Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Apple iPad

That's for sure! It makes the Sooloos front-end sooo last century.

Anyone able to speculate how an iPad/Mac Mini/iTunes config. would compare with a fully-loaded Sooloos?

I'm thinking straight into an 861V4 (with apodising) - no 808.

Thinking front end use (functionaility, use appeal), sound quality...

Zander

90% of the performance*, 10% of the price?

plus surf the net on it...

*when feeding a Meridian processor...

In addition to the new iPad being capable of running the Sonos App; the iPeng App for Squeezbox and the new Sooloos App, I personally think that the following combination will be appealing for the various reasons mentioned

** Mac Mini (perhaps upgraded with an SSD)

** Mac Mini can be configured to Rip and Playback 24/96 High Res material, which the Apple TV cannot

** Optical Out to 861v6 to avail of Apodizing, which will lead to performance on a par from Sooloos (at least till Meridian make more internal changes to the Sooloos Source Products)

** Alternatively, output over HDMI using this Kanex Optical & Mini Display Port to HDMI cable. This can be input into an HD621 to avail of Apodizing in the HD621

** And lastly the new iPad running the new version of the "Remote" App from Apple, which allows you to remotely control the Mac Mini from your seat. With a picture painting a thousand words, I believe the photos below give an idea for how graphical the User Interface will be compared to the current Sooloos, iPeng and Sonos Apps. The result will be much closer to what appeals to many here about the Sooloos Control:10 interface (and at a far lower purchase cost, plus other advantages that I won't go into now)

SUMMARY (IMHO): Up to 24/96 Playback into a Meridian Apodizing Processor all while using a MUCH More Grpahical Interface than the current alternatives, adds up to an appealing package.

AND Given the current Sooloos Architecture, I'm not sure that the Apple based Solution sounds any better or worse than a Sooloos into the same Apodizing device

I'm guessing the iPad (great name, and to think everyone's been calling it the iSlate and goodness knows what else - what were we thinking) being kinda like a big iPhone with solid flash storage and no hard drive will have no fan and be silent running... it can have a lossy compressed copy of your iTunes library on it so you can take it on holiday... you can access the NET... view photos... read emails and books(!)...

I'm loving the macmini idea...

16 - 64GB, no bigger than an iPod touch.

I want to see the new Remote app.

Steve.

Does anyone know if the itunes app will control a library on a NAS and will it be able to output through airtunes or only to the onboard speakers?

Rob

Am I right in thinking that Apple doesn't have an iTunes controlled multi-room solution? (yet)

The pictures that I posted above are very representative of how the new Remote App will look, i.e. quite Sooloos like in terms of its using Album Art for a more Graphical Respresentation

Your iTunes Library Files and Music Files can reside on a NAS and be controlled from there as if they were native to your PC

Using iTunes, you can then output to the Digital out on the Computer into your Processor. Alternatively, you can also guide the Output to any Airport Express, where again the Optical out can be into your Processor

In addition, an Apple TV device can be Sync'd with the iTunes Library on the NAS and it can then play the Tracks as if they were native

You can also set up the Client Apple TV or Mac Mini without Sync'ing and get it to Stream the files from a NAS using the iTunes Server option

Using iTunes and Clients (which can be Airport Expresses, Apple TV's or Mac Mini's) then it is possible to set up a Multi-Room Solution using just One iTunes Library on a NAS

You can then use the "Remote" app on an iTouch / iPhone / iPad to control what Tracks and Playlists you wish to play. A PC is not required in the remote rooms. See the links below for more info

Remote App

Apple Airtunes & Multi-Room

Yes but you still have to have one Mac on permanently with iTunes running for the remotes to work or have i got that wrong? I`m pretty sure just the remote app wont look at the nas with a Mac iTunes running. I'd like the remote on the iPad to work like the sonos but i dont think it does.

Interesting. I'm not quite ready to jump ship from Squeeze to Apple, but I love everything that Apple is doing at the moment. It's is so *nice* to see integrated solutions which "just work". Even the missus is enthusiastic.

The Squeeze architecture probably suits me a bit better. For instance, I'm in the process of setting up IR Blaster to control my F80 - I doubt the Apple solution has that kind of flexibility. Also, iPeng is sooo good and the writer, from what I've been told, is very responsive to feature suggestions.

I'm in LA in April (wifi iPad ships in late March). I think the missus and I will be popping into the Century City Apple shop.

Breaking news: I just got confirmation from the iPeng developer that he will "of course" be porting iPeng to the iPad:

Whether you use iPeng, iTunes or Sooloos on the iPad, the future has never looked better for accessing and listening to music.


Edit: Great communication BTW on Apple's website. Sure they have the resource, but it's great to find all the information you need on their site immediately after the announcement.