Smart Sound: The Future of Music Technology
Learn about the slickest new digital sound systems
April 7, 2003
Networked Music Servers
Kenwood's Sovereign Entré home jukebox system has been available since last year, and both Yamaha and Pioneer will have similar products out by June. Here's how they work: When you play a CD in the unit, the music is saved (or "ripped") to an internal hard drive, creating a library of your music. Like a portable jukebox, tracks can be organized by song title, artist, genre or whatever you like, and once you saved the songs you can replay them without the original CD.
Where these home jukeboxes differ from regular MP3 players is in their networking capability. With each system you can add small "client" boxes that can sit in other rooms of your house but still access the contents of the central jukebox's hard drive — letting you put your CD collection in the kitchen, bedroom and living room all at once. The Kenwood and Yamaha clients have built-in amplifiers; Pioneer's design requires a boom box or audio system — but that's because it can also send photos and video content from the server to a television.
If you're a networking geek (or you recently set up a home network), the Kenwood Sovereign Entré ($1,500 plus $400 per client) uses the HomePNA standard, communicating via the home's phone lines without interrupting calls. The Pioneer DigitaLibrary ($1,000 plus $600 per "branch") will use Ethernet. The Yamaha MusicCAST ($2,200 plus $600 for each client) is the priciest, because it not only has Ethernet, but also built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking.
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