new Gateway mp3 home player

Has anyone seen this in action? Does anyone know a price for it? It supposedly plays mp3s off of an windows shared hard disk on your LAN. It's a home stereo audio component with IR remote and digital out. Pretty cool if the price is right.

http://www.gateway.com/support/product/netppliance/3500926/index.shtml

-Hoagy.

Interesting! Competition for the Dell/Rio Receiver, it looks like.

It's made by Turtle Beach, so it has the potential of being pretty high quality. SPDIF output, even. Cool. Did you manage to see a price tag anywhere on that web site?

___________
Tony Fabris

Interesting. I like the form factor better than the Rio unit and the S/PDIF is nice for some people.

Here is a link to the product direct from Turlte Beach for $300. http://www.voyetra-turtle-beach.com/site/products/audiotron/

The biggest downsides that I see are that it runs Wince, only supports Windows, and may not be upgradable.

On a somewhat unrelated note, has anyone found any info on using the Rio unit without windows? Rob mentioned that it was possible, but has anyone documented the process yet? -Mike

My friend called Gateway and they are indeed shipping now and the price is $299. Has anyone confirmed that it will work with a Samba shared mp3 archive?

-Hoagy.

Has anyone confirmed that it will work with a Samba shared mp3 archive?

We're not the ones to be asking that question... this is an empeg bbs.

It's hard to tell from the FAQ at the Gateway site, but it looks like you're supposed to share your "My Documents" folder on the LAN (something I would never do). It doesn't say whether or not any share will work, but I'd guess that a Samba share would look just as good as a Windows share to this device.

But before you go buying the Gateway product, take a look at the Dell receiver that's got Empeg's technology in it. Compare the features carefully before deciding which one you want. The Gateway product is obviously designed to compete directly with it, it's even the same price.

Having used Empeg's products before, I'd dare say the Dell unit will most likely have a better user interface and more flexible ways to organize playlists and locate the music you want to play. Also, the Dell unit has a built-in 10-watt amplifier so you can hook it directly to unpowered speakers-- I didn't see anything on the Gateway page about it having an amp. And although the Dell unit requires a Windows server at the current time, there will most likely be third-party Linux software for it soon (I'm told that some folks have already worked out how to do it). And if you happen to have both a Windows PC and a Linux PC on your network, then you can use the Windows PC to serve your Linux share to the Dell Receiver while you wait for a dedicated Linux version of the server software.

Let us know what you end up getting!

___________
Tony Fabris

The page at Turtle Beach's site seems to have more technical details then the Gateway one. http://www.voyetra-turtle-beach.com/site/products/audiotron/

Personally I like the idea of a no PC side software solution and a standard home component size.

But I think I still prefer the idea of having the empeg in some sort of component sized dock better. Upgradability, 1 location of the music, and with my iPaq+wireless LAN+Displayserver, remote control from anywhere in the house. I can see the desire for the empeg to serve one of these devices, but it seems silly for an dedicated MP3 player to serve music to a dedicated MP3 player.

>We're not the ones to be asking that question... this is an empeg bbs

Sorry, but I think talk of Empeg competition is fair game.

>... the Dell unit ... more flexible ways to organize playlists and locate the music you want to play. Also, the Dell unit has a built-in 10-watt amplifier so you can hook it directly to unpowered speakers-- I didn't see anything on the Gateway page about it having an amp

I want m3u compatibility, that's about it since this mp3 archive also serves all of our computers on our LAN and eventually gets uploaded to my Empeg Car. A 10 watt amp may be good enough for NPR, but otherwise it doesn't get us very far. The standard component size of the Turtle Beach product is more what I'm looking for. I'll see if we can get ahold of one and tell you all what it's like. Are there any pictures of the Rear or Remote of the Rio product?

And for everyone's information, the Turtle Beach support site says that although it's unsupported, they have gotten it to work with a Samba share using some settings they have up on their web site.

http://www.voyetra-turtle-beach.com/site/kb_ftp/1146005.asp

-Hoagy.

Things to look out for on the audiotron:

- Next track takes >10 seconds to switch tracks (about 5 of this to stop even playing the current track!)
- You can't select music whilst it's playing, you have to stop.
- No searching possible for artist/title/etc (apart from a simple alphabetical list). The receiver has search screens like the empeg.
- 2x20 text screen as opposed to graphic screen on the Receiver. However, it's easier to read from a distance than the Rio/Dell product.

Note these are observations from a 5 minute plays with the unit at Comdex & CES.

The 10W amp on the receiver is 10W+10W RMS - it's pretty loud. It's not 10W "peak" or "maximum". Reviews have commented that the quality of the audio out on the Audiotron is inferior to that of the Rio/Dell product - inc almost 10% distortion on headphone out and a lower quality DAC (the rio/dell has a Burr-Brown part). The Rio/Dell unit has m3u support (I suspect the audiotron does too).

Several people have been working on linux servers for the Rio/Dell product: one of them is here: http://www.mock.com/receiver

Hugo

Sorry, but I think talk of Empeg competition is fair game.

No problem, but we did make the point when the Dell Receiver came out that this was supposed to be an empeg car bulletin board. If Dell/Rio Receiver customers start to use this BBS you can expect several tens of thousands of new users over the next few months, swamping the car users and changing the atmosphere of the place.

That's how I feel anyway. There was talk of starting an unofficlal Receiver BBS, but nobody has moved on it.

Rob

and with my iPaq+wireless LAN+Displayserver, remote control from anywhere in the house

drooooooooool. I never even thought about that idea. Oh man. Now I have even more of an excuse to buy an iPaq. :)

(O|||||O)

When I can finally get one - I intend to exactly this.

What platform were you interested in? My primary motivation was to build a standard Linux server, but if it's in C/C++, no reason why you couldn't cross-compile.

Cheers,

Paul.

Paul Haigh, Reg. 4120
(mk1) 6GB, Blue, 00254
(mk2) 12GB, Red, 00357

drooooooooool. I never even thought about that idea. Oh man. Now I have even more of an excuse to buy an iPaq. :)

I'll let you know how well it works, since I should have the empeg this week (if I would stop e-mailing Rob about it, sorry about that )

Check out the link that Hugo posted above. It looks like it has pretty good instructions and most of the protocals are standard so you don't have use much custom stuff. Personally, I would probably use FreeBSD or Mac OS X as my server. However, I am probably going to wait for version 2 of this type of product. The prices seem high for what you get and I would really prefer to use 802.11 (no Cat5 in the living room yet, and I was trying to keep it that way).

-Mike

Hello!

I have the Audiotron by Turtle Beach. It's really quite cool for an inital product @ $299. I chose it over others becuase I wanted something that had a S/PDIF output and worked with open shares. (Yes it does work with Linux/Samba).

There are some flaws (like anything), but there is an active mailing list where they are listening to users to make it better. (3 flash updates already in the last 45 days or so I've had it).

You drill down by song, artist, genre or album. Or play playlists you have on the PC, or can make them on the fly (like jazz+techo+Peter Gabriel in random). Skipping to the next song in the playlist does take some time, but more like 1-3 seconds in my setup. At $299 with a digital out (heading into a Lexicon pre) I like it a lot. Big Redhat box w/ 320kbps LAME ripped music and I'm set. More time for mixing cocktails. :)

Anyway, I ordered an Empeg online yesterday. Didn't get any order confirmation today, but I hope it's on the way. I seriously can't wait.

Good luck,

-James

James,

Can the Audiotron stream Shoutcast of the internet?

Are they talking about getting that 1-3second track switch shorter?

thx!
Mark

Currently it doesn't stream MP3 via http (like Shoutcast or Icecast). But this is a hot topic on the list, and they are asking a bunch of questions about how people would like to see it implemented. Earlier press releases about the unit said it would handle "internet radio", so many people are expecting it.

As for delays in skipping to the next song, there really hasn't been much talk on the list. I think most people (like me) just queue up a genre or playlist and let it rip. Once in the while I'll skip a song, but not enough to really get annoyed.

Personally, I think it's biggest current flaw is not being able to change the display contrast. Think nuclear. But several people are on them about that, so I think that will come also.

-James

James

thx! I was really glad to see someone finally released a product with S/PDIFF!! As soon as they add shoutcast support, I'll be buying one.

Mark

I figured I should follow up now that I'm home w/ the unit. The delay skipping tracks on the Audiotron is more on the order of 3-5 seconds. I don't want to mislead anyone. One thing to be aware of is that the headphone output is crap (if that is what interests you). I've heard the analog RCA outs have a lower signal then some people want, but I've never tried them with the Toslink option there. The Toslink output is what you would expect (great).

Right now it indexes about 10-11,000 tags before it stops adding them to it's database. This is a software limitation according to Turtle Beach, and will be at least doubled in the next revision. The unit also streams WMA and WAV files.

All in all, for $299 it one of the best toys I've bought in a while. Don't get me wrong, it's not as cool as the Empeg car, that is hopefully on a FedEx plane right now heading for Montana. And it also has plenty of competition. But for some reason a lot of other models neglect the digital out. My next choice was definitely the Lansonic at 1k$. More features, outputs, etc. Being that I'm looking to drop drop 3 more players like this around a new house next year, the Audiotron price & s/pdif output made it the winner.

-James

Honestly, I see the appeal of these units, but I plan on going a different direction.

I plan on buying THIS for my purposes of playing MP3's on my home stereo off my computer.

Yes, yes, I know I'm going to get harpooned for this opinion, but it's the best one for me.

*remember that this is in conjunction with my ATI AIW Radeon, so I'm using it with video out*

a) cheap option - $88 < $300

b) video/audio vs audio

c) not looking for highest quality sound
I'm either going to be playing dance music for a party or watching old Simpsons clips that I captured and compressed into wmv, so either way the sound won't need to be it's clearest or the source is already degraded.

d) control & usability - with the video sender and this, which I already have, I'll still be able to control my PC from any TV in the house. I can be sitting on my couch in front of the big screen TV and control Winamp, *ahem* use Napster (for the time being) *ahem*, and surf the net.

e) size & mobility - I can move the little receiver into the kitchen and hook it up to my stereo while I'm cooking (which I do alot). I could also hook it up to my roommate's TV and help him sort out our LAN problems without running between rooms.

If anyone sees why this is not a good option at all, let me know, because it sure looks great to me!

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

A friend of mine has an X10.com wireless camera which uses the same receiving station as this (looks like the same one at least) and the quality is very weak. Granted, I don't know if that is the fault of the camera or the receiver, but I would not expect very good reception from this. His works reasonably well within 30 or 40 feet. Anything beyond that and there is too much interference. They also use the same frequency range (2.4GHZ) as 802.11 networking and some cordless phones so you may have problems with those devices. He had to change an ID to avoid serious interference with this wireless network.



-Mike

In reply to:

---

Honestly, I see the appeal of these units, but I plan on going a different direction.

I plan on buying THIS for my purposes of playing MP3's on my home stereo off my computer.

---

Take my advise - DON'T - the sound quality is horible from these things...

If you still want it, I will sell you mine for cheaper:)
-mark

...proud to have owned an Empeg since 00287

In reply to:

---

d) control & usability - with the video sender and this, which I already have, I'll still be able to control my PC from any TV in the house. I can be sitting on my couch in front of the big screen TV and control Winamp, *ahem* use Napster (for the time being) *ahem*, and surf the net.

---

Also take my advise - don't - this mouseremote is very jerky and annoying to use.. (and again, if you want mine, I'll sell it to you for cheap:) )
-mark

...proud to have owned an Empeg since 00287

Is there any hope for being able to browse music while music is playing?

The larger display, SPDIF out, and Samba functionality are all deal breakers for me and my friends. We played with the Gateway version at a Gateway Country strore and besides having really old firmware (0.88), it worked more or less as expected. Skip delay was 3-5 seconds. We were impressed by the networking options (static/dhcp/hpna/username/password).

If Rio/Empeg Receiver were to change their component form factor, display, spdif out, and Samba support, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

-Hoagy.

The Rio/Dell receiver is very unlikely to ever get Samba support, as it's a thin client. The advantages of this approach will become clearer over time...

For example, the Audiotron has a hard limit on the number of tunes it can index - simply because it has to hold the index in memory. We don't have any such limitations as the indexes are server-side - this also allows complex queries and inter-device integration.

I agree the form factor isn't ideal, but I dispute that S/PDIF is essential if you have damn good DACs on board (which the Receiver *does* have). S/PDIF isn't desparately cheap to add either, both the encoder and TOSLINK connector aren't throwaway price, together they cost 2x what a good DAC does.

The receiver DHCPs (or uPnP boots) which means it slots into most networks pretty easily.

Anyway, suffice to say that if you want to hang around a bit you'll see why you want a receiver & not the gateway box :)

Hugo

Hello,

People have asked to be able to browse while playing music on the list. I think TBeach are giving other functionality consideration first though. I do think it is possible tough, as the unit multitasks for other things. (For example you can force it to rescan your shares for new music while playing music) I think the unit is Windows CE based. The current OS version is 1.1 for the TB/Gateway units.

I agree w/ Altman that good D/A converters are the ultimate goal for any digital audio chain. But I think people w/ higher end gear are still going to want to take advantage of the D/A and processing in their system directly. I run everything through a Lexicon MC-1. A good line level input sounds great, but does go through another A/D & D/A conversion in order for the pre/processor to support its surround modes (that are handled digitally). This is why you won't find an analog input in my system. A little extreme, sure. But that's part of the game, and when you pay good money for a nice processer/ D/A, you want it to run the show. ;)

-James

Well, I'll take your word on the recievers and such, however I am using it within 20-30 ft., probably at about 10 ft.

I don't know what is wrong with your mouseremote, but mine's worked fine for over a year now with no complaints from me!

Let me know how much you'd be willing to part with your stuff for

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

>>The Rio/Dell receiver is very unlikely to ever get Samba support, as it's a thin client. The advantages of this approach will become clearer over time...

Good point; A linux server app would work fine.

>>For example, the Audiotron has a hard limit on the number of tunes it can index - simply because it has to hold the index in memory. We don't have any such limitations as the indexes are server-side - this also allows complex queries and inter-device integration.

Searches and queries on the Rio are worthless to me because I cannot see the display from my seating position! Put a NTSC output or larger display on the box and then you might have something. Several other mp3 boxes like this have the same problem.

>>Anyway, suffice to say that if you want to hang around a bit you'll see why you want a receiver & not the gateway box :)

Well that's great.. break out the whip and get those programmers programming. Maybe hire Lucy Liu. :) But unless they can code a bigger display, SonicBlue will need to package a set of binoculars with every Rio Receiver. Hell I'd even be willing to buy an LED display and plug it onto the Rio Receiver's motherboard if it were possible.

-Hoagy.

But unless they can code a bigger display, SonicBlue will need to package a set of binoculars with every Rio Receiver.

If not binoculars, then Fresnell lenses like those in front of tiny b/w terminal CRTs in Terry Gilliam's Brazil


Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

...Lowry... has a...n...y...b...o...d...y seen S..a..m L..o..w..r..y???

- Jon

Maybe hire Lucy Liu. :)

Fantastic idea. We like. .


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

'Fraid it has to be Cameron for me. Sorry. How about I get Cameron in my cubicle, and you keep Lucy well away from me?

Hugo

Maybe hire Lucy Liu. :)

Fantastic idea. We like.

Yeah, I just didn't understand the bit about why that would make us do more work...

Peter

Hmm, here's an idea proposed by a friend of mine.. Why not just write an interface using the Xbox developer kit and then your Xbox would play DVDs AND mp3s off of your LAN?

I think MS is going to charge something like $25 for the remote control that enables DVD playback. With the NTSC output, you could code a kick-ass mp3 player. Plus there's plenty of CPU power to do the decoding.

-Hoagy.

With that idea, my Dreamcast + Broadband adaptor could do the same thing...

Time to go grab one of those Linux Boot CD's...

and with my iPaq+wireless LAN+Displayserver, remote control from anywhere in the house.

Well I'm still working on this, but hit a few issues.

1. Java on the iPaq in WinCE is horrid. It can run applets, but won't integrate into IE, nor be able to browse the network to see the applet. I can't find a Java browser that will run allowing me to get to the empeg. (Main problem here seems to be that MS started slimming down CE right as the devices got fast enough to handle all the bulk).

2. I lost my wireless LAN card at the meet. If by chance anyone picked up a 3Com Airconnect card, I'll pay for shipping back. (I have a feeling I lost it at the hotel though, probably too late to claim it now).

But I am loading Linux on my iPaq as we speak, so it should allow me a bit more flexability.

I know someone that worked at Turtle Beach, so I bought two units when they first came out. I still have both and am willing to sell both at $200 a piece if anyone is interested. I have all the documentation and cables they came with. I also had the metal shop at my office fashion rack ears for them to fit in a 19" rack. You can have them to if you want (they are home made and not the official, now available, Turtle Beach ones).

I was using them in tandem streaming from one server for a project. The project wasn't worth the money and I now have $600 worth of MP3 streaming equipment sitting.

They work well and sound great, plus they are standard component size. Email robricc at yahoo dot com if you're interested.

Thanks,

-Rob
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12GB MK2 Blue 090000736 (6166 in the queue)