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Review: Slim Devices Transporter
| Permalink | Wireless Audio | Posted by Danny Kaey on Dec 27 '07
Functional High Design, High-end? Just Plug it in.
Pioneer’s new MusicTap system is a collection of beautiful music making components for your modern lifestyle. To get the music flowing through flat-pack house, simple tap a component into your electrical system (plug into an electrical outlet). No need to fuss with wireless networks. The core transmitting unit has 5 inputs including a direct USB connection for your PC or iPod, and the remote units have motion sensors that can be set to let the music flow when someone (or some thing) enters a room.
| Permalink | Wireless Audio , Writer: Sandy Greene | Posted by Sandy Greene on Mar 12 '07
Sonos in Malibu
Ah, the life of an audio journalist. This week found SonicFlare invited to the land of broken Ferraris, drunken Mels and audio demos. Yes, the place is Malibu and the event was Amazon.com's HT spectacular at the Malibu beach house, party central for the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Luke Wilson and Entourage. Alas, while I was there, no celebs were lounging around, but there were plenty of JBL speakers, plasma displays and Sonos wireless gadgets. Almost as good, right?
While the actual demos offered nothing above your local Best Buy, the whole goal was to wow the gathered press with sandy beaches, scantily clad women and massive marketing budgets. You're not there to listen to the equipment but look at the scenery.
The interesting part was talking to Graham Farrar and Thomas Meyer of Sonos. Amazon.com recently picked up the little wireless music jukebox and this event was the kick off party of sorts. Sonos, for those who don't know, is a line of products that wirelessly connects the music in your computer's library to various base stations around your home. The ZP100 station has a built in Tripath amp and the ZP80 acts as a digital hub, offering both analog outs as well as pure digital for hooking up to an outboard DAC. A wireless controller similar to an iPod allows you to scroll through your music library, play music and control different rooms, somewhat like a wireless Crestron system. The ZP100 is $499, the ZP80 is $349 and the remote control is $399. You need at least the controller and one base station to get in the game (and a wireless computer). Pictured above, the controller sits in its cradle on top of the ZP100.
Above, Danny Kaey in the pink (no, his wife doesn't buy his clothing) chats it up with the Sonos crew. Sonos has been around a year and a half and has seen remarkable growth from the iPod and iTunes explosion. Interestingly, this growth is despite Apple's DRM on tracks downloaded from the iTunes store that keeps third party players from using their music. In Europe, the recent Sonos launch blew away all expectations. Why? Europe has far more old construction with brick and stone so being able to wirelessly connect music throughout the house is a dream come true.
Talking about the sonic qualities of their products, Sonos makes no claim to make the best amps or speakers in the world. Their speakers are $179/pair and are pitched as a great little system for bedrooms, kitchens and the like while the ZP80 hub is the product they're pushing for the high performance audio segment. With the digital outs, the sound is defined by the quality of your outboard DAC. If you wanted to hook up a $30k Audio Note DAC, no problem.
While Sonos may release larger speakers, they really want to push the concept of perfect digital wireless distribution. The Sonos guys are definitely audiophiles, with Vandersteens being a favorite. They're all about lossless and keeping the signal as pure as possible. Great guys definitely dialed into the future of audio and the high-end/iPod convergence. For bringing iPodders to the high-end audio segment, products like the Sonos system are perfect. Of course, beautiful women, celebs and beach houses don't hurt either.
Here are some more shots of the hard life:
A DJ rig is set up in the window on the right for when celebs and such throw parties on the beach.
COMMENTS (5) | Permalink | Articles , Wireless Audio | Posted by Josh Ray on Aug 04 '06
HE2006: Bard Audio Sans Cables
Bard audio showed off their killer wireless amps and transmitters. The way it works is you plug in a little wifi thumb drive, the Bard USB, into your computer's USB port and, presto, music streams to your audio system across the room. Look closely at the picture above and you'll see those two speakers are plugged into that little white box, the Bard Three. A Tripath amp inside provides the juice. Plug it into the wall and, boom, that's it.
Price is $1299 for the Bard Three and $599 for the Bard USB. Know what? It sounded pretty good. Check out the 6Moons review of these guys.
Permalink | | Posted to Shows and Expos | USB Audio | Wireless Audio
new Sonos ZonePlayer ZP80!
This is it! Via our friends at Engadget we now have first pictures of the new Sonos player - this little box is pretty cool stuff, the remote fancies itself with a display of its own, for content right at your fingertips. Link a few of these together to form a complete multi-room music playback experience, without having to worry about cables, etc. No doubt, more of these gadgets will be popping up as time goes by... The usual suspects of I/O are available: RCA in/out, Toslinkk and SPDIF as well as 2 Ethernet ports. From the looks of it, this appear even smaller then the mac Mini
Permalink | | Posted to Wireless Audio
Red Wine SqueezeBox 3 Modification
You know what they say, "the best cable is no cable," and there ain't no cable like a Squeezebox. Red Wine's Squeezebox 2 mod blew up the scene a few months ago with some listeners favorably comparing the modded Squeezebox's sound over that of high-end CD players. Red Wine is back for all your wireless lushes with the extensive SB3 mods.
Prices start at $199 for the analog output mods and go up to $499 for the works (not including the Squeezebox itself). Up until the end of November, you can get the Squeezebox 3 AND the analog mods all together for $389 -- that's only $90 more than your regular Squeezebox! Someone out there buy one, compare it to your disc player and tell me what you think.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Posted to Wireless Audio
One Transport to Rule Them All
CD players, watch your back. Hard disk audio is taking the high-end by storm and always cutting-edge 6Moons Srajan starts an awesome new series about the future of computers and the audiophiles who love them.
Done right, computer audio can bawl with CD players twice their price and, in some cases, best them. We covered the killer Empirical and Red Wine USB transports as well as the Wavelength USB DAC that are seriously making audiophiles consider complete computer solutions...that and we're just damn lazy, getting up to change the CD is so 2004.
6Moons also takes a look at computer-based equalization and crossover software that potentially solves subwoofer matching, bass/room gremlins and other problems plaguing audio for years. Products like the $3000 DEQX, an active computer-based crossover, dropped jaws everywhere it was demoed. In fact, the amazing $229k Magico Ultimates use a custom DEQX as its only crossover. Can't get a better recommendation than that.
Check out the article for a world of information and comments from established audio manufacturers describing their big plunge into the ones and zeros.
6Moons - Audiophiles Embrace the Hard Drive
Permalink | | Posted to Articles | USB Audio | Wireless Audio
Microlink dLAN
The poor man's Squeezebox, the MicroLink dLAN provides two wall warts with RCA or Toslink to be placed in two different wall sockets to send the most god-awful sound through your filthy electrical lines. If you don't know, the electricity coming out of the wall is extremely "noisy" and causes all kinds of nastiness to come through your speakers, hence the massive power conditioning segment of high-end audio designed to fix these problems.
Approx $161 for just one of these gimmicks, it appears you have to buy two to make the thing even work. Why you wouldn't just go with the Squeezebox is beyond me...
Microlink if you care [via Red Ferret Journal]
Permalink | | Posted to Wireless Audio
Squeezebox 3
For those not hip to the "digital revolution," the Slim Devices Squeezebox is basically a transport that wirelessly connects your audio rig to your computer, allowing you to play your nasty MP3s and glorious lossless tracks over your Bose boxes or Wilson X-2s or whatever you may have.
The Squeezebox 3 brings lots of great new technology such as activation via internet and a whole host of new format supports as well as a Burr-Brown DAC, if you can believe it. Of course, expect the likes of Vinnie Rossi to batteryify the Squeezebox 3 when he gets his mitts on one (check out his serious SB2 Squeezebox 2 mod). $299 for wireless and $249 for the ethernet version.
Squeezebox 3 Drops [Gizmodo]
Slim Devices Home
Permalink | | Posted to Wireless Audio
