Originally Posted by JGlacken
All my music now resides on a NAS drive and plays through a mac mini with pure music software. Will the 818 make the 8000s better in any way? I do not contemplate a sooloos system anytime soon.
If you do go the 8K route, I really would give Sooloos a chance.

I was a long time Mac Mini/Pure Music user and the jump in audio quality is too big to ignore. It's a pain that you can't use a standard NAS and have to buy expensive Sooloos hard drive solutions but to be fair TwinStores can bought second hand pretty cheap these days and they are built like tanks.

In terms of whether the 818 will improve the sound, short answer - it depends. If you are using PureMusic to upsample, then yes, the 818 will sound a lot better. My own path to enlightenment was to buy an 808.3. When I compared the PureMusic upsampling to that provided by the 808.3 I was impressed by how much better the Meridian upsampling sounded. This intrigued me enough to get an MC200 and stop using the Mac Mini for music.

In terms of usability, I was using PureMusic and then Apple Remote on an iPad, which was pretty nice. However, recent upgrades to the Sooloos iPad app have made Sooloos even more compelling. You simply keep adding tracks to a queue as you browse your music collection. Then there is the focus/swim functionality.

The biggest pain, as a new user is getting your existing FLACS into Sooloos. The import process can be fiddly, but the Wiki has a lot of tips, and people on the forum will always chip in if you have problems.

Hope that helps.
Cheers
Greg

M owner since '97