The Rio Chroma: My Dream Digital Audio Player

My research into digital audio players for the column has led me to believe that I absolutely must have one. This is how I generally buy things–after significant research. I’m going to have to watch out for this bad habit, as one of my next topics is the Sony PSP, and my resistance against buying that is already being worn thin by the amazing press it’s getting. While looking for my perfect player, I realized that there really is nothing that satisfies all of my many requirements.

Basically I want a player that:

1. Has atleast a 20-40GB drive.
2. Supports ogg, musepack support would be nice but that’s just a pipedream.
3. Has good audio quality, at least 95db snr, gapless playback also helps.
4. Has an intuitive menu system.
5. Is aesthetically pleasing.
6. Can be used as a portable hard drive.

Right now only iRiver, iAudio, and Rio offer players that fit this criteria. Both the iRiver and iAudio players are still somewhat expensive, whereas the Rio player, the Karma, is surprisingly affordable. You can find it for around $190 shipped today, there was even a recent deal that brought that price down to $150 shipped (!). It fits all of my requirements except the last one (and arguably the second to last as well), but the problem now is that it’ was released in 2002. Rio hasn’t updated the player since 2003, and they recently announced that they’re discontinuing it. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it does point to the certain possibility that it will be replaced by a newer player.

After doing some research, it seems that many believe the Rio Chroma (prototype image to the right) is the spiritual successor to the Karma. It will supposedly offer a color display (not a priority), and some sort of wireless support (either bluetooth or wifi), along with a bigger hard drive and all the features of the Karma. The new design is also noticeably reminiscent of the recent Rio Carbon. All signs point to this being the one player to fulfill all of my requirements, along with some features I never even considered. But then again by the time this thing is released I may actually be able to afford an iRiver or iAudio player…