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Meridian fires up its CES party with Sooloos whole-home audio
It's been about a year since Meridian picked up Sooloos, and the fruits of the acquisition are coming at you, whole-home style. The new ID40 Sooloos Card can be dropped into select Meridian 800-series components to open up network audio streaming and play queue control. The new 808.3 Signature Reference CD player gets an ID40 bundled, and it's an option on the 861 Reference Digital Surround Controller (now in its sixth version and ready to gobble up 8-channels of audio from a HD621 HDMI Audio Processor). Just in case a $9,900 $5,000 Control 10 qualifies as a handy remote to you, there's also an iPhone / iPod touch app as well. Full details in the press releases, but those with mortal budgets might feel more at home with something like Sonos or Logitech. EDIT: The $9,900 Control 10 package includes an Ensemble server unit.
MeridianSooloos produce first jointly developed touchpanel: Control 10
Given just how zany the past few months have been in the HD world, you probably forgot all about Meridian and Sooloos' little tie-up back in December. Lo and behold, the newly conjoined company has just released its first jointly developed product, the Control 10 touchscreen. The device integrates Meridian's proprietary connectivity with a Sooloos touchscreen in order to create what's called the "most user-friendly media-access solution yet." For those with lots of Meridian equipment, it'll be hard to let this one pass given just how well it'll integrate, and there's also RS-232 for more widespread control. Hop on past the break for the nitty-gritty, but only after you've grown comfortable with the $5,000 asking price.
Sooloos delivers RackMount media server models at no extra cost
So far as we can tell, this is the first major product introduction from Sooloos since it was acquired by Meridian Audio Limited in December 2008. For those who've already plunked down for one of the company's music management devices, you'd be better off holding your ears and scrolling down with haste. For everyone else, you should know that Sooloos's Source, Twinstore and Ensemble units will now be available in a 2U rackmount enclosure for -- get this -- no additional cost. The mountable iterations will include internal fans for heat dispersion and a front-panel power switch, though functionally everything will remain the same. Pays to wait sometimes, huh? The full release (prices included) is after the break.
Meridian picks up Sooloos, and isn't telling anything more
In tough economic times, it's not unusual to see consolidation among companies as big fish gobble up smaller ones. We didn't really see Meridian's acquisition of Sooloos in our crystal ball, but there's some definite synergy going on here; with Meridian's adoption of SpeakerLink for ethernet distribution of control and data and Sooloos' 17-inch Control:One touchscreen, there's some interesting possibilities. One thing's for sure, the two companies are targeting the same affluent, tech-lifestyle crowd; but we're all left to speculate. Meridian didn't disclose any immediate plans, let alone terms of the deal -- we're guessing some number of $3000 F80s was involved.
Sooloos intros $7,900 Ensemble music management system
Not much has changed about the 17-inch Sooloos Control:One touchpanel you see above, but what is different about the newly announced Ensemble System is the lowered barrier to entry. Sure, the kit still demands a stuff $7,900, but that nets you the aforementioned screen and the combined storage / playback Ensemble server. In other words, this neat little package includes everything you need to digitize your CD collection and integrate it into your current home entertainment setup. The server itself includes an optical drive and USB port for importing tunes, 1TB of storage space and compatibility with other control systems including Crestron remotes and Apple's iPod touch / iPhone. Full release is after the break.
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]
