Qsonix Q100/110 Music Server

Just Press Play

Qsonix’s iPod features are particularly compelling; the interface for managing music and transferring tracks and playlists to an iPod is significantly better than the iTunes interface. Qsonix will also transcode files on its hard drive for storage on the iPod. Unfortunately, however, no lossless encoding is offered; only pure uncompressed WAV files (which consume lots of disc space) and three lower bit-rates with lossy compression are available. (I use Apple Lossless exclusively on my iPod, an option not offered by Qsonix because Apple Lossless is proprietary to Apple.)

As I mentioned at the start of this review, a music server lives or dies by its user interface. If the server is cumbersome and difficult to use, browsing through your music library becomes a chore rather than a joy. I picked the Qsonix for review on the basis of its promising user interface, which I previewed at the company’s Web site (you can get a full animated tour at qsonix.com). Despite my high expectations, living with the Qsonix turned out to be even more enjoyable than I had imagined. This is one wellthought- out interface; it’s no wonder MusicGiants incorporated it in its online store, or that jukebox companies have licensed the Qsonix interface for their commercial products.

The screen is divided into three main panels: View, Now Playing, and Playlists. The View panel lets you look through your music library by artist, album name, or genre (with text-based lists), or graphically by cover art. A pull-down menu selects between these views. The cover-art view is the one you’ll use most. Within the coverart view, you can see 15 album covers, or just two larger album covers accompanied by details about the albums (including track listings). A Search tab on this menu allows you to search for an artist or album title. The genre, artist, and album views show how many titles in the library are included in that genre or are by that artist. Tapping the album name or cover art brings up a track listing of that album. From this view, you can tap the Details tab to show the genre and sub-genre classification of the album, as well as bring up a review of the album from All Media Guide. Sampling these reviews of records I know well, I found that most are insightful, although quite brief.

When you find the music you want, you simply put your finger on the cover art, or artist name (or individual tracks if you’ve “opened” the album by tapping it) and drag it into the Now Playing panel. Once music is in the Now Playing panel, you can play a particular track, rearrange the order of tracks (again, with a drag ’n’ drop method), play the list in order, or play the list in random shuffle mode. This drag ’n’ drop operation is the Q100’s core triumph. It’s simple, direct, and intuitive. You see the music on the screen, touch it with your fingertip, and control the playback.

A selection of tracks in Now Playing can be stored as a playlist. All your stored lists appear in the Playlist panel in the screen’s top-right corner. A pull-down menu gives you the option of editing, sorting, renaming, and deleting playlists. As mentioned, you can burn a selected playlist to a CD using the Q100’s integral CD recorder.

The Q110 is a four-zone unit, allowing you to stream four different audio programs to different areas of the house. Switching between zones is accomplished by one fingertap, and the screen changes color to indicate which zone you are viewing or programming. Note, however, that the fourzone output works only from the analog outputs, not the S/PDIF digital jack.

The system has a number of other features. When one track is playing, you can double-tap another song and the new song plays for a few seconds while the original track momentary drops in level. A volume control adjustment is provided on the front panel, but I defeated this feature in favor of using my preamp’s volume control.

The system’s other screens appear when importing CDs, transferring music to an iPod, burning a playlist to a CD, etc., and are accompanied by on-screen instructions. This makes using the advanced features extremely simple. These features are described in an addendum to the owner’s manual (which is, incidentally, excellent), but I actually used them successfully before I even read the manual.

The Q110 has the provision for storing high-resolution digital audio, but not via importing SACDs or DVD-A discs—there’s no standard for ripping SACDs or DVD-A. The high-res formats contain copyright protections, and there are legal issues surrounding the practice. To get highres music into the Q110, you must download it. I hope to have a followup report on this feature when it is implemented.

This graphical method of browsing your library and selecting music, employed by Sooloos and Qsonix, put those two servers in a class by themselves. Despite a fundamental similarity, the two interfaces are considerably different. The Qsonix interface is much busier than Sooloos’, with pull-down menus, three different panels on the main screen (View, Now Playing, Playlists), and dualzone output controls, for example. By contrast, the Sooloos interface is a model of simplicity, with just the album art shown on the main browsing screen and a few other controls. Sooloos doesn’t show you text-based lists; the presentation is always through cover art. Although you select a genre from a list with Sooloos, this action produces a display of cover art. Selecting a genre from a list in Qsonix, by contrast, brings up another text-based list of albums in that genre.