Rio was a line of

digital audio player A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally they refer to small, battery-powered devices ...

s and related audio products. Its first release, the

Rio PMP300 The Rio PMP300 is one of the first portable consumer MP3 digital audio players, and the first commercially successful one. Produced by Diamond Multimedia, it was introduced September 15, 1998 as the first in the "Rio" series of digital audio ...

digital music player A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally they refer to small, Electric battery, batter ...

(also known colloquially as simply the "Diamond Rio"), released by

Diamond Multimedia Diamond Multimedia is an American company that specializes in many forms of multimedia technology. They have produced graphics cards, motherboards, modems, sound cards and MP3 players; however, the company began with the production of the TrackS ...

in 1998, was one of the earliest notable and commercially successful devices in its category. It also became known as the target of an early

lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...

regarding the legality of such devices. Following the PMP300, various music players were released under the Rio brand name by a number of companies until the brand was retired in 2005.

History

Rio was originally a brand of California based

. Rio Audio was best known for producing the

model that was the impetus for a lawsuit in 1998 by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

. That lawsuit eventually failed, leading the way for the portable digital music industry to take off. Diamond Multimedia merged with

S3 Graphics S3 Graphics, Ltd. was an American computer graphics company. The company sold the S3 Trio, Trio, S3 ViRGE, ViRGE, S3 Savage, Savage, and S3 Chrome, Chrome series of graphics processors. Struggling against competition from 3dfx Interactive, ATI T ...

in 1999 - the resulting company was renamed

SONICblue SONICblue Incorporated (NASDAQ:SBLU) was a public company based in Santa Clara, California. The firm was a manufacturer of home audio/video equipment with an estimated revenue of $100M - $250M and approximately 700 employees. SONICblue first file ...

. Rio, Inc., a subsidiary of SONICblue, was formed in 2000. The company referred to itself as Rio Digital Audioin later years this changed to simply Rio Audio. During this time, Rio's president was Jim Cady. On March 21, 2003, SONICblue filed for

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...

bankruptcy protection and then sold off its main product lines; Rio Audio was sold to Japanese firm

D&M Holdings D+M Group, formerly known as DMGlobal and D&M Holdings, is a Japanese corporation that owned several audio and video brands. It was formed in 2002 from the merger of Denon and Marantz. It had acquired several other companies since that time. Prio ...

, which owned audio brands such as

Denon is a Japanese electronics company dealing with audio equipment. The Denon brand came from a merger of Denki Onkyo (not to be confused with the other Onkyo) and others in 1939. It originally started as Nippon Chikuonki Shoukai in 1910 by Freder ...

, forming part of their Digital Networks North America subsidiary. Rio Audio was based in

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Clare of Assisi, Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities and towns i ...

. Its president from that time until March 2004 was Jeffrey Hastings. Like some other competitors in the digital audio player business, the Rio brand was unable to compete effectively against Apple's dominant

iPod The iPod is a series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices that were designed and marketed by Apple Inc. from 2001 to 2022. The iPod Classic#1st generation, first version was released on November 10, 2001, about mon ...

series of audio players. In August 2005, D&M Holdings announced the discontinuation of its production of audio players, after it had licensed its digital audio software technology to chipmaker

SigmaTel SigmaTel, Inc., was an American system-on-a-chip (SoC), electronics and software company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that designed AV media player/recorder SoCs, reference circuit boards, SoC software development kit reference designs used t ...

the month before. The Rio brand and trademarks were retained by D&M Holdings.

Products

Rio USA

;Portable digital audio players Rio Chiba 256

;Portable CD players Rio volt

* RioVolt SP50 * RioVolt SP60 * RioVolt SP65 * RioVolt SP90 * RioVolt SP100 * RioVolt SP150 * RioVolt SP250 * RioVolt SP350 ;Home audio players * Rio HT-2030 * Rio Central (aka HSX-109) * Rio EX-1000 * Rio Receiver ;Car audio players * Rio Car (aka Empeg Car)

Rio Japan

* Rio DR30 (OEM BeatSounds EVR150) * Rio SU10 (OEM A-MAX Technology PA30A) * Rio SU30 (OEM i-BEAD i-BEAD100) * Rio SU35 (OEM AVC Technology Si-100) * Rio SU40 (OEM i-BEAD i-BEAD200) * Rio SU70 (OEM M-CODY MX-100) * Rio Unite 130 (OEM M-CODY MX-250) * Rio SU15-KJ (OEM AVC Technology) * Rio Si-200C (OEM AVC Technology) * Rio Si-300C (OEM AVC Technology) * Rio LIVE air * Rio LIVE mini * Rio LIVE gear (OEM Foster)

Rio OEM models

* Nike PSA Play 60 * Nike PSA Play 120 * ESA S11 * Motorola M25 * Motorola M500 * Dell Digital Audio Receiver

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rio (Digital Audio Players) Digital audio players Consumer electronics brands