Audio | Formats | media|STREAMERS

Categories:

Pinnacle Audio athenaeum

athenaeum I think the guys at Bel Canto may have had a finger in the soup when Pinnacle Audio named this raw beast. House of Athena? Whichever way you look at it, it is a beautiful name for a device that would more aptly be called a machine.

The athenaeum holds up to 4 750GB harddisks for a total of 3TB of disk space and unlike any other streamer I know of [at least of the type befitting this blog] supports RAID1. Supported file format include Flac and Ogg-Vorbis but it can rip to MP3 and AAC as well. The device is managed from a web interface or from the included [wifi enabled] remote control with colour touch screen.

The athenaeum has a smaller sister called folio. The folio has roughly the same specs but has only 2 fixed disks instead of 4 replaceable. It comes in 2x250GB, 2x500GB and 2x750GB flavours. Ample space for most, even in Flac.

Oh, and guess what?! The brochure for the athenaeum quotes Henry VIII… “In sweet music is such art”. Could it be an ode to miss Capulet?

Categories:

Chordette Gem

British audiophile magazine What Hi-Fi? just released a quick news article on their web about an interesting device from Chord Electronics [otherwise known for their insanely exquisite high end audio components] – the Chordette Gem. The device is something as ingenious and yet so simple as a Bluetooth DAC. The idea is that you stream music from your mobile phone via Bluetooth. For more orthodox purposes it offers a USB socket as well.

Categories:

Harman/Kardon DMC 1000

harman Like a couple of other devices mentioned here, this is one of those almost-need-to-have things. It rips, plays and serves. There is a CD/DVD transport that supports ripping a CD to the internal 250GB harddrive. It can serve up to 4 concurrent streams and it can play DVD videos. Stylishly concealed on the front there are slots for memory cards and USB sources. It has it all… but why in the fury fires of marshmellow meltdown have they omitted lossless fileformats? It supports MP3 – that’s it.

Categories:

Tivoli Audio NetWorks

Tivoli Audio are known for some of the coolest table top radios on the market in general and for Henry Kloss’ design in particular. They too have jumped on the wagon and done a streaming piece of art with their new NetWorks.

NetWorks streams internet radio stations as well as playing FM radio and DAB. Supported file formats include MP3 and WMA. It is unclear if lossless formats are supported but unlike most others it supports Real Audio.

Sonos Digital Music System

The Sonos Digital Music System is more than just a streamer. It consists of a server connected via twisted pair to your network and a controller with a color display. The server relays music to other Sonos devices via their own proprietary wireless network optimized for audio. All Sonos devices can play either their own playlists or play in sync. Everything controlled from the neat little handheld remote.

If you have more than one device only one of them needs to be physically connected to the network. The others receive their data wirelessly from there. There are three different types of devices to choose from: The ZoneBridge that does nothing except bridge the physical and wireless network – an access point, if you will, and two ZonePlayers that have actual playing capabilities. One of these ZonePlayers comes with a built in amplifier – the other without. In my book it is the latter that is most interesting. You simply connect it to your existing system – maybe even with a Benchmark Dac1 for conversion.

The entire system is controlled from up to 32 controllers or from a PC using some cool looking software – very nicely laid out.

Sonos

Thomas Nielsen

June 14, 2008

0 Comments

Categories:

Bel Canto e.One Dac3

belcfront One of my favourite Shakespeare one liners [the better part of a verse, more like] is Juliet’s immortal outburst at Romeo; that had he been the nephew of Sid Vicious himself, he would have still been her one and only fancy… or as she put it: “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. It is obvious that John Stronczer, the chief at Bel Canto, had the core of this quote in mind when naming this DAC. Fortunately they omitted the name from the front – it looks extraordinarily slick in its purist attire.

belcback

Like the [near half priced] Benchmark DAC1 it sports a serious back panel with balanced XLR outputs. Specs tout a a 130dB dynamic range and an optimised and unbroken signal path without capacitors. The actual conversion is done with Burr-Brown PCM1792. The 5 inputs include USB next to the mandatory SPDIF and Toslink.

For an actual review, I strongly suggest you take a look at Stereophile’s article from last November.

Categories:

Freecom MusicPal

With their MusicPal internet radio, Freecom shows a fairly classy looking albeit, barebone device. Like the Terratec Noxon, it is designed to stream internet radio stations, music from your computer or from a network attached disk. It supports Wav, WMA and MP3, and recognizes uPnP servers on the network. It has both wired and wireless network connectivity and outputs both to headphones and music system.

There are two things that makes the MusicPal stand out from the crowd, though. It can show RSS feeds on its small LCD screen and, what is really nifty, it has a built in alarm clock… you can actually use it to wake up in the morning with your favourite artist – figuratively speaking.

There is no support for Flac or Ogg-Vorbis.

Freecom

Thomas Nielsen

June 10, 2008

0 Comments

Categories:

Colorado vNet Vibe Audio System

This is an awsome implementation of a dead simple concept. The Vibe Audio System consists of a media server with ripping capabilities. Depending on model, the server can handle 3 or 6 concurrent streams and thus serve 3 or 6 independent clients. The clever bit is the peripherals that all connect over ethernet. That includes an iPod dock, an AM/FM radio tuner, an analogue source decoder [complete with IR relaying] and a amplifier with a 7” touchscreen panel. Add to that software that installs on PCs in the network, letting you manage playlists and content, and you have a fairly impressive system.

wiring-diagram-vibe

There is nothing fancy about the specs; suffice to say that streams are uncompressed PCM and the only supported file format is WAV. But it is not specs that should propel this device into legend – it is sheer interconnectivity elegance. It even rack mounts if you so choose.

As for the amplifiers they appear a bit crammed in their wall flush mounts; but man, do I love the appearance.

What I miss most in the specs is not surprisingly Flac support. It could have helped save a bit of disk space but at least it uses PCM over MP3.

Categories:

Benchmark DAC1 USB

dac1usb The Benchmark DAC1 is not a streamer; it is a digital to analogue converter – a DAC. All digital sources have a DAC. Some of those mentioned in this blog have Burr-Brown converters or other high-end DACs. But if that is not enough and you really crave a clear signal path from your digital media to your amplifier, you want a DAC that is built with a bit more love and caring. The Benchmark DAC1 is one such external DAC.

Some 5 years ago Benchmark Media Systems made [more of] a name for themselves by releasing the DAC1 with a list price of less than $1,000. It boasted a 24 bit / 96KHz resolution, balanced outputs and generally rave reviews for perfect sound. Half a year ago they went on to release this new model in a line of successors, which as the name implies, offers a USB input port [supporting 24 bit / 96KHz] in addition to the SPDIF and Toslink ports [supporting 24 bit / 192KHz] already there. With the added USB port the DAC1 can now serve as a sound board for your computer as well as replace the built-in DAC in your media streamer; provided, of course, that your streamer has a digital output.

At a little over $1,200 the DAC1 USB is still an affordable option like its predecessor was before, even if it is a lot of money.

Categories:

Arcus DAR300

dar300 Esteemed Arcus has a potent player in the game of CD ripping audio servers. This one can copy CD onto its internal hard drive, back it up onto a network attached storage and play it back in a number of formats, including Flac and Ogg-Vorbis.

Wireless communication is done using a USB Wifi dongle. Not exactly elegant but at least it lets you move the antenna to higher ground for good reception. Identifying itself over uPnP, other streaming clients can take advantage of the device.

Arcus

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »

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