I'm thinking the folks at Slim have been a little too quiet lately. Either they're bogged down filling orders, out blowing their recently-acquired fortunes, or working up some new stuff in the lab.
So, what might the next hardware offering be? I've got 2 ideas that spring to mind: 1 - A component-sized SB. This has been talked about for a long time, but with a lot of feature requests and technical details ironed out in the SB2/3, maybe it's time they built a premium offering in the $1000 range. What could they possibly add or change to make it worth 3x as much? a - Heavy, shielded, rack-mountable case with the thick, milled front panel audiophiles cream over. b - Heavy-duty power supply. Lots of mods in the audiophile community suggest this is an area for possible improvement c - bigger display. A full-sized case would allow for a wider display panel which would reduce scrolling d - Front panel controls. There has been some demand for this, and the larger front panel would allow space for it. e - the ability to defeat the analog circuitry, headphone output, display, etc. Probably wouldn't make any difference in the sound, but audiophiles like being able to defeat unused circuitry that *might* interfere with the signal. f - standard AC socket so audiophiles can use their own $3000 power cords if desired. g - balanced analog outputs for those with fully balanced systems h - larger buffer. The more something costs, the less people will put up with playback glitches. No reason not to put an even larger buffer on board to make dropouts extremely rare, even with non-optimal wireless connections. i - upgraded remote, which is actually my 2nd speculation - see below. ________________________________________________ 2 - a premium remote control dedicated to making the SB experience easier, more fun and enjoyable. It would have a bright, vivid color LCD screen at least 320 x 240 pixels. Album art and track details are displayed as the song plays. Browse by album cover is possible (touch screen?). Backlighting is essential. RF is standard, so you don't need line-of-sight. These technologies tend to be pretty expensive, so the remote might cost more than the actual SB! I'm thinking in the $300 - $500 range. A lot of people would want it, though. It's a nice upgrade for existing SB die-hards, and I'm guessing a significant number of new orders would go for the upgrade remote, too. -- Pale Blue Ego ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pale Blue Ego's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=110 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21414 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
