VortexBox 1TB Automatic CD ripping NAS Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this gadget after a considerable amount of frustration with a Netgear ReadyNAs I had expected to use as a server for my Logitech Squeezebox Duet. The ReadyNAS supposedly performs this function but with a large collection of files it is simply too slow to keep up with indexing and searching etc. Plus ripping my 2,000+ CDs was a real chore. I read about this product and jumped on it.
Well, within a week of getting my Vortexbox appliance, all my CDs are in my mini storage, my Levinson 31.5 transport sold on eBay, and my entire CD collection is now available to me throughout my home without the slightest issues, disappointments or problems.
I initially corresponded with the manufacturer a few times with questions about configuring this device to suit my particular needs I got immediate, understanding an useful help. I cannot speak more highly of the builder. In fact, I sent a modest voluntary donation to them as I felt the help I got was above-and-beyond. Since I became familiar with this gadget, I have had zero issues, it has been up and running for over sixty days without a reboot, issue, glitch etc. You just pop a CD in the slot and it will rip it to flac and/or any almost any other format you care to have.
Useful tip: if you are ripping a large collection disable the creation of MP3 copies (the system rips to both flac and mp3 by default). This will speed up the tedious job of ripping enormously and you can go back later on and create MP3 versions of any or all of your stuff as a background task when you're done transcribing your collection. Info on how this is done is on the manufacturer's simple but very useful web site.
Anyway, this is a great product from nice people and if anything happened to it I'd buy another in a flash.

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Escient FireBall SE-80 Digital Music Manager Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought a new house and first became aware of the SE-80 when the Home Theater installer recommended it. I was initally skeptical and not too willing to pay close to $1,000 for what I considered an iPod on steroids. Ultimately, I relented and went with the installer's advice and included it in the system. I am really glad that I did because the SE-80 does everything I hoped for and more. In my installation the unit is hooked up to the home network, Sony XBR LCD and stereo system. I have numerous albums loaded on the 80 GB hard drive and was able to do it wirelessly from the iTunes application on my laptop. You just network into the SE-80, open the folder for adding music and drag and drop the mp3 albums out of iTunes into the folder. You can then call up the albums on the TV and select the ones you want and you're good to go. Another feature I really like is the Internet Radio which brings in numerous stations from across the net including several choices of NPR which is difficult to receive OTA where I live. All in all I really like the unit, the documentation is great, it is simple to use - only wish it was a bit less expensive. Having said all of that, I would buy it again.

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The FireBall SE-80 is the perfect solution for entry-level single room and IR-based multi-room distributed music installations.It features an 80-gigabyte hard drive that provides storage for large music collections.Instant Music Access instantly finds and plays any genre, artist, title, or song in your music collection.The built-in CD player will play any standard CD and retrieve the cover art, artist, title and song list on-screen.Automatic CD Identification automatically accesses the Gracenote online CD database for the best possible CD data matching in the world.Multi-Zone Support lets you connect one FireBall to another FireBall to share the music, double the storage capacity, create a second music zone, or add FireBall MP-150 players for music in every room.

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Logitech Squeezebox Touch Review

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(More customer reviews)I purchased my Squeezebox Touch directly from Logitech, and have enjoyed it enough over the first few days of ownership to write a quick review.
To understand where I'm coming from, it may help to know I enjoy classical music, especially when its reproduced by a traditional stereo system with high quality discrete components. I own a British designed and built integrated amplifier and some tall floor-standing speakers from a Canadian manufacturer. Sound quality matters a whole lot to my enjoyment of music, and that shows in the care with which I select the components in my audio system.
I have owned a number of Logitech's previous Squeezebox WiFi streamers, including the Squeezebox Classic and some Duet receivers, so I am not new to the Squeezebox ecosystem. I keep my music collection as a large library of FLAC-encoded files, so as to avoid any potential losses due to codec compression artifacts.
On receiving my new Squeezebox Touch, I swapped out an existing "Slimdevices" branded classic Squeezebox in my main HiFi system for the new device. The Squeezebox Touch first discovered MySqueezebox.com as its source of music and asked me to provide login credentials, which caused it to upgrade its firmware from that site. After that, it rebooted and was able to connect to my local Squeezebox Server that I have running to serve music around the house. After that, I was able to browse my music collection and navigate to internet radio stations either using the touch interface or by using the supplied remote control.
I noticed that the interface automatically uses bigger fonts if you are controlling it from the IR remote and smaller ones if it finds you are controlling it via the touchscreen, which obviously makes sense when you are within an arm's length of the display.
As a first test, I played back a 96kHz, 24-bit high resolution copy of Marianne Thorsen on violin with the TrondheimSolistene playing Mozart's D-major Violin Concerto. At first I played the tracks via a Benchmark DAC1, which is a studio-quality monitoring DAC for use by mixing engineers. The sound was detailed, rich with a deep stereo image and musically involving. Next, I removed the Benchmark DAC from the signal path and tried again. Once again the sound was clearly better than a CD could provide and very close to that rendered through the Benchmark DAC. There has clearly been an improvement to the quality of the analog stereo outputs compared to previous Squeezebox versions, which was already pretty good.
I then went on to listen to Emanuel Ax, Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma playing some Mendelssohn Piano Trios. This recording was "only" in 16-bit/44.1kHz CD quality audio, nevertheless I was soon captivated by the musicality of the performance, and could find no significant short comings of the quality as rendered by the built-in DACs compared to the external, studio quality Benchmark DAC1.
Someone starting to use this system without prior experience of Squeezebox Servers or software might face something of a learning curve to begin with. I can't speak to that, but I appreciate that I was able to drop this new device into an existing system and, within a few minutes, start to enjoy some very high quality reproduction of my music library.
The advantages over the previous Squeezebox Classic are:
* Color, touch-controlled user interface and display
* Ability to play back high resolution music without loss of quality
* Excellent audio quality from the analog outputs; significantly better than previous versions.
Another possible advantage is to use the Squeezebox Touch as a music server as well as a client, by attaching a USB hard drive to the supplied USB port. I have not tested this functionality, so I can't comment on how well it works. This review was mainly focussed on sound quality.
Based on my short experience, I recommend this device highly. I think it is a worthy successor to the Squeezebox Classic, as it provides significantly more in terms user interface and sound quality for the same retail price as the older player.

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Logitech Squeezebox Touch. The color touch-screen Wi-Fi music player that lets you discover a world of music—all through your stereo.

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