Rio was originally a brand of California based
Diamond Multimedia. Rio Audio was best known for producing the
Rio PMP300 model that was the impetus for
a lawsuit in 1998 by the
Recording Industry Association of America. That lawsuit eventually failed, 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 bankruptcy protection and then sold off its main product lines; Rio Audio was sold to Japanese firm
D&M Holdings, which owned audio brands such as
Denon, forming part of their Digital Networks North America subsidiary. Rio Audio was based in
Santa Clara, California. 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 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 the month before. The Rio brand and trademarks were retained by D&M Holdings. ==Products==