Sony GigaJuke Hifi

[in5ane]

I'm hoping that we will sometime get completely uncompressed audio via Blu-ray discs as there is certainly enough space on a disc.

We already do!

[kernow]

http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProduct.action?product=NAS-50HDE&site=odw_en_GB&imageType=Main&category=HDD+audio

For music fananitacs

... uhm

thats a terrible spelling error

[andrewfee]

To be fair, the market this is aimed at probably doesn't have any of their music ripped yet, or if they do, they won't know it should be quicker, or care about it taking a while to get off their computer. They'll like the fact that they can just stick a disc in and have it rip it to the drive.

The thing that got me though is the price! I'm sure I only paid about £400-450 for my QNAP NAS + 500gb drive (paid a bit extra to get a quiet, reliable one) and a Squeezebox.

This lets me play music in any format that I want (in my case, FLACs) but it will also stream to iTunes, DLNA devices (360/PS3) and perform various other functions. (network backup storage, has a bittorrent client, and http downloader) Oh, and it'll stream podcasts / internet radio too, which is something I make quite a lot of use of. (the podcasts)

http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProdu...gory=HDD+audio

For music fananitacs

... uhm

thats a terrible spelling error

Clearly they care as much about English as they do audio quality.

[in5ane]

This product isn't aimed at 90% of the people on this forum tho

I have a Windows Home Server (RC1), 2 RJ45 sockets in every room in my appartment and about 2tb on my network, so I see the limitations. Johnny Untechnical will think this is great and find it very useful.

[JP]

We already do!

I was thinking more of a replacement of the CD standard that we have at the moment rather the uncompressed audio in films.

If I'm listening to music I'd rather it was the highest quality possible which isn't CD now Blu-ray is available. I know you can buy Blu-ray discs which are concerts but we seem to be a long way from being able to buy just an audio Blu-ray at the moment.

And before anybody asks...yes I would be willing to pay ?20+ for a 2 track album of uncompressed audio.

[Crisp_Rapper]

All I've been able to find is waffle makers, wannabe microwaves and other fingerprint-hoarding kitchen appliances in disguise...!

i suggest you take a look at http://www.bang-olufsen.com

[andrewfee]

i suggest you take a look at http://www.bang-olufsen.com

Seems pretty "waffle iron" to me!

[kernow]

blech, B&O, owned some BeoVox CX100's for a few years, they were 'alright' until one came smashing down on my eyebrow in the night , causing severe blood loss and moaning on my behalf

[Crisp_Rapper]

Seems pretty "waffle iron" to me!

how space age is your kitchen dude?

[saif]

Is BD better than SACD for sound? I've not been paying enough attention but the failure of that to take off (and dvd-a) kind of signalled the end for higher quality imho.

[in5ane]

SACD and DVD-A was still compressed wasn't it?

[JP]

The are both compressed.

They do sound better than CDs but I imagine the full Blu-ray audio wipes the floor with them!

Not that there is anything wrong with the quality of the sound on them...

[sadat]

call that a hi-fi?

http://www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/boombox/golden2.html

Now THAT's a hi-fi. Where did it all go wrong, there must be someone other than me that wants a MP3 player that looks and sounds like this?

[Crisp_Rapper]

using the term 'hi-fi' to describe those is pushing it a little bit i think... as cool as those are, i wouldn't want to listen to anything on them for a particularly long time.

[Lyris]

Have Sony completely lost it?

http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProduct.action?product=NAS-50HDE&site=odw_en_GB&imageType=Main&category=HDD+audio

There's a favourable review of this on theregister, but to my mind it's completely ill conceived.

It's a hifi that concentrates on good sound quality, but then incorporates an 80GB HDD. I need 160GB to store my 400 (not that many?) albums in lossless compression CD quality sound. Even my mp3 folder (all the same stuff in mp3 version at 192) is already at 40GB.

So how do you get things on to it? You can either load a CD and it will rip it for you. Or you can transfer mp3 direct from your PC on to it, via USB. Except it's USB1 which would take a few days to fill 80GB.

So why would anyone buy this? The vast majority of people wanting to listen to their MP3s would just get a normal hifi and an ipod dock or a line cable. And anyone very serious about mp3s or digital music would want to stream them off their PC.

This could have been so good if it had a wireless music streamer. I would have recommended it to my parents.

Am I completely out of touch with what people want for digital music, living in a fantasy realm of streaming and lossless and faster-than-usb1, or is Sony?

It's a typical Sony product: probably well-made with some neat touches and a price tag to match, but with one questionable decision that puts a lot of people off buying it.

See their late Summer 2004 LCD WEGA range, some of the only HDTVs released at the time with no Digital Video inputs, their Summer 2006 BRAVIA range that many passed up on because they had only one Digital Video input instead of the then-standard two, or their line of MP3 players that are hampered by relatively horrible music transfer software.