Posted by: andy
Someone has invented the Central, again - 20/05/2008 07:45
But this time they have gone all the way and complete left out any network connectivity.
http://www.3ga.org.uk/features/overview/So updates to the CD track info database have to be done via a quarterly CD update. How odd.
Posted by: tman
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 20/05/2008 13:49
Here's a neat trick if you buy a second JB7 for another room. You don't have to load the CDs again just load them from your backup hard disk.
Neater would be network connectivity as you said...
Posted by: tman
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 20/05/2008 15:17
Wow. It is too complicated and we don't like to deal with it so therefore we'll leave it out...
I was going to suggest that maybe they're using one of those MP3 codec chips and therefore it can't do encoding in anything apart from MP3 but they've got a combo CPU/DSP chip running it...
The box is aimed at the "I want to spend <blah> amount of money and get a box that just does what its supposed to" which I guess it does. Insert CD, rip, play and repeat as necessary.
Posted by: andy
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 20/05/2008 15:21
I have the feeling that he is a very clever guy and he probably opted to code everything from scratch himself, rather than using a load of existing open source code. I'm just not sure he "gets" "it".
Posted by: tman
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 20/05/2008 15:29
I have the feeling that he is a very clever guy and he probably opted to code everything from scratch himself, rather than using a load of existing open source code. I'm just not sure he "gets" "it".
Hrmm maybe. You'd want to get optimised versions of the libraries you need which might be ruling out FLAC. Still a lot of work to reinvent the wheel if you can avoid it.
Posted by: tman
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 20/05/2008 15:32
I design the low level software that deals with inverse cosine transforms, Huffman codes, psycho acoustic masking and all that kind of stuff but when I listen to music I don’t want to deal with all that – I just want my music easy to get to.
This is the conflicting part though. How does the designer not having to deal with algorithms have anything to do with making it easy for the listener to get to their music? Set the default for FLAC/whatever to a reasonable compromise. Option somewhere to say whether you want compression or not. Default that to yes as well. Easy no?
Posted by: andy
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 20/05/2008 15:41
Like I say, he just doesn't "get" "it".
Posted by: schofiel
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 12/07/2008 17:32
Done locally here in Cambridge, all by one guy (Sinclair's hardware man) and - no lie - inspired by empeg!
Posted by: boxer
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 19/06/2010 15:52
I just came across this in an idle moment, this guy must have a heck of a lot of brass backing him: Full page, full colour most weekends in the Daily Telegraph ain't cheap, I don't know about elsewhere. If this was a duff idea 2/3 years ago, it certainly is now.
The website says that there's a waiting list because of demand but, as some American put it: You can't fool all of the people all of thr time!
Posted by: boxer
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 29/06/2010 12:57
The Times, as well (referring to a post higher up) why advertise heavily, if you: "Can't meet the demand".
Get a Squeezebox and get real! - Network, album covers and internet radio (Including catch-up on a week's BBC) for about the same price.
If you can go to the Brennan site, you must have a PC, so, you can equally well - and for free - use it to rip your albums, so why buy another, stand alone, box to do it, if you follow my logic.
If you want to throw money at it, go for the Sonos, which I see is now stocked at Richer Sounds.
All he had to do was stick a DAB tuner in the box and he's got complete obsolescence!
Posted by: boxer
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 30/06/2010 07:00
I'm becoming obsessed, he's got a whole page, full colour in the Radio Times today - is there no stopping the man!
The one plus point is that, like the Rio Receiver, it's got an internal amp. I wish the Squeezebox touch had one.
Posted by: benjammin
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 21/09/2010 11:19
wow. No networking? Can't tap into CDDb? Non-starter for me.
Posted by: boxer
Re: Someone has invented the Central, again - 01/10/2010 19:29
I just have a feeling that those people who respond to Bose's ads might go for this, without thinking through the practicality!