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Parent company discontinues Rio line
updated 09:55 am EDT, Fri August 26, 2005
Rio line discontinued
, which markets the Rio brand, today announced it would exit the mass-market portable digital audio player business. D&M Holdings is based in Tokyo and owns the Denon, Marantz, McIntosh Laboratory, D&M Professional, ReplayTV, Rio and Escient brands. The company's decision to exit the Rio business followed a determination that the "mass-market portable digital audio player market was not a strong enough strategic fit with the company's core and profitable premium consumer electronics brands to warrant additional investment in the category."
Didn't know that...
08/26, 10:15am reply
McIntosh was, I thought, the last of the American stereo makers. Guess that's no longer true. Wonder when that happened?
Still, this is pretty good news all around. They won't be destroying the company to preserve the Rio; Microsoft loses a key ally; and Denon and Marantz won't need to go on severe cost-cutting binges.
dave a
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jan 2002
back in the day...
08/26, 10:34am reply
Wasn't Rio the first must-have portable mp3 player? When 32mb was the base model... anyway, it's a tough business.
bokubob
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
The end of the beginning
08/26, 10:56am reply
I still have my Diamond Rio 600 that I got as a freebie for signing up for Speakeasy back in... 98? This was back when the Rio was pretty much the only player out there. Tiger and iTunes 4.9 still recognize it just fine, and copies files to it with no problems... and then it crashes on me when I try to play a song, and chews through it's one AA battery in about 5 hours of actual play time, or a week of letting it sit there unused. That model wasn't so hot...
I wonder if the newest ones are any better? I was tempted to get one of their new players once, back when I had a better paying job. Maybe there'll be some clearance sales at Best Buy soon :)
Zaren
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
Bwahahaha!
08/26, 10:56am reply
Yet *another* company that ignored/abused the Mac market ... and failed.
Hey Real ... you're next.
chas_m
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
Re: the end
08/26, 12:49pm reply
I still have my Diamond Rio 600
You should sue! You have a device that won't allow you to play music from any of the download services, locking you into having to use MP3 format!
testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
heh
08/26, 02:00pm reply
Best thing I've ever seen you say here, testudo :) Problem is, it'll play wma files as well as mp3. Supposedly it can be updated to play AAC, but Rio's site doesn't give any indication that the latest firmware updates (from 2001) offer that support.
Zaren
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
This is sad
08/26, 10:28pm reply
This is really sad news. Not only did Rio invent the MP3 market, but having more competition is good. Less competition means Apple has even less reason to innovate... now they may NEVER add an FM Radio or voice recorder into their iPods, and now they may NEVER license FairPlay to other hardware companies that would love to integrate iTunes purchased music into their gear (like the SlimDevice MP3 player). This is really sad. Rio, we will certainly miss you.
scotty321
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999