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  3. 1262213652

Is sooloos worth the money?

I saw a sooloos system in a local dealer. It has a touch screen, Raid 1 hard drive, very nice user interface with any music search criteria you can think of. It is hooked up to Bryston DAC and meridian DSP5200 active speakers. For that set up the music sounds very very digital, in some aspect almost like the mini stereo system you get at Best Buy.

I was very surprised to hear the sooloos sell for about $10,000. To me, it is just a very nice interface/software to read the music file, help you search and organize your music collection. It can not improve your audio performance whatsoever. It sounds like Mi-Fi with Bryston DAC and Meridian 5200 speakers. You still need to buy high end DAC and speaker to make it sound good. To charge $10,000 for a music organizer/software plus $1,000 hardware(touch screen, hard drive, CPU that have nothing to do audio performance) is beyond my believe. It is like charge you $1,000,000 for Microsoft Windows 7 (people can argue Microsoft can sell cheap because they sell lots of copies, but that is not our problem). Even with people have lots of money to blow, you should have a $50K+ system before you consider a $10K music organizer. They don’t even sell $50K system in my local dealer.

I like Linn’s approach better. I have Linn DS player that reads music file from your PC or Nas server and convert it to analogue signal. I need to spend $500 for a 1.5TB Nas server, 1GB network switch and some CAT6 network cables to set up the Linn DS with amp and speakers. Linn give you a Kinsky software to organize your music files for free although it is not as nice as sooloos. This is a more opened design than sooloos because sooloos charge a premium for touch screen, hard drive and other stuff that doesn’t effect sound quality. Then we can spend money on something that can improve the sound while buy non critical stuff cheap elsewhere. Sooloos probably has the best user interface in the market, but this is not the reason we buy high end audio.

I don’t know how many sooloos systems have been sold so far. I think sooloos should just sell the user interface to read music files and organize music for $1000. They do have a pretty nice interface.

This is just my opinion, maybe people who have more experience with sooloos can share their different idea.
yxlei
mikelavigne
2,196 posts
 
Yxlei,

actually; Playback Designs is quite popular here in the North America.....at least amoung friends of mine. of course, one of those friends is Jonathan Tinn, one of the owners of the company that makes and sells Playback Designs.

i have not heard the Playbacks directly compared to the Scarlatti or Klimax.....so i really cannot commet on that. i have heard the Scarlatti, although never as a server DAC. my guess would be that the Playbacks Design would have advantages as a server DAC over the DCS in terms of it's complete elimination of jitter from digital sources.

it is the best sounding server DAC i have listened to.....and it even compares very well with my analog sources.....a first in my experience for digital. i have some pretty good analog sources.
rbstehno
1,415 posts
 
i think the sooloos unit is way over priced and doesn't sound that good compared to a decent computer/jitter device/external dac setup. as for the interface, except for the touch screen, it doesn't offer as much as itunes release 9 IMO. also, the sooloos doesn't have the flexibility like a computer does for adding more external devices (like a NAS unit for example) and to hook up a backup device (possibly a drobo or nas for example).
brauser
524 posts
 
I believe that Sooloos will have to cut prices drastically very soon or drop from the market. At 50% less it would still be at the upper end of the spectrum. Along with this it does have some limitations (as already mentioned) which precludes it from being an all out audiophile product.

Overall, I'm not in a hurry to shell out that kind of money. If Sooloos doesn't get the features/price point right, I have confidence that someone else will!
mikelavigne
2,196 posts
 
it should be pointed out that Sooloos is owned by Meridian and marketed by 'brick and mortar' High End Home Theatre stores that typically have 2-channel as a sideline. it's not directed at the hard core enthusiast audiophile primarily but more a product which is a lifestyle statement. no one buys Sooloos thinking it's the best sounding direction to go. it's easy and fun and cool as hell.....whichj is likely good enough. the typical 'cheap' audiophile wants a better value proposition and does not get hung up on the interface as enough to justify the price.

my point being Sooloos does not need 'our' business to stay in business. the margins we might leave are of little interest to them. it's likely Sooloos will still be a viable product long after other current (more cutting edge and less expensive) products have gone away.
pnw05ss
3 posts
 
I would say no.

I have one of the first Sooloos Ensemble's with six 1Tb drives (three "active" and three back-up). I'm running the digital out through the Playback Design DAC (no CD in it). Based on my experience with Sooloos, both before and afer the Meridian buyout I would not recommend buying their product now. With V2.x software, they claim you can play 24/96k files. I haven't tied it yet. My main complaint with them is that with V2.x you can no longer export files other then to MP3. I have about 4K CDs loaded and am building another server that will do hi-rez using a Lynx AES16 card which means reloading all the CDs while not be able to transfer the files already in the Sooloos. This is going to be royal pain in the butt for sure, but I think it will be worth it to get out from under the Sooloos limitations. The RME audio card that Sooloos uses is OK, but far from great. It has a lot of capabilites built in, but they don't want to turn on any of the features. I've talked to them at length a number times about this and they just walk off.

In my opinion, I would just walk off and look for a better srever - like the one from Goodman's or build one using info from Computer Audiofile. IMHO.
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