp3 players I decided to try out the Rio 500.

First Impressions Very small and light, Buttons in convenient locations, Nice scrolling display, No AC Adapter, Headphone buds (Junk), Instructions (very bad), Included software (Not easy to use),

Ok the first thing I did was to visit the Rioport.com site and download the firmware upgrade soft ware. The unit came with 1.04 firmware. I upgraded it to 2.12. One thing this upgrade gives you is access to the 64meg smart cards. This will take the unit up to 128meg.

I installed the default management software but I prefer MusicMatch. I downloaded the Rio plug in for MusicMatch and was up and running. One down side of the plug in for MusicMatch is the fact that it defaults to rio300 and you must manually change it each time to upload to the player.

The other mp3 players I tested used parallel ports and the Rio claims 5 times faster than parallel ports. They must be comparing results to some old ancient port as I saw no difference in upload speeds. However the USB is easier to install and did not have the hardware compatibility problems the parallel ports did.

As far as sound quality goes the Rio was similar to the others with one difference. The built in EQ settings seem to be more noticeable. In other words there seem to be more noticeable results when selecting EQ setting of JAZZ or ROCK for instance. Other players did not seem to have much difference between the settings. The lack of a graphic equalizer did not seem to affect the quality. The volume is more than adequate. It has ha setting between 0 and 20 and I keep mine around 6-8.

I have found the display quit acceptable. The name of the song is the file in which the mp3 file was saved. And it scrolls across the screen as it is being played. This enables quite long titles to be displayed with out truncating them

The lack of a AC adapter port was a bit of a disappointment but is a little offset with the 13 hour play time. You do get this with alkaline batteries but expect about 4-5 hours playtime with rechargeable AA's

Make sure you have a good charge on the batteries before uploading to the player. The unit died once when I was uploading. This totally corrupted the Rio. Could not even turn the unit off. The unit was totally locked up. I called the support line at the diamond site adn was promptly told to download a recovery program from there web site. After installing the software on the PC and following the instructions I was back up and running. Apparently this software talks to the USB port and resets the firmware in the unit.

One of the best features on the Rio is the audio book feature. Here is what they are.

Bookmark -> You can store up to 16 bookmarks on the Rio. These come in very handy when listening to a book in a public location such as a doctor's office waiting room.

Variable speed rewind/fast forward -> If you have a recording that is over a few minutes in length it can be quite a pain fast-forwarding to say the 28:00 minute point. With the Rio you just hold down the FF and it starts out at about 10 times speed but it increases the longer you hold the button down.

Browse feature -> By clicking the browse button once you can scroll between items in a folder. By clicking twice you can scroll between folders. By click a third time you can scroll between bookmarks.

Audible support -> The main reason I purchased a mp3 player is for books on tape. And the above features are the best I have seen for a MP3 player but after signing up for audible (Rio is one of the players supported) I can listen to a 15 hour book in one sitting. This is a different format than my other mp3 files but I have found it very useable as well.

Final thoughts -> I really like the Rio 500 and the ability to accept mp3 and audible file formats makes it a keeper in by book. As a mater of fact I ordered a second for my wife.

I just got the Diamond Rio. It is a wonderful product, here's why : What do you strive for in a MP3 player ? Good sound, Space for music, compactness, cool look, competitive pricing, and I can honestly say that the Rio 500 meets each of these qualities. The sound is barely distinguishable from a true CD. Unless your are a true audiophile you will not be able to tell the difference, UNLESS you like listening to music REALLY LOUD, then you might be able too find a small distortion in the MP3 version. The 500 can also hold a lot of songs, because it is 64 Megs and also you can transfer your songs because of its USB connection. It looks great! It is also the size of a pager. AND IT DOESN'T SKIP! This product is worth its price. This maybe the last "pure mp3" model available because after christmas the SDIC will be putting a detector which won't let you download free mp3's unless explicity stated by the musician. SO GET EM NOW! It only takes one AA batteria for 12 hrs of playback which is pretty good. The LCD is a very nice neon blue. The only problem with this product are the bad earphones. Contrary to one of the reviewers I believe it is quite easy to install. I didn't read the manual. Just plug it into your USB port ( IMPORTANT YOU NEED A USB PORT TO RUN IT )and then windows automatically asks you for the driver cd, then you pop it in restart your computer and Viola! Don't ponder the value of this product too long because before you know it they will be Sold OUT! Happy Listening! Cheers