Quote:beowulf,
The Beatis looks interesting, but I have to wonder what it has over a PC with Jriver loaded in it? $600 will buy you a lot of PC, $50 will buy you JRiver, $100 will buy you a external hard drive. From what I see, that is what the Beatis consists of. Maybe the fancy solid aluminum faceplate is the selling point.
I always go back to my thought that everyone is overthinking the whole computer audio thing. All you need is a computer, a DAC, a Decware amp and Decware speakers. Simple and reasonably priced.
Donnie,
I agree, this is just something that is ready to go and specifically for use a Media Center. Some things I like about it are that unlike a regular PC, it doesn't have alot of apps going in the background and there is no special sound or graphics cards. It let's the processor and ram do it's thing and passes DSP onto the DAC and/or Preamp Processor to do their things.
The specs are pretty simple if one were to build one themselves. I have built a few PC's in my time and find it very easy to do.
Specifications (
http://baetisaudio.com/ourproducts.html): All of our machines are custom-built. Baetis Revolution™ has the following features:
- Case: all aluminum, 9.5” W x 10” D x 4.25” H, black or silver
- CPU: Intel Core i3 processor with Intel integrated audio and HD2000 integrated video (the faster Core ix processors and integrated video are not needed, and just generate more heat, when you are using a quality DAC and/or pre-pro)
- Blu-ray combo drive: reads and writes CDs and DVDs; reads blu-ray discs (note that we do NOT supply blu-ray playing software since we expect the user to rip the disc and store it before playing it).
- Ethernet port
4 USB 2.0 outputs in the rear, 2 in the front
2 USB3.0 outputs in the rear
1 eSATA output in the rear
1 HDMI (latest hi-def version) output in rear
1 custom-built digital BNC audio out (see the cable types you will use in photo)
1 Toslink optical digital audio out
1 RCA digital audio out
- Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) – or Win 7 Ultimate
It's just a standard machine, but they add some "Pulse™ isolation transformer" and a few other do-dads like isolated BNC S/PDIF outputs. It's almost all passively cooled which I think is pretty important to reduce sound interference.
The only thing I would do differently is maybe add a few solid state drives for more space.