Just Press Play

The Qsonix interface is necessarily more complex because of its considerably larger feature set. Sooloos lacks the ability to burn a playlist to CD, and download music from the Web.

As for sound quality, the Q100’s integral digital-to-analog converters are decent (and considerably better sounding than those of the more expensive Sooloos), but I still recommend using an outboard digital converter. The integral converters have a somewhat bright and metallic quality in the upper midrange and treble, along with a slight thinness and lack of warmth in the midbass. This rendered instrumental timbres somewhat threadbare and not fully fleshed out, which led to listening fatigue. But with the Q100’s digital output feeding an Esoteric D-03, the sound was outstanding, and better than any CD transport I’ve heard, including the state-of-the-art Esoteric P- 03. (See accompanying article “Do Hard- Disk Drives Sound Better than CD?”)

I have four criticisms of the Qsonix system. First, the transport for importing CDs is located in the main unit, away from the touchscreen. Importing CDs requires putting a CD in the drawer and then controlling the importation through the touchscreen. I expect that most users will have the touchscreen next to the listening chair and the main unit in a rack, making importation less convenient. The Sooloos system, by contrast, incorporates the CD transport in the touchscreen. Second, Qsonix imports only entire CDs; you can’t select just the tracks you want for importation (a feature Sooloos offers). Third, the meta-data don’t include album credits, meaning you can’t see which musicians play on a particular album. (The album-credit meta-data are available from AMG.) This omission also limits Qsonix’s search function; for example, you can’t ask the system to display all the albums in your library on which drummer Peter Erskine plays (to use my example from the Sooloos review). Finally, the Q100 had quite a loud fan. This shortcoming has been addressed in the new Q110, which will be shipping by the time you read this. The Q110 is reportedly as quiet as a DVR.
 

Conclusion

These caveats aside, the Qsonix system completely revolutionizes the way you explore your music library. The ability to see your entire music library and instantly narrow it down to find exactly what you want to hear is nothing short of amazing. Moreover, the drag ’n’ drop method of selecting music to play is brilliant—nothing could be simpler. I really liked Qsonix’s “extra” features, particularly its music management for the iPod and the ability to burn CDs using the integral CD recorder. Finally, I was greatly impressed by the company’s forward-looking approach to integrating its hardware with Webbased music delivery, particularly the prospect of seamlessly discovering and downloading new music to your server—some of it in high resolution. I think that music servers are destined to become part of all our lives, and judging from the experience Qsonix delivers through its stunning user interface, that’s a good thing.