Cocktail

It’s hard to imagine a life without CDs, especially if you have collected tons of them. But we’ll have to brace ourselves for the inevitable; we’re getting closer and closer to that day. Piracy and the development of other downloadable digital formats have tightened the noose on this 1980s creation. With the clear signs of its imminent death, it will take a miracle for it to survive.

Only time will tell if audio companies will still manufacture CD players in the future. If they do stop, it’s going to be one helluva nightmare if you haven’t ripped your CDs to any media storage yet. Truth is, many music lovers have already made the jump, either by ripping to or downloading from iTunes (or Windows Media) their CD collection and seem to be happy with the move.

Many of you might wonder why this self-proclaimed analog enthusiast is writing about digital audio. I must confess that there are times I still enjoy listening to music recorded on CDs. There’s no argument that vinyl is the more superior music format. But there are song selections that are hard to find on vinyl.

Many readers have been asking me if they can get high-quality sound reproduction from ripped or downloaded music. Of course, some have taken notice of the proliferation of high resolution servers and their supposed “vinyl-like” sound. I’ve searched the Net for answers and was floored by the selling prices of these so-called hi-res servers.

All you need are a good sound card (I recommend the mid to high-end model of Sound Blaster), a large storage (500GB up) hard drive, fast processors, iTunes or Windows Media installed in your computer, a computer speaker system (Cambridge Soundworks, if you can find one) and a lot of patience in copying your CD collection. After that, you’re good to go.

In case you belong to that group of listeners who want to hear their ripped music in larger and the exclusive listening environments, then you have to get wired to big speakers. If you can afford that kind of setup, by all means go for the pricey servers. I haven’t heard one yet so I cannot give you an honest-to-goodness sonic evaluation.

But there’s one particular hi-res affordable server that has gotten my attention. On paper, it seems to me to be worth checking out. It’s the Cocktail Audio X10 which can directly play CDs and rip their music to its 500GB hard drive (upgradable to 1TB). You can stream and replicate files from devices hooked to one another and get to listen to internet radio, too.

One good thing about it is that you can have it from a local dealer (Audioamplified) so the constant worry about warranties is no longer a problem. Except for Apple’s lossless, it supports AAC, FLAC, Mp3, WAV and 24-bit high resolution audio. Two USB inputs afford you the opportunity to listen to and reproduce music to and from other components.

It appears to be a solid but light enough apparatus.

One of the reviews I read heralds the product as a fantastic way to store music and audio files in one place and have easy remote control access to them at the touch of a button.

Cocktail is a boxed mechanical hard drive which can seamlessly hook up to any hi-fi system and home network, via Ethernet. With this, one can play music anywhere in the house.

From among the myriad of hi-res music servers I’ve searched, on paper, Cocktail seems to be better than the other brands. I haven’t heard it sing, much less touch or see it physically. This article is in response to many of your queries about high resolution servers, and how they can help you store your favorite music and relieve you of worrying about where to keep your CD collection (which by now may occupy half the space of your music or living room). You can either keep the physical disc for posterity or throw them away for recycling.

Although I do not have first-hand knowledge about Cocktail, one thing I can assure you is that Audioamplified (audioamplified.com) is a reputable audio shop. You can listen to the Cocktail Audio at their Libis, Quezon City, store. The shop also allows home auditions so I suggest you check it out.

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For comments or questions, please e-mail me at audioglow@yahoo.comor at vphl@hotmail.com. You can also visit www.wiredstate.com for quick answers to your audio concerns.