Continuing on with the CEDIA 2008 coverage…

Sooloos had an impressive display on the show floor this year.  They have been working on several new products and had working prototypes of all of them.  I can’t definitively say any one was better or more exciting than the other as they are all great product offerings.

Stores: The two box storage solutions (Store:One and Store:Two) have been discontinued for three new models.  All models now feature removable hard drives giving you the option to buy a disk drive from Sooloos with your order, or you can purchase it on your own.

Ensemble: Single disk drive with all space being dedicated to storage, backup via ControlPC.
Twinstore: Two drive solution with automatic backup; one disk for storage, one for backup.
Quadstore: Four drive solution with automatic backup; two disks for storage, two for backup.

Source: The Source:One and Source:Five remain with no changes. However, it was announced that new versions of these units, with significantly upgraded DAC’s, will be available soon. As you may or may not know, the DAC’s have been abused in recent reviews and it’s great to see Sooloos taking action. There will be an upgrade program for all existing sources.

Control: The Control:One, with its outstanding user interface, still remains the highlight of the product line. The 17″ touchpanel will soon be joined by a wireless handheld, which has been talked about for many months. ControlPC, the desktop software application, remains in the line up with a UI update due shortly. There have been several updates in recent months and the software now includes the ability to import music from your computers hard disk or internal CD or DVD drive, backup and restore, edit metadata and, of course, manage music and playlists.

Additionally, you can now control your Sooloos music server with an iPhone or an iPod Touch. Finally, the new Control:Bridge is used for seamless integration with Crestron.

Software: There will be new skins available for the UI in the next couple of weeks, which is really cool, but the major announcements from CEDIA are the addition of the DVD and Blu-ray support as well as a photo collection interface. These will use a new product called the Cinema which will process the audio and video from the store and send it to one display and audio source. The Cinema is only compatible with the Twinstore and Quadstore. Ensemble owners will still have photo access, management will be done via ControlPC and images will be displayed on the Control:One touch-panel.

The last big announcement for the software is the integration with the online digital music service Rhapsody. While the exact details have not been fully released, this will make the Sooloos system even more attractive to own.

So, that’s the latest on the new releases, here’s my take on everything. First, all of the new products and features are very exciting and will secure Sooloos in the music serving market. The DVD and Blu-ray support remains to be proven simply because they are getting to the dance a little late. The industry has seen a number of companies getting into the market segment in addition to the ones who were already there. The good news for Sooloos is they have the luxury of seeing what others have successfully (and unsuccessfully) accomplished and will hopefully use this a guide for releasing they solution. The preview looked great but until we get a chance to actually use it in a live environment the jury is still out.

The photo management software and display looked great. The ability to easily manage your entire photo collection and share it to TV’s through out the house could easily be one of the leading selling points of the system.

So, Sooloos (btw: it’s pronounced sue-loose) had a very good showing at CEDIA. I stopped by the booth at different times throughout the show and they were always busy with attendees. We’re definitely excited about the new products and I’ll report back as they start hitting the streets.

Well, it actually never went away, it was more or less on hiatus with some collectors, aficionados and hobbyist.  However, vinyl records are again popular and gaining momentum as more people are, again, looking to 2-channel music as a form of entertainment.  We’ve been in a crazy video cycle for a number of years and although it remains the hottest market segment in the industry, audio is picking up some serious speed.

The iPod started two big trends; easy access to music collections and the general acceptance of compromised audio quality.  The former has been growing by leaps and bounds as the convergence of the computer technology and the a/v industry has led to some amazing technologies allowing us to categorized, organized, shuffle, mix, share and enjoy our music collections.  The latter trend of compressing music to accommodate larger collections within minimal storage capacities has quite frankly been disgusting.  If your favorite music genres are mainstream pop and big label rock you probably don’t care about the audio quality of your music - let’s face it, those are recorded with an mind-staggering amount of compression anyway so a little more won’t hurt.  However, if you’re into jazz, blues, classical, vocal, indie, folk, etc. then the quality does matter.  Not to say that all music produced in these genres is recorded well, but the instruments used in these formats are at their best when they are not digitized and enjoyed within their own natural space.

And that leads us back to vinyl - music that is not digitized.  The cassette revolutionized the portability of the music but it was the CD which took that into the stratosphere due to durability and storage capacity, however, music had to be digitized to be recorded on this medium.  DVD-Audio and SACD gave us a brief glimpse into very well recorded digital audio but it required a special player and never recognized mainstream popularity.  So, the best solution we had were some expensive players and esoteric DACs to help our digitized music sound as real as possible.  Still, unless you were willing to spend some dollars and do some research, even the best players out there can leave the music sounding a bit sterile.

All of this does not imply that you should go out immediately and purchased a turntable and stacks of records, I’m just saying there is a reason we got the where we are today with music.  Let’s face it, there’s not a luxury brand car on the market today with a turntable built into the dash to play your pressed-wax favorites, and I won’t even mention the complications that arise if you want to exercise while listening to your favorite album.  The fact is the CD represents a convenient and durable medium for music, the iPod is the current pinnacle of portability and vinyl represents something different.  Listening to music on vinyl takes commitment, both in time, patience and even in dollars, but the reward is a personal relationship and romantic affair with your music.

Think of the process, you start by opening a nice bottle of wine.  While that is breathing you flip through your collection looking at wonderful coverart and reading interesting details on the album (hey let’s face it - the size of the album gives the artist and studio quite a bit of print space to talk to you about the music).  You select a favorite, or maybe it’s a new purchase, or perhaps something you haven’t heard in a while.  Power up the system, pour your wine and sit down with your significant other, some friends or maybe just take a moment to yourself.  You’re then rewarded with a full dynamic audio treat.  Instruments have character, sounds have space, the music has depth and without realizing it you might relax a little, take your mind of the days worries and find yourself engaged with the artist and enjoying a personal journey.  Compare that to an iPod where, in the same time frame, your fourteen year old has listened to all of Avril’s greatest hits, compiled 10 new playlists for an upcoming party and sent 80-100 text messages to dozens of her almost closest friends…OMG!  Clearly two different experiences.

Even the equipment is an engaging process; the turntable requires a tonearm and needle cartridge - two highly customized and specialized pieces of equipment.  The turntables themselves have enjoyed a pleasant update with the latest technologies and manufacturing processes.  You could spend $100 or $100K and in both cases still be looking for that magic combination.  There is a phono stage somewhere in the mix, this unit prepares the signal from the cartridge for your integrated amp or preamps inputs, so it’s important and requires some thought.  The records themselves are cumbersome; they are not easy to sort through, they require special handling - you can’t throw them around like CD’s and slam them into players.  Then need to be cleaned of lint and dust and forget about leaving them in the car on a hot summer afternoon while you stop into local coffee shop for a ice latte.  But ask anyone who is passionate about their own personal hobby and part of the reward is the journey.  The fisherman who spends an afternoon tying that special fly for this weekends trip to that secret spot on the river or the car collector who spends a Sunday detailing their hot rod so it looks its best for the upcoming meet and greet; it’s the preparation that adds to the experience.  And for the vinyl; it’s all those finicky details to select equipment and the careful handling of the album that is the passion most people don’t realize can exist in audio today.  Schedules have become so hectic we’re left with downloading our music, we can’t even take the time to visit the local store to browse and shop.  Do you even know where your nearest vinyl shop is?

I know there are a lot of you reading this coming up with all sorts of reasons agaist vinyl.  I know what they are and I’ll be going into this further in an upcoming post regarding music servers and why everyone needs to have one (yes, needs to).  In regards to vinyl and my reference to it being back, it really is.  Recently the CEA reported that turntable shipments topped 32,000 sales in April which was one-third higher than the previous April which had 19,000 sales.  You can find turntables in some surprising places like Wal-mart, BestBuy, and even Urban Outfitters.  The turntables of today are not like your parents, they are more sophisticated and accessible.  Some cost only $70 and there are a large number of them out there which are fitted with USB cables so you can copy your albums directly to digital files on your computer - which sound better than CD’s and much better than MP3.  According to Neilsen SoundScan, a research company that tracks music sales, CD sales declined 15 percent in 2007 but vinyl sales are rising.  In March, vinyl sales increased 70 percent over the same month the previous year.

Another interesting factor in favor of vinyl over the digital download is people want something physical to account for their purchase, not just a file stored on a hard disk.  And vinyl collections are not limited to rare non-mainstream music, artists like U2, Madona, Metallica, Sonic Youth, Wilco, NIN and others are releasing their music on vinyl in addition to the normal CD’s and digital download formats - it’s buyers choice.  There is an entire generation of music listeners who have never heard vinyl and are now able to access analog music for the first time in an every changing digital world. For the rest of us, it’s like an old comfortable pair of jeans…it just feels right.