Interesting announcement from Krell today. Wow. In what direction are they headed?

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/07/krell-intros-the-kid-anothe-expensive-ipod-dock-youll-never/

Ah the ipod... a multi billion dollar industry built around a 300$ MP3 player.

Where is Dan D'Agostino these days?

A $4000 iPod Dock. Amazing

Does it use its own DAC or the iPod's line out? If the former, I'll bet it's pretty sweet.

Where is Dan D'Agostino these days?

A $4000 iPod Dock. Amazing


He's kick'in back on a beach in Jamaica, sipping mai-tai's, and explaining to those gathered why it so easy to sell just about anything in this great country, provided you price it high enough.:D

Jim

I think it extracts a digital out like the MSB dock. MP3 or AAC tracks still have limited upside obviously.

Wow! What are they thinking?

Actually AAC can be damn good, even MP3 can audibly transparent for most content with a sufficiently high bit rate. And you can always go lossless.

Still, I think a USB DAC or network player like the Transporter is more practical.

Build it they will come.

Does it use its own DAC or the iPod's line out? If the former, I'll bet it's pretty sweet.

The Ipods "line out", isn't a true line out. It has volume control circuitry in the path.

The Ipods software codecs are only so-so as well. Check out www.rockbox.org if you want to get better software codecs. Rockbox is an alternate Operating System that has better codecs and added features (i.e 5 band EQ, adds Flac playback ability). The sound quality difference is noticable.

Nothing wrong with Apple Lossless by definition.

As for Krell, D'Agostino doesn't even believe his own BS. I see him at shows all the time and he looks like he's just going through the motion at this point. His wife, on the other hand, loves the limelight, loves talking to people, loves wearing expensive clothing and jewelry. He looks like a victim and she looks like she's prom queen. I think his wife runs that company and makes him do her bidding, or at least, that's how it looks when you're around them. Or maybe that's just his personality and he thinks audiophiles are complete suckers. Not sure which.

The sarcasm in the announcement is hilarious though.

He's kick'in back on a beach in Jamaica, sipping mai-tai's, and explaining to those gathered why it so easy to sell just about anything in this great country, provided you price it high enough.:D

Jim

Nothing could be further from the truth. He's a very driven and hard working guy-super involved with every aspect of his business.

Not a very well thought out name: Papa Dock??? Responsible for many deaths as a dictator!

I thought it was a joke, but then I went directly to Krell's WEB site.
Frankly, it's perfectly clear that "high end' thinks we're fools.

Why do people automatically assume ipods are to be used for 128kbs mp3? Kids do. I don't.

I've ripped all my cds onto my MacBook via Apple Lossless. I've been sending it to my AVM-20 via Airport Express. Once I get my mini-toslink to toslink cable I can give the preamp a digital signal. My hopes is that I can do away with a "traditional" cd transport. There's nothing like being able to have whole cd collection at your lap and being able to send it to any system in the house wirelessly.

Things are changing. Krell is changing. Will you?

Why do people automatically assume ipods are to be used for 128kbs mp3? Kids do. I don't.

In this section of the forum people assume a lot.

FYI, the Papa Dock refers to the amplifier, the Kid to the actual iPod dock. You can buy the Kid without the Papa Dock if you supply your own amplification.

But Sonos is way ahead of Krell and do it really well. Worse case, you hook up a $1500 amp with built in DACs and away you go. But they'll sell it, so it doesn't matter. It's all about the 'bling' now.

Nothing could be further from the truth. He's a very driven and hard working guy-super involved with every aspect of his business.

Relax, I was kidding (I thought that was obvious). I know Dan as well, and yes, he is a seriously dedicated guy.:)

Jim

Ah the ipod... a multi billion dollar industry built around a 300$ MP3 player.

...which is killing the high end audio market, along with physical cd's, SACD's, DVD-Audio, LP's.

Pity.

Priceless topic.

...which is killing the high end audio market, along with physical cd's, SACD's, DVD-Audio, LP's.

Pity.

The first three are only digital files. There is no difference on what media it is stored on (even $100 "japanese quality" cd's), it is still a file. Highly convenient, like an iPod or not so convenient, physical disc. There will come a time where it will support these advanced formats and output accordingly (SACD DVD-A). There was a time where lossless could not be played through an iPod and now it can. Time will show what is ahead for compatibility.

For killing the high end market... Granted, you can now get the same sound for ALOT cheaper than what you used to, but it is not killing it. Too bad a $5000 transport is all but obsolete at this point. What counts more is what's on the other end. The processing and conversion of the signal. And for the record, I heard the KID back in December and was SHOCKED by its quality. It sounded better than any $2000 cd player I've heard.

-Matt

From what it looks like the Krell is using the iPod's DAC's which are built to an, ahem, price point. This http://www.wadia.com/products/170i/170iTransport_home.htm is supposed to be the first non custom standalone that reads bit for bit off the iPod and outputs to media server or external dac for processing and according to some very good sources, is transforming the ipod to a staggeringly good sounding music server. I believe it's significantly less than $1k and works with your current DAC.

I think most of 'high-end' needs a good killin'.

Yep, it does appear to use the iPod's DACs -- I had it wrong. Seems then the product has pretty limited audio upside vs. some competitors that extract a digital out for a separate DAC.

I know a few people who rave about this:

http://www.msbtech.com/products/iLink.php

which does do digital out from the iPod but requires sending you're unit in for a mod. MSB does digital well.

Why do people automatically assume ipods are to be used for 128kbs mp3?

I think it's a fair assumption that most iPod users employ low bit rate AAC or MP3. Does 95% highly compressed usage sound that far off to anyone? The iTunes import default is AAC/128kbps (listed as 'high quality') -- I'm sure most don't go into advanced settings to change this. For most, it's about getting more songs onto your iPod than it is quality.

Seems to me the Krell dock is neither here nor there: too expensive for casual iPod users and by dint of using the iPod's DAC, not much of a contender for audiophiles. Can't fault them for trying to meet the market though -- it's what high end audio has to do to grow.



Actually AAC can be damn good, even MP3 can audibly transparent for most content with a sufficiently high bit rate.

For background listening, I agree. On recordings I know well though, I'm very aware of things I'm missing.

I think most of 'high-end' needs a good killin'.

Dinosaurs against disruptive technologies.

DADT!

I think it's a fair assumption that most iPod users employ low bit rate AAC or MP3. Does 95% highly compressed usage sound that far off to anyone? The iTunes import default is AAC/128kbps (listed as 'high quality') -- I'm sure most don't go into advanced settings to change this. For most, it's about getting more songs onto your iPod than it is quality.

Seems to me the Krell dock is neither here nor there: too expensive for casual iPod users and by dint of using the iPod's DAC, not much of a contender for audiophiles. Can't fault them for trying to meet the market though -- it's what high end audio has to do to grow.


.

The issue to me is that iPods are meant to be portable. So having a boom box or a device in your office to drop your iPod in makes some sense, but having a $4K, home based tank with external speakers seems just silly. Why not just have an audio client that doesn't require an iPod. After all, most affluent iPod users have far more content stored than fits on an iPod, especially if they store lossless audio. Additionally, it doesn't appear to offer much for managing your audio library and transfers to your iPod.
So unless it has some functionality that isn't apparent, it is just an extremely expensive, non-portable, docking station. Buy one if you think it's a great idea, but personally I think this typifies the lack of creativity in the "High end" audio market.

but having a $4K, home based tank with external speakers seems just silly. Why not just have an audio client that doesn't require an iPod. After all, most affluent iPod users have far more content stored than fits on an iPod, especially if they store lossless audio. Additionally, it doesn't appear to offer much for managing your audio library and transfers to your iPod.
So unless it has some functionality that isn't apparent, it is just an extremely expensive, non-portable, docking station. Buy one if you think it's a great idea, but personally I think this typifies the lack of creativity in the "High end" audio market.

Agreed basically. They seem to be trading very heavy on the Krell name for whoever that's important to, rather than performance and functionality. Lower priced stuff doesn't provide the type of margins they're used to.

Down the road I'm sure we'll be able to store music remotely and access anywhere.

we use a music server with lossless storage for the house but have the crestron doc about 650$ for the kids when they have friends to play there music.
ipods are for portability there are so many excellent music servers out there i personally dont get it

Maybe Krell is trying to compensate for this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/49335-6-apple-ipod-wilson-sophia
Robert Harley writes in the April/May '04 TAS
about an interesting demo by David Wilson at
CES '04.

Wilson was setting his Sophia's against an unamed,
higher-priced speaker. When the curtain was lifted,
Wilson was driving the Sophias with a $1k Parasound
amp, using an Apple iPOD as the source.

Harley does not go into detail about the sound,
but declared Wilson the hands-down winner over the
more expensive speaker, driven by a $7k Krell amp
and Krell digital source. The implication is of
course that the iPOD+Parasound+Sophia combo sounded
pretty darn good.

As Harley indicates in the column, Wilson sought
to prove that even a moderate (cheap?) front-end
can sound good with the right speakers (not agreeing
here, just paraphrasing).

Maybe Krell is trying to compensate for this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/49335-6-apple-ipod-wilson-sophia

I was at that demo given in Dave's suite at the Mirage Hotel.

It was pretty jaw dropping when Peter McGrath raised the box and showed that it was an iPod drivinfg the Sophia speakers

he also ran it through a 10k nagra preamp though :)

the new Wadia dock is like 399 and apparently heavily backordered.

and i think B&W was the competing speaker as i recall.

OB- you going to RMAF in Denver? I might go this year.

and i think B&W was the competing speaker as i recall.

OB- you going to RMAF in Denver? I might go this year.

Keith I wanted to but the following week I am taking my daughter to CU Boulder where she starts her freshman year so just too difficult for me

and i think B&W was the competing speaker as i recall.

Well, that would make sense, pick the most overhyped, underperforming pop speaker brand available as the fall guy, but it's not exactly a major coup.

Well, that would make sense, pick the most overhyped, underperforming pop speaker brand available as the fall guy, but it's not exactly a major coup.


call it what you will but I was there and the demo was simply amazing

I do recall at that show Dave W's point was you should spend more on the speakers and less on the front end when putting together a "budget constrained" system. :rolleyes:

My bud who told me about the Wadia dock had tried the ipod without the Wadia and said it was garbage, almost unlistenable. He got a cheap DAC, the PSAudio for behind the Wadia. Avalon speakers. He's shocked at how good it is, it's now his front end and he's had EMM and Kharma Midi exquisites so he's used to some pretty good digital.

I do recall at that show Dave W's point was you should spend more on the speakers and less on the front end when putting together a "budget constrained" system. :rolleyes:

I would agree with him on that. And since most systems are 'budget constrained', most expenditures on high-end amps, cables, CD players are borderline retarded.

My bud who told me about the Wadia dock had tried the ipod without the Wadia and said it was garbage, almost unlistenable. He got a cheap DAC, the PSAudio for behind the Wadia. Avalon speakers. He's shocked at how good it is, it's now his front end and he's had EMM and Kharma Midi exquisites so he's used to some pretty good digital.

Well, you can't have it both ways. Either the Wilson iPod demo sounded amazingly good or iPods are 'garbage, almost unlistenable'. I can tell you absolutely that the objective sound coming out of an iPod is better than the sound coming out of any speaker at any price. So who's the real culprit?

call it what you will but I was there and the demo was simply amazing

Doesn't that kinda make me right all along then? Who needs exotic amps and cables and such to get good sound and enjoy music? All this 'product A is awesome and product B is crap' stuff is ridiculous when the crappiest, lowest fidelity thing in your system is ALWAYS the speaker. I used to do this very same kinda demo for people, often with Xds and an iPod or a Sonos plugged directly into the system. In fact, my bedroom system is the Xd and a Sonos ZP80 and it sounds better than 95% of all the 'high-end' systems I've ever heard. Maybe even 100%.

well one could also infer that the Sophia was a better speaker than the B&W but I know how much you love Wilson speakers

Well, you can't have it both ways. Either the Wilson iPod demo sounded amazingly good or iPods are 'garbage, almost unlistenable'. I can tell you absolutely that the objective sound coming out of an iPod is better than the sound coming out of any speaker at any price. So who's the real culprit?

John

Someone said it earlier in the post, they're ultimately simply digital files but I'm not sure that you're onboard here. There are only 2 docking stations extant that take the digital files off the iPod and send them out bitstream for you to feed an external DAC - even the Krell uses the iPod's analog (albeit bal) signal. One is the MSB but you have to modify your ipod and DAC, and the other is the Wadia which is plug and play. It's not using the cheap internal iPod DAC, and god knows what amplification stage that is the benefit here. AFAIK nobody else is doing this and it's a game changer, making highend transports a thing of the past. Your iPod as a music server can now power a very high end system. I don't see how it's having it both ways unless I'm missing something...

For home use, the AppleTV works great as it syncs from iTunes, will play protected Apple files, and has digital output.

If you want high-quality iPod output elsewhere (like your office), then the Wadia iTransport mentioned already will do a much better job for potentially much less money. Just add your own DAC and amp.

--Andre

From what it looks like the Krell is using the iPod's DAC's which are built to an, ahem, price point.

Anyone know what the ipod uses for DAC's? Last I looked top of the line DAC's were only $15 or less.

well one could also infer that the Sophia was a better speaker than the B&W but I know how much you love Wilson speakers

Well of course, all I'm saying is that isn't setting the bar terribly high.

John

Someone said it earlier in the post, they're ultimately simply digital files but I'm not sure that you're onboard here. There are only 2 docking stations extant that take the digital files off the iPod and send them out bitstream for you to feed an external DAC - even the Krell uses the iPod's analog (albeit bal) signal. One is the MSB but you have to modify your ipod and DAC, and the other is the Wadia which is plug and play. It's not using the cheap internal iPod DAC, and god knows what amplification stage that is the benefit here. AFAIK nobody else is doing this and it's a game changer, making highend transports a thing of the past. Your iPod as a music server can now power a very high end system. I don't see how it's having it both ways unless I'm missing something...

If the sound of an iPod is truly unlistenable, then the Wilsons would have lost to the B&Ws. The fact that they didn't indicates that the iPod's stock sound mustn't be that much worse than the digital out with a DAC. Of course, I'd be up for a Wadia dock if I didn't already use Sonos.

Hey Andre,

How is it that you think the Wadia will do a "much better job for potentially much less money?" Just curious and thinking out loud about these options for myself. With AppleTV you still need a DAC and amp etc., the exact same as the Wadia. Why not just buy a small, cheap computer monitor to hook up to AppleTV in a music only system? Is the digital output of the Wadia potentially superior to the same files coming from the AppleTV's Toslink output into the same DAC? The reviewer in this month's Absolute Sound seemed to be pretty impressed with AppleTV. That new Logitech system looks interesting as well.

Seems like a nice office/bedroom system could be made up of either AppleTV(with small monitor) or the Wadia iTransport feeding the Benchmark DAC1 Pre into a small pair of Genelecs or something similar.

Matt

The iPod DACs appear to be very high quality. A friend of mine tested some iPods last year for an article in ProAV magazine. He used WAV files as sources and found the iPods to have very high audio performance.

I wonder if there really are that many bad DACs any more, but there sure are some cheapo analog outputs.

How is it that you think the Wadia will do a "much better job for potentially much less money?"

Sorry I wasn't being clear. I think the Wadia will do a much better job than the Krell.

I really like my AppleTV, and it's a great social experience too if you have friends over, and have the screensaver set to scroll your album covers. You and your friends discover all sorts of music you may not have realized you both liked. If only there was a way to pick out an album to listen to with the album screensaver ...

--Andre

friend of mine just replaced his transport (over 5k) with the Wadia. he said he's done with transports of any kind. i'm not surprised at all, frankly.

I tell you what Krell is thinking...

"lets make a nice package that ties nicely with the Ipod. lets make it sound as good as we can, and let our customers who like our products continue the experience"

Value proposition is not all about the same value. If i like krell, and i have the coin, and want something liek this, i would not even think twice.

I tell you what Krell is thinking...

"lets make a nice package that ties nicely with the Ipod. lets make it sound as good as we can, and let our customers who like our products continue the experience"

Value proposition is not all about the same value. If i like krell, and i have the coin, and want something liek this, i would not even think twice.

I disagree.
What Krell was thing was . . .
Hey there is a huge iPod market, and x % of our customer base have an iPod. What will be the incremental revenues and IRR of a product that captures y% of our potential client base?

it ties two value props together nicely.

I really like my AppleTV....If only there was a way to pick out an album to listen to with the album screensaver ...Not *exactly* what you're looking for, but if you have an iPhone or Touch with the new 2.0 software, using the new Remote (http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284417350&mt=8) app let's you control your AppleTV using your iPhone/Touch over Wi-Fi. I use two AppleTVs to do active art and whole house audio (via an el cheapo OnQ Lyric system), and the new Remote app is about the coolest thing I've seen in a long time...I can browse playlists/albums/artists/etc. and change things from anywhere in my house, using my iPhone. Very, very cool functionality.

P.S. Sorry to get off topic. Boo, Krell. Yea, Wadia.

Not *exactly* what you're looking for, but if you have an iPhone or Touch with the new 2.0 software, using the new Remote (http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284417350&mt=8) app let's you control your AppleTV using your iPhone/Touch over Wi-Fi. I use two AppleTVs to do active art and whole house audio (via an el cheapo OnQ Lyric system), and the new Remote app is about the coolest thing I've seen in a long time...

I downloaded 2.0 for my Touch yesterday, and Remote was the first app I installed on it (2nd was a movie times app, and 3rd was the lightsaber app :)). It's very slick and works really well. It also makes the Airport Express pretty usable.

What do you mean by "active art"?

--Andre

andrew

Have you or anyone tried Shazam yet? It is simply amazing

Yep, I sure have. It has picked out Prince, Casting Crowns, Bill Withers, and Black Sabbath for me so far :)

Yes, the Remote app rocks. However, what it needs is to be integrated with a full remote control somehow. I still need my second remote to switch around... I know a third-party iPhone remote control app is available, but blending them together would be incredibly nice.

Have you or anyone tried Shazam yet? It is simply amazing

Thanks for the suggestion! Fortunately, I just got an iPhone today, so I could try it out. It's really cool, but the database seems to know about more popular stuff right now. It couldn't identify a couple of popular classical pieces (Bach's concerto for 2 violins and Beethoven's 5th symphony) or some obscure techno stuff (Apparat's Walls), but found Chris Brown's Run It and Dave Brubeck's Take Five. Definitely a very handy thing to have around.

I wonder if someone will now suggest taking this discussion to the $9.99 and under forum. :)

--Andre

Yep, I sure have. It has picked out Prince, Casting Crowns, Bill Withers, and Black Sabbath for me so far :)

Yes, the Remote app rocks. However, what it needs is to be integrated with a full remote control somehow. I still need my second remote to switch around... I know a third-party iPhone remote control app is available, but blending them together would be incredibly nice.

so Michael for us illiterate Dudes how the heck does Shazam work?

The Ipods "line out", isn't a true line out. It has volume control circuitry in the path.



I own seven Ipods ( 3rd, 4th, 5th, Two Nanos, a Mini and a Touch) and none of them have volume control through the line out.

Damned if I know how it works. It would be one thing if you had do record the entire song, but it only needs 15 seconds of it... starting anywhere. I'm stumped for now.

Probably akin to fingerprint analysis. You skip the big picture and look for very precise clues, like either the percussion elements or they can pick up the notes in a certain range, just like a telephone touch pad.

What do you mean by "active art"?Fancy talk for running photo slideshows (scanned prints, artsy-farty photos, computer generated art, etc.) on AppleTVs piped to flat panel displays. Think Bill Gates on a budget. :)

...how the heck does Shazam work?They have a music "fingerprint" database of something like 3.5+ million songs, covering most types of popular music from the '50s forward. It won't recognize most classical, since they for whatever reason don't fingerprint classical. The fingerprint matches use a proprietary pattern recognition algorithm...this dude did some work in this field back in the day:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~yangc/pub/cy-waspaa01.pdf

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~yangc/pub/cy-mm02.pdf

Mix in some pixie dust, and, shazam, you have Shazam.

The only downside with the wadia is... how exactly do you change playlists/navigate the ipod without physically going up to it?

also i'm wondering if anyone has done a head to head sound quality comparison between the appleTV and the wadia. It seems like AppleTV also extracts just the digital data off your music without doing its own processing, except it does it from itunes, or your home network, not off your ipod. Am i wrong on this or is the AppleTV the better buy here, considering that they are essentially the same price

Well, AppleTV is the better buy if you weight features over sound quality. And even if you do weigh sound quality high, it's not clear the Wadia dock will be any better. I say the Wadia is for people who are sure they want a Wadia.

Alex, thanks for the links to the fingerprinting papers. I'm, surprised it works as well as it does. Now, if you like Shazam, try Midomi. It's also free, and it can identify songs that you hum or sing into it. Apparently its strategy is a little different: your hummed excerpt is matched against other people's hums.

Has anyone tried "eyeconnect" using the PS3 and the Mac? Theoretically, it connects seamlessly using WiFi or ethernet. I have been able to access all my pictures on my MacbookPro with it and display them on the big screen, but although all my music files show up on the PS3, all I get is a "data type not supported" when I try to play them. I know it won't play files downloaded from the Apple Store, but these are all files ripped from my own CDs, and others seem to have made it work. Seems to be a potentially better solution than the Apple TV for those with a PS3 and a Mac,

I dont really need features. I dont need this thing to do anything more than play my music, but ideally it would be nice to sit on my couch and access whatever song I wanted relatively easily. I get the impression that the wadia will not do this; I would have to manually walk up and select the album or playlist and then it will play those.

I guess it's going to act much like a CD player does now?

What I'm wondering is that what makes you all confident that the Wadia is doing something that the AppleTV is not doing. Aren't they both taking an audio file and outputting it in the digital realm to an outboard DAC, or is there some confusion/doubt that the AppleTV is indeed doing nothing to the signal itself.

The AppleTV interface for selecting whatever you have stored on it/on the network cannot be beat, but can the same thing be said about the sound quality out of the Wadia?

AppleTV caches your iTunes library onto its own hard drive, so most of the time it's playing off hard disk instead of the network. That also means your iTunes computer doesn't have to be on to play music. Think of AppleTV as a big iPod with networking, digital out, and a nice remote control user interface.

It's pretty darn slick for renting HD movies, too. For my low-end cable modem connection (784 Kbits/sec download) accessed over a wireless N connection, I have to wait less than 5 minutes before I can watch the movie uninterrupted.

--Andre

Well, to be clear, it can cache your library on its hard drive. But even the largest hard drive (160GB) is too small if you have a large uncompressed collection. So, there are several other options:

--- If you have another computer with iTunes, you can share its library with the AppleTV over the network. But this only works while the server computer is on.

--- Some consumer NAS servers have an iTunes server built-in. This frees up your computer completely. Just google "iTunes NAS" and you'll get several hits.

--- You can operate the AppleTV in "AirTunes" mode. This lets you stream audio from any iTunes-capable computer through the AppleTV.

This last option may seem kind of useless at first, but it's useful for several reasons. For one thing, iTunes lets you stream music to one or more AirTunes devices (AppleTV or Airport Express) simultaneously, giving you whole-house capability. Also, with third-party software (AirFoil by Rogue Amoeba), you can stream certain Internet music services like Pandora or Rhapsody to the AppleTV.

Heck, with the iPhone's new iTunes Remote capability you can get darn close to Sonos-level functionality and quality without having to invest in a parallel music system.

well if it can do all this stuff, then what's even the point of this thread? most of this thread is all about how there was nothing like the Wadia iTransport when the AppleTV does this, and more...

Somehow i'm still willing to bet that the Wadia probably sounds better. Thats pretty much all i care about... but i'm skeptical since I have no hard data on either.

Well, the point of this thread was to point and laugh at the gigantic Krell iPod dock :) But one reason it's worthy of a chuckle is that there are so many other practical ways to serve digital audio to your audiophile system.

I'd say the biggest weakness of AppleTV (and Airport Express) is that it can only digitally transmit 44.1 kHz PCM for music. No one publicly knows if it is even theoretically capable of transmitting high-rate PCM. I have no idea if the Wadia is any different, but I would be surprised if it could output high-rate PCM. We know from Benchmark's tests that iTunes itself is not a limiting factor for this feature.

The AppleTV also requires a TV. The Wadia doesn't, but it has a much simpler interface as a result. You can read more about some of the limitations of the Wadia here:

http://www.wadia.com/support/170iTransport_faq.htm

Apple should have added iTunes NAS capability to their TimeMachine drives, or at least some way of slaving them to an AppleTV.

--Andre

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, the new Remote application can do a great job of controlling the Apple TV without the need for having your TV on. (Just for music, of course. For video, uh, turn it on, OK? :))

Once nice surprise is that both the AirTunes protocol and the iPhone Remote application supports cover art. You can see the cover art for the music playing, and for albums you're selecting, on the phone itself. And when you send music to the Apple TV from another computer, the cover art for that music pops up as well.

I agree with you on other counts. And I'd love to see someone implement an iTunes server for the DroboShare.

If someone were to make a Sonos Controller emulation program for the iTouch, that would be supremely cool. Though, I do like the nice size and near invulnerability of the Sonos Controller.

If someone were to make a Sonos Controller emulation program for the iTouch, that would be supremely cool. Though, I do like the nice size and near invulnerability of the Sonos Controller.

Wow, you and your clients must be easy on the sonos controllers! While its got great reliability, I have had quite a few of them give up and just stop working or stop scrolling correctly (most common issue). Also, the battery only seems to be good for about 1.5-2 years so far which is a bit of a bummer IMO (not that far beyond average). That being said, as a sonos dealer the only thing I wish for is the ability to integrate control with a 3rd party system (control4, amx etc) or for control 4 to pass on basic IR commands like power, input, volume to receivers and the like. I know the new sonos boxes are supposed to ship out in the end of july or so and I hope they really do have double the range, that will solve many issues!

IMHO the Wadia will do a better job simply because I've always found other Wadia digital audio products to sound far better than digital playback equipment from Krell.

Those who prefer the Krell house sound will likely feel different.

That being said, as a sonos dealer the only thing I wish for is the ability to integrate control with a 3rd party system (control4, amx etc) or for control 4 to pass on basic IR commands like power, input, volume to receivers and the like.I would like the same with the iPhone remote as well.

Wow, you and your clients must be easy on the sonos controllers! While its got great reliability, I have had quite a few of them give up and just stop working or stop scrolling correctly (most common issue). Also, the battery only seems to be good for about 1.5-2 years so far which is a bit of a bummer IMO (not that far beyond average).

I've found that most of these issues actually fix themselves when the software upgrades come out. We recycle most of our 'broken' units actually. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a software upgrade since last August. There is one in the wings, however.

That being said, as a sonos dealer the only thing I wish for is the ability to integrate control with a 3rd party system (control4, amx etc) or for control 4 to pass on basic IR commands like power, input, volume to receivers and the like. I know the new sonos boxes are supposed to ship out in the end of july or so and I hope they really do have double the range, that will solve many issues!

I'm almost certain that is coming and sooner rather than lager. They called me an asked if me they should do AMX/Crestron and I said 'absolutely'. We don't do those, but it would be nice to integrate with them. I haven't heard anything specific on new hardware yet, but I know they're working on, or at least considering, a lot of stuff.

Ah, here we go - http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/26/hot-sonos-zp120-on-zp100-action-spied/

One good thing about the ZP120, aside from higher data rates (which will no doubt lead to video support), is that it looks like an 8.5" wide chassis so two will sit beside each other better. We almost never used the audio outputs on these anyway. We do use 3-4 ethernet ports sometimes (we usually daisy chain these, which would eat up both ports now), but 2 should still work in most instances. Would have loved to see a USB port, but we'll just have to see if my "ZP300" idea flies at some point. Marginally disappointed only because I was expecting a little more exciting news, rather than just a slight make over.

well, I called Wadia, they said they are sold out till september for their iTransport. They also said they have no real plans for an OSD, nor were they even thinking about integrating one when this thing was being conceived. They only thought enough about getting the digital signal out... and that's it. In any case, I ordered one. I figure good sound beats an aesthetic OSD. I'll have this dock next to my listening position anyway, so as long as I can access the controls relatively easily, that's all that matters.