Sooloos music server: Anyone hear, anyone a dealer

When I was in the Sooloos room I overheard a conversation between two people, one was totally buzzed by the looks, convenience and "modern" approach of the Sooloos system.

I was speaking with another gentleman and commented that the price seemed way out of line for the performance level it provided. I suggested an Apple iMac and rack of outboard HD's and wait a year or two for touch screens to appear at Micro Center or Best Buy.

He agreed and said that was exactly what he had purchased for his own home.

The guy that was buzzed about the Sooloos looked shocked and walked away. I found out that he had recently purchased one from a dealer and waiting for delivery.

I felt bad, it was not my intention to rain on his parade but at least two of us in the room were thinking the same thing and the guy I was discussing this with was part of the demo.

Yetis, when dealing with computer audio, it might be more difficult (or impossible) to simply slave the machine to a DAC with master clock. The reason is that the Master Clock needs to give the frequency for the data to follow, and computer audio is often associated with many different sampling rates. I won't get too technical here, but the answer is that the clock link is not absolutely necessary at all, only if you are in it for the quality. But if you really wanted quality, you'd think twice about including PLL's to derive the sampling rates, which is what computer audio does, since a separate clock would otherwise be needed for every sampling rate, and that costs money to build. I am speaking from an engineering perspective here. From a user perspective, I would not get into it, because you have to drill holes in the sooloos and experiment and it may or may not work, something might break, and then sooloos will not give you any money for trying to raise the quality of their device.

All this wonderful user interface make-up is nice stuff. But still it make you feel you are on Amazon looking for a CD.

Just to follow up...I did get to hear a Sooloos running a rather high end system at THE Show (sorry, I can't remember the name of the gear) play some familiar material and the sound quality was easily as good as what you would get from a normal coax digital out on a better than average sound card like an M-Audio or higher into a good D/A.

I agree that listing the jitter at less than 1 nanosecond is as silly as listing my height as less than 100 feet, but from what I heard, it is in a respectable range which is obviously less than 1 nanosecond.

And while I also agree that the unit is very expensive, I cannot imagine a better GUI or touch screen. Nothing I have ever seen comes close. The best off the shelf (now free) software I know of is J. River, and it's nowhere near as nice as this. The Sooloos GUI fills nearly the entire screen with your album artwork sorted by Artist, Genre, or whatever, and makes you feel like you are flipping through your actual CD or LP collection. To me it is the antithesis of "Amazon" or the typical cluttered text-based GUI. Their touch panel is also the first I have experienced to not seem to show any fingerprints even though hundreds, if not thousands, of people had touched the screen with their greasy fingers. And the response time was instantaneous. I guess these things are all in the eye of the beholder.

Yes, very expensive though.

i am a dealer you might want to try the qsonix I have several for sale that are b stock and have more features than the sooloos. This paired with a msb dac will provide you with the best digital sound you can get at any price

Hey all...I actually own a Sooloos system with 2 terabyte capacity. The attraction is basically interface, ease of use, capacity (with back up as well), touch screen, et etc...its simply the best there is. Building your own PC based system is fine but for those like me its a huge headache and note book based systems do not give terabyte capacity...which is important for the likes of me who have thousands of CDs and expect them to grow continually (& want to record in lossless quality). To be sure there are solutions around this.....

As for sound quality, best to use an external dac. I have mine connected in my home theatre/music combo system in the living room....connected to my McIntosh pre-pro, though I am considering inserting a better external DAC.

Two things which are not mentioned above which I find very valuable

1. The interface is so easy, the screen big enough, and given the LAN connection to the server u can have the screen pretty much right nxt to you sit...all this convenience leads to re-discovering your music library. Music servers, PCs etc all have this but the market leading ase of use make this even more inviting for investigation etc.

2. Its so easy to use and touch screen is such a complete hook that anyone uses it. Everyone in the family enjoys and when I have guest over, everyone ends up trying to putting their own favorties in the playing que. Just a LOT iof FUN.