When the Rio 300 first came out, I couldn't believe the freedom that I was buying myself.  After years of relying on cassette tapes and endless times of rewinding to hear a song again or fast-forwarding past a song that I wanted to hear at the time of taping but changed my mind when I was on the road, I would finally have the random access that a CD gives you along with the flexibility to mix artists that a cassette has.  Sure you could burn a CD, but then you're going to wind up with a bunch of CDs every time you want to add a new song to your traveling collection.