Sooloos to store your lossless tunes

If you've got $12,000 burning a hole in your pocket and really need a new audio "system," then you may want to consider the new Sooloos music server. This 1TB ultra-quiet RAID (optionally up to 3TB) server apparently comes with all of your music pre-ripped in lossless format, although short of you sending a truckload of CDs to the company's headquarters in New York, we're not sure how the initial transfer from your CD library to your Sooloos server will work. Sooloos comes with a 17-inch centralized touchscreen display (there are 7-inch auxiliary displays) that shows all of your album art and liner notes, and will let you order tracks off of the Sooloos Music Shop, which purports to be coming soon. Of course, if you want to go for a less expensive media server alternative, you might consider a $5,000 competitor, or perhaps the $400 80GB rival, hrm?

[Via Slashgear]

[ij00mini @ Oct 10th 2006 9:09AM]

At least it looks nice for $12K. Some shit some companies put out is outrageously expensive and looks like crap.

[Sebastian @ Oct 10th 2006 9:16AM]

This is perfect (IF I had the money)....It's like some one used cosmic rays to enter my mind, man.....

Who, this IS an amazing box......you think it's infected (DRM)?

[Rob @ Oct 10th 2006 9:45AM]

For that kind of money I'd rather buy a Mac Pro with a Cinema Display, 1TB storage + a NAD/Denon amp and a pair of high-quality speakers. iTunes does the same trick as this software seems to do, perhaps even better.

[Martin Sieckmann @ Oct 10th 2006 10:02AM]

Sonos + Infrant NAS box still expensive ($2,000) but way less than $12,000. See www.sonos.com and www.infrant.com Neither solution will play itunes DRM'd music. And Apple doesnt have a competing solution (yet) to remotely control what's playing in different rooms unless you are at a mac machine - which you wouldnt want to have one in evey room just to control your music.

[john @ Oct 10th 2006 10:26AM]

You'd have to have a scrooloos to buy one of these. Ha! Just kidding, wish I had one...

[Alex @ Oct 10th 2006 10:27AM]

GUNS N ROSES

Seeing them on the 5th at Continental Airlines Arena. Who else is with me?

[Dan LaMee @ Oct 10th 2006 11:14AM]

There's a slot load cd drive in the base... or at least it looks like one.

[MacGyver @ Oct 10th 2006 12:38PM]

Or $90 for an Xbox running XBMC, then you'll get all audio, video and picture codec support.
$12,000 or $90, rich people do have more money then sense.

[tristanfey @ Oct 10th 2006 1:24PM]

The reason this is so high-priced is because of the convenience... this is aimed at the rich who either don't or refuse to have the time to setup their music library in a digital system. It is a simple touch-screen interface that even an idiot can manage to use. Touch the album art and then choose to play the whole album or select songs individual songs.

As stated here and on the website, it will come pre-loaded with your current CD collection. There are a couple ways to accomplish that. Such as, the $12,000 pricetag includes shipping the CDs to their factory and being shipped back to you or they might have a technician come out and scan your CD collection (barcodes on the CD jacket) to create a list that can then be used in the factory to compile the library.

Dan is right about the slot load in the base, but it is not for CDs it is for discs that you get from the company when you buy CDs from them as indicated by this statement from the website:

"When you order your music through Sooloos, you get the original CDs along with an encoded high-capacity disc that your system imports in minutes � no ripping required!"

Quite an elegantly simple solution compared to the other alternatives offered here in the comments. The user needs no computer or technical knowledge, there is no ripping, importing or configuration settings to have to go through or worse, mess up. That being said you are then locked into their system, because to continue to add new music to the library you need to buy the CD through them in order to get the specialized disc.

[enzo @ Oct 10th 2006 4:08PM]

If you had a 60GB iPod filled, each song ~5mb, it would be 12,000 songs. With this, you're getting each song lossless for a dollar, PLUS 1TB disk space to put it in. Not bad... if you had 12,000 songs... which you already bought and are paying for again.

[Tharglet @ Oct 10th 2006 5:10PM]

What? You mean if I order one of those it'll come complete with Finntroll on it? And anything else relatively obscure I wish to have on it?
Tho with $12,000 I bet there's some profit for obtaining the music if needs be.

[Chris Shaw @ Oct 10th 2006 7:47PM]

I've actually played with this thing and it's worth every penny.. believe me. The DA converters are top notch and the system is solidly built.....Nothing out there comes close and the developer tweeaks the software constantly for better features.

[DantheMan @ Dec 18th 2006 3:01PM]

how does this costly gadget stack up to the Olive Musica, (http://www.olive.us) or the Philis WACS700 (http://wwww.philips.com)?

[Tarry @ Aug 12th 2008 3:11AM]

This is great news!

http://www.chasetheglow.com

[Tarry @ Aug 12th 2008 3:11AM]

This is great news!

http://www.chasetheglow.com

[AudioGuyDFW @ Nov 5th 2008 9:30AM]

Have just posted a blog about this product, please feel free to check it out and comment.
http://audioguydfw.com/blogs/thewire/archive/2008/11/05/if-you-must-go-digital.aspx