One year later, the growth of MP3 music has skyrocketed both online and off, as most audio cards for PCs now bundle software that lets users take their own music CDs and convert whatever songs they like to the compressed MP3 format.

Diamond learned many lessons from their original MP3 player, and they combined their experiences with feedback from consumers who purchased the Rio PMP300 in order to produce their second generation MP3 player, the Rio 500.

Weighing in at 2.75 ounces, the Rio 500 features no moving parts whatsoever. Instead of a CD or Minidisc to hold songs, the Rio 500 uses flash memory for storage, and is powered by a single AA battery which lasts around 10 - 13 hours.

More importantly, the Rio 500 offers a greatly enhanced user interface that includes a backlit LCD display that can show which song, artist, or amount of time a song has been playing.

As well as the ergonomics and usability of the new Diamond player, Audio quality has been improved greatly thanks to independently controllable bass and treble settings. Finally, users can customize their audio experience to suit their individual tastes and needs.

Other benefits that the Rio 500 offers include USB connectivity for data transfers (5 x faster than parallel port solutions), 64MB of internal memory which is expandable up to 96MB of total storage space with the addition of a 32MB flash card, MP3 recording rates up to 320Kbps, and excellent software for recording/converting MP3 files.