Wow, just checked the price of the Sooloos Control 15, 4750 pounds sterling!!! I have no idea of it's sound quality but for a quarter of that price or less you could buy a JKDac32 (500 euro), a dedicated PC (400 euro) , 2 external 1Tb hard drives(1 for backup)(150 euro), the latest Jplay (70 euro (with JKDAC)updated for free) and start ripping your cd's and acquiring Hirez albums. You'll have a state of the art replay system and take the family on holiday with the change.
KM
Sooloos Control 15.....worth the money? CONCLUSION
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Ken Moreland
- Posts: 814
- Joined: Sun Jan 17, 2010 7:47 pm
Re: Sooloos Control 15.....worth the money? CONCLUSION
i5 QuietPC , JplayFemto , Singxer SU-6 , Holo Audio Spring DAC ,LAB12 Preamp, Roundtree Mono Amps, Rosso Fiorentino Elba 2 Speakers
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Re: Sooloos Control 15.....worth the money? CONCLUSION
Yep. It's amazing what the fear of the unknown will tempt one to do!!Ken Moreland wrote:Wow, just checked the price of the Sooloos Control 15, 4750 pounds sterling!!! I have no idea of it's sound quality but for a quarter of that price or less you could buy a JKDac32 (500 euro), a dedicated PC (400 euro) , 2 external 1Tb hard drives(1 for backup)(150 euro), the latest Jplay (70 euro (with JKDAC)updated for free) and start ripping your cd's and acquiring Hirez albums. You'll have a state of the art replay system and take the family on holiday with the change.
KM
One further Q: running noise from PC. ? I have a old dell here and there is no way I could listen to hifi in the same room with the racket. (electric toothbrushes, modems,etc 'lift the head off me')
I am planning to buy dedicated PC.
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Ken Moreland
- Posts: 814
- Joined: Sun Jan 17, 2010 7:47 pm
Re: Sooloos Control 15.....worth the money? CONCLUSION
I was so impressed with Jplay I bought an Acer Aspire desktop PC with 64bit operating system and 3Gb of Ram to which I added an additional 4Gb . Jplay secures a large amount of Ram and loads your chosen tracks into it and plays directly from Ram while shutting down all unnecessary processes. The Aspire is not noisy even on Hibernate/Overdrive (see Jplay.eu) but the previous old Shuttle PC sounded like a washing machine running flat out. The key points are Windows 7 and lots of Ram.
KM
KM
i5 QuietPC , JplayFemto , Singxer SU-6 , Holo Audio Spring DAC ,LAB12 Preamp, Roundtree Mono Amps, Rosso Fiorentino Elba 2 Speakers
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Re: Sooloos Control 15.....worth the money? CONCLUSION
If you go the PC/laptop way make lots of backups !! [Even give some to your friends to mind them in case the house burns down]. I thought I had lots but I got a virus on my pC last night and my last full backup is two months ago ...
"Change is Possible" [Parking Meter in Dundrum Shopping Centre]
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stigpepper
- Posts: 53
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:26 am
Re: Sooloos Control 15.....worth the money? CONCLUSION
A cheaper alternative is the Hifidelio music centre, KronosAV have an ex display unit on sale for STG£400. I have been using one for around a year and love it.
Although the Fidel (as it is known) has been around for a while it has loads of functionality for its age with a CD player, CD burner, analogue music recorder, internet radio player, music streamer and music storage system.
My favourite feature is the iPhone app which is used to control it, you can sit on the couch and browse your collection using your phone which is brilliant but takes away from choosing your next CD. Alternatively, you can connect using a laptop via a browser or VNC viewer which looks great.
The music streamer is also pretty cool and I use a wireless internet radio / music streamer I picked up in Aldi to steam music to the bedroom, the sound isn't great but it is fine for the bedroom.
The Fidel is connected to my amp through a MF M1 DAC and I am delighted with the sound although I don't have much to compare it against. I have all good intentions of performing some blind tests with the Fidel connected directly to the amp against connected via the DAC but I have never got around to it, manyana.
If you are consider getting one I would recommend upgrading the hard drive as 160GB of storage space gets used up quickly. I have upgraded to 500GB drive and have imported my CD collection of approx 600 CD ripped in FLAC format and the disc is only 50% full. So I will need to buy another 600 CD's to fill it up:)
I also noticed in your post that you are interested in recording analogue music and burning CD’s I have not used this functionality so I cannot comment but I would assume it would be easy enough to do through the Fidel.
On the downside I experienced network connectivity issues which were resolved by using a wired connection with a shortened network cable. In addition to this it will not connect to my network wirelessly I think this may be due to the WIFI card encryption which can be resolved by upgrading the WIFI card, but it is working fine on my wired connection so I can live without WIFI.
Another point to note is that the latest firmware upgrade also costs around €60. I am using the last free firmware version from Feb 2010 and am more than happy with it and cannot justify paying for the additional functionality the latest firmware upgrade brings.
Here is a link to the unit on sale on Kronos, you can also pick them up on German ebay. If you are thinking of taking a punt and have any questions or would like a demo beforehand give me a shout.
http://kronosav.com/products#ecwid:cate ... ct=7250384
Another alternative would be the MF M1 Clic it turned my head for a while but I decided to stick with the Fidel for now anyway:)
Although the Fidel (as it is known) has been around for a while it has loads of functionality for its age with a CD player, CD burner, analogue music recorder, internet radio player, music streamer and music storage system.
My favourite feature is the iPhone app which is used to control it, you can sit on the couch and browse your collection using your phone which is brilliant but takes away from choosing your next CD. Alternatively, you can connect using a laptop via a browser or VNC viewer which looks great.
The music streamer is also pretty cool and I use a wireless internet radio / music streamer I picked up in Aldi to steam music to the bedroom, the sound isn't great but it is fine for the bedroom.
The Fidel is connected to my amp through a MF M1 DAC and I am delighted with the sound although I don't have much to compare it against. I have all good intentions of performing some blind tests with the Fidel connected directly to the amp against connected via the DAC but I have never got around to it, manyana.
If you are consider getting one I would recommend upgrading the hard drive as 160GB of storage space gets used up quickly. I have upgraded to 500GB drive and have imported my CD collection of approx 600 CD ripped in FLAC format and the disc is only 50% full. So I will need to buy another 600 CD's to fill it up:)
I also noticed in your post that you are interested in recording analogue music and burning CD’s I have not used this functionality so I cannot comment but I would assume it would be easy enough to do through the Fidel.
On the downside I experienced network connectivity issues which were resolved by using a wired connection with a shortened network cable. In addition to this it will not connect to my network wirelessly I think this may be due to the WIFI card encryption which can be resolved by upgrading the WIFI card, but it is working fine on my wired connection so I can live without WIFI.
Another point to note is that the latest firmware upgrade also costs around €60. I am using the last free firmware version from Feb 2010 and am more than happy with it and cannot justify paying for the additional functionality the latest firmware upgrade brings.
Here is a link to the unit on sale on Kronos, you can also pick them up on German ebay. If you are thinking of taking a punt and have any questions or would like a demo beforehand give me a shout.
http://kronosav.com/products#ecwid:cate ... ct=7250384
Another alternative would be the MF M1 Clic it turned my head for a while but I decided to stick with the Fidel for now anyway:)