Creative X-Fi Notebook

X-Fi Notebook Frankly this gadget was hard to fit into this blog but somehow it needs to be here. It is actually two devices. The X-Fi Notebook is a PCCARD soundcard with built-in wireless transmission using the other part of the equation; the Creative Wireless Receiver.

xfireceiver With the receiver it should be possible to transmit music to 4 discrete zones, each equipped with one. In other words: With a decent notebook, an X-Fi Notebook and sufficient receivers, you could build a multi-zone streamer fairly easily. The soundcard itself supports resolutions up to 24bit/48KHz and works pretty much as any other soundcard.

Creative Creative

Crestron ADMS

ADMS Someone at Crestron has nimbly avoided being called narrow minded for quite some time to come, hacking together this truly massive beast of features galore. Okay, it serves media; not just music but video as well. Video from DVD or Blu-ray as well as downloaded rentals. All this in full HD and 7.1 surround sound into 3 zones. Sound is served in a resolution of up to 24bit/96KHz and practically all formats known to man have been squeezed in.

Like all things Crestron, the ADMS can be operated from their control panels that also operate their home automation systems. The ADMS supports up to 1TB of RAID storage as well as NAS. It has Firewire, USB, S/PDIF, MMC and HDMI on the digital side of things, and a bunch of analogue ins and outs. All in an everything but discrete package.

Crestron Crestron

Cambridge Audio DacMagic

DacMagic The Cambridge Audio DacMagic has existed for a couple of years but has now had a sort of re-debut at CEDIA in Denver. The new version kicks some serious situpon [you cannot imagine how thrilled I am to use that word] with not only three digital inputs [one of which is USB] and a digital out; but balanced outputs and full 24bit/192KHz resolution from two Wolfson DACs upscaled from a number of resolutions up to 24bit/96KHz. A nifty little device.

NuVo Music Port

NuVo Music Port The Nuvo Music port is not an audio device in its own right but an add-on for their large music systems such as NuVo Grand Concerto and NuVo Essentia E6G.

NuVo Controller The Music Port is a hardware interface that connects a PC to the system and lets it not only control the NuVo systems but also act as a source. It even lets you collect music from other network places and aggregate them in one playlist. A PC with two 5.1 surround sound cards can then serve 6 streams and truly be a part of a cool setup.

With their new wireless controller, they are getting pretty close to some of the core features of the Sonos system fusing it with those of a home automation system. The infinitely spiffy Sonos remote is far from being in jeopardy, though, nor do I expect it to be anytime soon.

NuVo Technologies NuVo Technologies

Logitech Squeezebox Boom


Squeezebox Boom Adding to their Squeezebox line-up, Logitech has recently released their Squeezebox Boom. It uses the same technology as the Squeezebox Duet, in fact it can be controlled from the same remote and be a part of a system. Not entirely unlike the Sonos players that also come in a line-out unamplified version and one with a 50W power stage. The Squeezebox Boom just adds a pair of built-in speakers to make it an autonomous unit.

With specs like its sister device, sound quality is only limited to the quality of the amplifier and the miniscule speakers which, incidentally, sound incredibly good for their size. There is a 7-day alarm clock [with a built-in snooze button, no less] and automatic dimming of the display, making this perfect for a bedroom setup.

First impressions are that of a solid device. It is heavy and feels rather rugged in its rubbery front panel covering and shiny cabinet. Buttons operate smoothly and the remote, however small, feels good even in large hands and has quite a good reach. The display may seem old fashioned but the fact is that this type of Nixie-look-a-like display works very well in a dimly lit room, where color LCDs have a tendency to be overly bright. In addition to the ever present Squeezebox controls, the front panel offers 6 preset buttons that can be programmed directly from the device or from a Squeezebox Server using the KidsPlay plugin. Using this plugin gives you an almost unbelievable amount of programming options, such as (but all but limited to) choosing a random mix of tracks of a given genre while showing a brief message on the display as to which genre that is while clearing previous playlist selections. Nice, eh? In fact, it is difficult not to fiddle.

Should you need to, the Squeezebox Boom can be mounted in several positions with an optional L-bracket.

Logitech Logitech

McIntosh MCD500

MCD500 It’s been a year since McIntosh introduced their larger than life [literally] music server MS750 with specs that would boggle anyone’s mind and rich with novel ideas. On such novelty was the ability to stream an analogue source through a high end A/D converter. Now McIntosh shows off again releasing a new SACD player, not really belonging on this blog. One cool things about the MCD500 that brings it in accord of this blog, however, is a number of digital inputs that allow you to use the McIntosh’s 24bit/192KHz quad balanced DAC for other digital devices. With an attenuated output, balanced from 0-6V or unbalanced from 0-12V, it is even perfectly capable of driving an end stage. In other words a pre-amplifier with a built-in DAC. The SACD transport simply thrown in free of charge for good measure. What else could you ask for? The money you save [there’s an oxymoron for you] can be well invested in a pretty wood cabinet that muffles the trademark McIntosh smack-dab-in-your-face exterior.

McIntosh McIntosh

Qsonix Q110 Digital Music Management System


Qsonix Q110

Behind a very long name lies a sleek, if somewhat conservative looking music server split in two – a desktop chassis with a CD-drive and a 15” or 17” touch screen. It supports 4 distinct zones that can be controlled separately, either from the touch screen or from a 3rd party remote [presumably via uPnP]. The server comes in 4 flavours from 250GB to 1.5TB. Files can be stored in lossless format and there is a digital output for attaching an external DAC at a resolution of up to 24bit/192KHz.

From the more unusual side of the feature set, we find not only CD burning but downscaling for iPod playlists and direct purchasing and download from Music Giants at full resolution. Not to mention the ability to play 1-second samples of arbitrary songs without interrupting whatever else is playing [except, of course, for the played sound sample].

Qsonix Qsonix

Avoca VIP Music Edition

Avoca The Avoca VIP Music Edition sports some pretty nice specs in a pretty case accompanied by a slightly less pretty PDA based controller. The media center rips CDs to Flac onto an internal disk, optionally mirrored, and serves files at up to 24bit/192KHz resolution depending on your choice of output, although it appears to support only 96KHz sampling rates, possibly upscaling from there. Could be a spec glitch, though.

One of the more curious aspects of the Avoca is the controller. You get to point and click your way through your music selection but that is not all; you can actually talk to your music system. Now how about that? “Hey! Turn down that racket, son! – Can’t hardly hear myself think!”… and sonny boy can rebel all he likes.

Avoca Semiconductor Avoca Semiconductor

The Cullen Sonos mod

Reclocker Behind the curious title, lies the modification of the jitter in the original device by replacing the clock circuit and adding buffering. Reportedly this mod, which roughly doubles the price of your Sonos Zone Player, reduces jitter dramatically and makes the player a perfect source for a high-end DAC, effectively combining a WAF* bordering on the unbelievable with audiophile geekiness.

Incidentally; the company is not affiliated with Sonos despite its name-likeness with Sonos founder Thomas Cullen.

Cullen Circuits Cullen Circuits

*An apparently misspelled acronym reading: Spouse Acceptance Factor.

Firestone Audio Fubar II USB & Spitfire DACs

Spitfire The Firestone Audio line of products is a refreshing attack on the design style of Hi-Fi equipment – not unlike the world of downhill mountain biking [the world is split into four distinct elements: peat, dirt, sight and sound]. Within the scope of this blog, two Firestone Audio products are particularly interesting: The Firestone Audio Fubar II USB DAC and the Firestone Audio Spitfire DAC. The former comes in a choice of bright red or grey and the latter just in grey.

Fubar II The Fubar II is particularly useful as an external sound card for a PC, sporting a direct USB input as well as Toslink and coaxial inputs, all for a 16bit/48KHz conversion. Big brother Spitfire does not have a USB port but does offer a highly relieving bandaid in the form of a maximum resolution of 24bit/96KHz sampling rate. That makes the Spitfire a brilliant part of a chain starting with 2L’s hiRes Flac downloads.

Incidentally, there is also a Fubar III which has a built-in headphone amplifier.

Headaudio Headaudio

Barebone device Barebone device
Cheap good featured Cheap good featured
Actual hi-fi device Actual hi-fi device
High end hi-fi High end hi-fi
Out of this world Out of this world
CD CD drive
Wifi Wifi
Flac Flac audio
Digital IO Digital IO
Ogg-Vorbis Ogg-Vorbis
uPnP support uPnP support
Video Video

Please note that the ratings are not objective in any way nor are they a measure for quality. They are a measure for what I think the target group for the device was intended to be; my expectations if you will.

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