Sony confirms Giga Juke SC55PKE and E35HD for the UK
By Paul Miller 
posted Mar 10th 2008 10:30AM
posted Mar 10th 2008 10:30AM
[Via Wired]
posted Mar 10th 2008 10:30AM
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
what would go good in my living room =]
I don't know- I've never seen your living room.
Is SONY the only one who makes a hard drive-based music system? Does anyone know where I can get something similar to this in the U.S.?
Yeah, its called a media center PC with a surround sound setup.
...or its called a GOOD STEREO SURROUND SYSTEM added to your digital media player of choice.
It makes no sense to make hard drive based shelf systems because
#1 Hard drives are obsolete technology and getting phased out by Solid State Memory.
#2 Hard drives are prone to failure
#3 Hard drives aren't expandable (easily) and it makes much more sense to just make a good system that will be compatible with any DAP plugged to it - this way the user can get a new DAP whenever which takes care of upgrading instantly.
I hook my MP3 players and my flash drives to my surround sound DVD system and get a room full of sound.
I wouldn't buy one of these because I'd rather just use my computer with a Sonos or something like that, but I nonetheless don't agree with Flashpoint at all.
Hard disks are hardly obsolete, and I can't imagine this would be all that prone to failure just sitting there. Your mp3 player is in far greater risk of damage (or loss).
Flashpoint
1) Yes, but HDDs will still be around for a few more years. I don't see large SSDs selling for chips just yet.
2) Yes, but so do all HDDs so that really isn't a valid argument. I could go out and buy an iPod or external desktop drive, use it for a month and discover it's failed too.
3) People still prefer some kind of "Hi-Fi"-ish device to handle their music at home. Whilst I personally use my computer hooked up to a good amp and bookshelf speakers, not everyone has that. They might have a POS PC which is a poor excuse to use a music device. Same for hooking up their DAP to some speakers.
I think there is still a market for this, but its diminishing very quickly.
What I would like to find is a simple shelf system that either plugs into my ethernet (or via wifi) plays music stored on my NAS.. why aren't these more common?
Philips makes hard drive audio systems
http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/en/us/consumer/cc/_productid_WAC3500D_37_US_CONSUMER/Wireless-Music-Center+WAC3500D-37
http://www.streamium.com/en/gb/Streamium_Overview.html