As the Rio branding at www.empeg.com was out of date I gave the site a bit of a spin. Hopefully it is now slightly more relevent, and just a little nostalgic!

I'll get around to typing in some more recent news tomorrow!

Rob

Yup, it certainly brings back some old memories!

I'll get around to typing in some more recent news tomorrow!

News like:
That badge looks stupid.
or
I can prove these shoes are fireproof.

Sorry, that popped into my head for some reason.

"Tuck that shirt in! Get those shoes shined! Get that badge out of your mouth!"

"Exceptionally Comprehensive". I like that, thanks!

That is extremely cool! Thanks Rob!

If that don't boost sales at my site then it definately means I've saturated the market already.

Where was I when you announced that you did the Rio S series? Makes me that much more gratified that I just purchased one for the wife.

The link for the SPDIF-Board is wrong (points to NewFace)...

Rolf

Where was I when you announced that you did the Rio S series?

I don't know where you were, but Rob was posting here.

Well, I though some elements of it seemed familiar.

The problem is that it is not expandable as the empeg. You can only go to around 640MB right now...

Howzat? Which model?

Even better, it seems that the empeg style support is rubbing off on SB, as seen by this thread over on Rio World.

Yeah, they are keeping Hugo (a.k.a. "UK SB engineer") busy over there...

Get a 128Mb model (the S35S or S50), and put a 512Mb SD card in it.

Exactly.

Oh. I didn't realize that MMC and SD were compatible.

I didn't either at first. I had not even heard of the SD memory, but I saw the 1.6 firmware update for the S50, and started tracing. It works perfectly, but is still a bit confining at times.

how is the battery life and sound quality of the S series? does it beat the ipod?

You might want to tell the website guys at riohome.com to update that on the summary info for the S* players. They still claim max 128MB upgrades.

Greetings!

I am happy with the sound quality and battery life. Right now, I am not using it - it is more for others in my family, listening to audiobooks. I like what I have heard. The quality seems excellent, even with the stock ear-buds. I will try it out with my headphones one of these days, and give you a serious review.

Battery life is good, but I really don't expect it to last the entire length of the 640MB storage (at my encoding level, that is about 10 hours, give or take).

Not as busy as phrenzy! Does that guy ever sleep?

You should easily get 10 hours of battery life out of an S30 or S35. With alkaline cells the S10/50 get about 30 hours and the S30/35 get about 20 hours I seem to recall - based on half max volume and minimal backlight.

Quick note to the S Series owning guys - if you have problems with SD cards, firmware 1.62 fixes that.

Rob

Yeah, but he wasn't quite as easy to identify, being as HE gave away Hugo's name and Hugo didn't reciprocate...

...but I kind of guessed it had to be you, Roger and Peter clearly have too much real work to do to manage that many postings on a non-empeg related BBS

Cool! It has never actually been used for that long at a single stretch. I would then recharge it as needed. I am using the NiMH that came with it, so I try to keep it charged as much as possible.

By the way (Battery 101 question), what is the best way to extend the lifespan of an NiMH? Let it drain fully? Never let it drain fully? Always try to keep it fully charged?

Meanwhile, I will check out the firmware update. I have not been having any problems, but I do want to keep up to date. Thanks!!!

In theory NiMH isn't supposed to have much of a memory effect. In practice I don't know, but it is often said it's a bad idea to run them fully flat.

Hugo knows a lot more about battery technologies than I do..

The link for the SPDIF-Board is wrong (points to NewFace)...

Rolf, thanks for spotting that and Rob thanks for the link on the cool site; I like it. Would you please fix it? Thanks!

Stu

Fixed.

I've always been advised to let the NiMH cells discharge fully every now and again - until the unit switches itself off, then charge for a good few hours.

NiMH cells don't like being 'topped-up' like Li-on do.