Sooloos music server: Anyone hear, anyone a dealer

Albert, I'm with you. The Sooloos is very expensive.

The main appeal is its user friendly touch screen interface and perhaps convenience...the fact that you can buy all the music server components in a single product line.

I'm finding though that with a decent DAC, it is not hard to get very good sound for not much cost.

For an easy and low cost of entry solution, I'm doing it via a wireless connection with a fast Toshiba laptop with a large disk built-in and Windows MEdia Player, a Roku Soundbridge, a mhdt Paradisea tube DAC, and decent but not exceptionally expensive ICs.

I have over 1300 songs available on the server currently (ripped from CD in just a few minutes each) and room for 2-3 times as many at least more. Total cost, including laptop PC, Roku, DAC and ICs: ~$1700.

The sound is fabulous!

The main appeal is its user friendly touch screen interface and perhaps convenience...the fact that you can buy all the music server components in a single product line.

I'm finding though that with a decent DAC, it is not hard to get very good sound for not much cost.

I'll do that when the time is right, I'm keeping a close eye out on the market. There are lots of super buys at places like Micro Center where they sell a HP or other laptop at a screaming deal and you just add a Buffalo array and DAC and good to go.

I'm an Apple guy, so it would be even easier for me if I could snag a good deal on one of their laptops.

I still think touch screen is just a heartbeat away, I saw an HP ad on TV the other day that had the feature, so how far behind can the rest of the guys be?

Once the super user-friendly touch screen is common, the market will be flooded with cost busting options to do it yourself with a server.

Here's the HP demo at YouTube. I've not tried it in person but it sure looks flexible and it's really easy on the eye too.

HP Touchscreen

The music server is a great thing that adds new perspectives to music you may have heard many times before.

I have been rediscovering parts of my music collection that I other wise might not listen to often with my new music server set up.

I often now find myself putting the Roku in random selection mode within or across genres and let the 1300+ tunes flow. You hear music from a different perspective and make new discoveries by not having any pre-conceptions or album context in mind when a particular tune comes on.

For vinyl, I currently record to CD-R first and then rip to the server. In the future, I may go with a direct to disk/file recorder or ADC and avoid the CD-R, though having the disk copy for safe storage and use in the car isn't bad.

Albert, I agree that there will lower cost Sooloos like servers coming our way...I just cld not wait. LCD panel prices are plummeting and will do so more again over the next yr as there is excessive production capacity in Asia where most of them are made. The same thing can be said for memory.

However, I do think the Sooloos interface and touch screen is vastly more convenient than a notebook PC based solution, Mac or PC. I find a bigger screen makes things easier to access and browse, the Swimming function excellent, and available memory of course is vastly bigger.

Unless I'm missing something one of the funny things about this thread is theat Henryhk has one of the best DACs that exist at any price. EMM Labs DCC2 SE DA converter.

For Gods Sake Man - plug in the Sooloos into your DAC! :)

Okay - ignoring that aspect for now, my commentary on this is the following:

1) For people to whom 500 is a lot of money, i.e., they optimize their system not to spend 500 extra here or there, the Sooloos is a no-go on price - even if 10k on one component is okay, as you are paying for redundant and non-optimized capability. What it offers for price is not competitive with what you can build off the shelf.

2) It has an interface that can't be beat today, hands down.

3) For people with 20k+ DACs already :), and tons of CDs, and they want a turnkey solution, and perhaps don't have a lot of detailed computer experience, this is an extremely easy and efficient way to go. Probably the best one.

Now, for me, my recommendation is that they sell another product that is the same as what they have now except it has no DAC at all, and no storage. It should be 3k, maybe 4. You plug in your own DAC and your own storage, and now we have a system that is optimized price/performance at a much more constrained level.

On Jitter - if you have a DAC that re-clocks (Benchmark, Berkeley Alpha, the new Bryston, etc) then Jitter doesn't matter from your source as the signal will be re-built inside the DAC.