The Fireball S-E500i from Escient is apparently the latest in music server technology, and is described as an 'amazingly pain-free way to get the most from your music collection'.
Integrating with your existing hi-fi set-up, it can burn, play, rip, store and stream your music on everything from a computer to iPod, and is offered with an additional (and blimmin' costly) iPod dock music manager.
The Fireball offers up a meaty half terabyte of storage capable of holding up to 8,500 hours of music (that's almost a whole year of non-stop play!) and is built using 'top-notch hi-fi circuitry' for audiophile quality playback.
Compatible with FLAC, WMA, AAC and MP3 files, CD burning and ripping is promised to be a breeze.
The Fireball also browses, plays and transfers music stored on PC or Mac, can import and manage songs bought online and stream from any internet radio station.
Analogue turntables and cassette players can be integrated into the system alongside iPod or any other MP3 player.
The Fireball features what Escient calls 'the most sophisticated user interface on the market', with the ability to search for digital music on your network and aggregate it into one intuitive interface.
The Fireball can also be controlled remotely from a PDA and is compatible with all the best multi-room systems from the likes of Marantz, Crestron and AMX.
All this doesn't come cheap though, with the main S-E500i unit retailing at £1,200 and the FP-1 iPod music manager dock an extra £400.
We've been lucky enough to see and have a play on the Fireball though and can safely say that it is indeed one of the best music management systems on the market.
Best start saving then.
www.escienteurope.com
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