I'm not coming from a technophile or audiophile point of view when I say this. I'm just saying where my pain is as a consumer.
My stereo stuff inside the house is pretty much built out. Streaming and synchronization would be an enhancement, but I'd be more motivated to buy something that gives new capability, especially something I've been wanting for a long time and can't even find. I want to listen to my music outdoors, and that means battery-powered and wet. By the hot tub, poolside, beach, boat, gardening, camping, etc. If you've ever bought a hot tub, you've seen the $2000 stereo they try to sell you. A regular boombox will only last so long until it gets splashed, and it has a power problem. To listen to your own content, you have to burn CDs and spin them, which eats battery. I think SB would have the power consumption of a radio, which would be great. My perfect system would start with a battery-powered SB that you could clip onto your belt and listen to with headphones while working in the yard or garage, or just walking around the house for that matter. That SB would dock into a stripped-down chassis consisting of amplifier, speakers, AC power connector and battery compartment. Then you could buy additional modules that would snap into the thing, like a DVD player (not video, but a DVD will hold a bunch more FLACs than a CD), or a radio tuner. The thing would have a USB port so you could stick a thumb drive in there and listen to music from that. One easy thing that could be done to get the best audio quality for the price is to design detachable speakers. Each having its own enclosure improves the sound, and being able to separate them a few feet would help a lot too. A coolness would be if you could run it on AC with the (rechargeable) batteries in it and automatically recharge them. You could take the boombox anywhere, and you wouldn't have to buy several different devices for different applications. Another coolness would be a bootable SlimServer CD so you could take your boombox to a friend's house, boot his computer to SlimServer and stream his music without installing anything on his computer. Next thing you know, he'll want one too. How cool would it be to take the laptop camping and stream to the boombox out in the forest? How cool while on a business trip to stream from the laptop in the back seat? I would get so much use from something this versatile that I would pay $600 bucks in a heartbeat (well, $250 for the SB plus $350 for the boombox). Probably take a couple of weeks to talk myself into paying $800. Slim Devices, please make a waterproof boombox for me and the legions of people like me!! (I can hear them shouting in unison) -- Jukie ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jukie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5409 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
