Wondering whether a cd3o Network MP3 Player is right for you? This information can help you decide.
There are many ways to get music from your PC to your stereo, including really-long audio cables, wireless FM transmitter/receiver pairs, plugging a portable hard-drive MP3 player into your stereo, or even $10,000-plus "professional" music distribution systems. As you're comparing options, here are some points to consider:
Audio quality
You're storing your music on your PC, but that doesn't mean you want it to sound like it's playing through cheap computer speakers. cd3o Network MP3 Players offer uncompromising audio performance:
- cd3o uses clean digital transmission over your home network. With cd3o Network MP3 Players, you won't experience the squealing, static and hum that can occur with analog wireless FM transmitter/receiver products.
- cd3o players use an audiophile-quality DAC (digital-to-analog converter) designed for use with home stereo equipment. Most portable MP3 players—and even some more-expensive digital audio receivers—use cheaper DACs that work just fine with headphones, but will sound thin and noisy when hooked up to a quality stereo.
- cd3o streams only the music directly from your computer to your stereo. Unlike long audio cables or wireless FM tranceivers, with cd3o you'll never hear "you've got mail!" or other computer sounds screaming out of your family room stereo.
- cd3o Network MP3 Players run silently, with no fan or disk drive to add noise to your listening environment.
- cd3o's c300 player has S/PDIF digital outputs—both coax and optical TOSLink—for connection directly to a digital stereo receiver. The c300 is one of very few networked audio receivers to offer this feature.
- cd3o players support MP3, WMA, and WAV formats natively, without transcoding. Portable devices—and even some digital audio receivers—often play only MP3 files directly. They convert other formats to MP3 on the PC. This "transcoding" process reduces audio quality, much like repeatedly copying a videotape. cd3o uses only licensed, high-quality codecs in the player firmware, so that transcoding is not required.
Convenience
We designed cd3o Network MP3 Players to be easy to set up, convenient to use, and to focus on the features that really matter in day-to-day use:
- cd3o's c200 and c300 players offer wireless operation. You won't have to drill holes or pull cables. Simply set up a standard 802.11b (Wi-Fi) home computer network, and start listening to your music where you want to.
- cd3o players are compact and attractively-designed. About the size of a paperback book, they fit in well with any stereo—even boomboxes and executive shelf systems.
- cd3o Network MP3 Players don't require a TV for operation. You probably don't have a television next to every stereo in your house. And do you really want to have to turn the TV on and select the correct input source just to play some music? cd3o's Voice-Guide™ makes it easy to browse your library and select music by genre, artist, album, or playlist. If you can hear the music, you can hear the Voice-Guide.
- cd3o lets you play different music in different rooms, at the same time, from a single PC music library.
- cd3o gives you a virtually unlimited music library. Your collection can grow as large as your computer's hard drive. (And if you manage to fill that up, most computers make it easy to add an external hard drive.) Dedicated jukebox appliances and portable MP3 players can only store a limited amount of music.
- cd3o won't make you copy or rearrange your music files. With media jukebox appliances or portable MP3 players, you can spend a lot of time and effort synchronizing your PC music library with the device. And some digital audio receivers make a duplicate copy of your library on your PC, wasting hard drive space. The cd3o Music Server software lets you keep your digital music where it is now, organized just the way you like it.
- cd3o lets you keep your current PC music player software. Stick with Windows Media Player, WinAMP, Music Match, or whatever you prefer to listen to music on your computer, rip CDs, and manage your music library. The cd3o software will work just fine alongside it. And because cd3o uses standard m3u files, you can create playlists using either your current software or the cd3o system, and then use the playlists in both applications.
Still can't decide? Check out these reviews, evaluate the specifications, and compare cd3o's available models and extremely-competitive pricing.
Compare to Linksys
Linksys introduced a product called the Wireless-B Media Adapter. This is another TV-display product (don't you love to turn on the TV to listen to music?).
- No ability to queue up music. Have a song in mind? Select it and play it. Then 3 minutes later, go find
another, because Linksys gives you no ability to create adhoc playlists - the "Now Playing List" - unlike every software mp3 player written for the PC.
No need to pre-arrange playlists with cd3o (though you can) - just drag-n-drop in the cd3o Control Center or press the Insert-Next or Add-at-End buttons on the Voice-Guide Remote Control. - No ability to control from PC. cd3o allows control from any PC using the cd3o Control Center Graphical User Interface, or with Voice-Guide Remote Control.
- No digital outputs. cd3o's c300 has S/PDIF Optical and Coaxial Digital Outputs. If you don't require digital outputs, check out the c200.
- No filesharing possible. Unbelievably, only music in c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Music will play. Adding any other directory crashes the server. No music on other machines (or even other folders on same machine) can be included.
- No ability to sort music by album. cd3o supports this feature, automatically grouping loose tracks from the same album together.
- No way to search for music. How to get from Allman Brothers to Madonna? scroll-scroll-scroll-scroll.....
cd3o has Search-By-Name both using Voice-Guide Remote Control and in the PC Graphical User Interface (cd3o Control Center)
Compare to SMC
SMC has recently introduced a product called the EZ-Stream. It's an 802.11abg product with music, pictures, and video. Our product is focused strictly on music, since that's what most people have on their PC and a laptop is better for viewing pictures than a TV.
If you love music, consider these differences:- No ability to queue up music. Have a song in mind? Select it and play it. Then 3 minutes later, go find
another, because SMC gives you no ability to create adhoc playlists - the "Now Playing List" - unlike every software mp3 player written for the PC.
No need to pre-arrange playlists with cd3o (though you can) - just drag-n-drop in the cd3o Control Center or press the Insert-Next or Add-at-End buttons on the Voice-Guide Remote Control. - No ability to control from PC. cd3o allows control from any PC using the cd3o Control Center Graphical User Interface, or with Voice-Guide Remote Control.
- No volume control cd3o has volume control on BOTH analog and digital outputs. Since music files vary considerably in volume, this is a key feature.
- No WMA or WAV support, only MP3. cd3o supports MP3, WMA, and WAV
- No digital audio outputs. cd3o's c300 has S/PDIF Optical and Coaxial Digital Outputs. If you don't require digital outputs, check out the c200.
- No published audio specs. cd3o features a 24-bit, 96Khz Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) with 102db measured S/N performance and 0.004% THD+N.
- No way to search for music. How to get from Allman Brothers to Madonna? scroll-scroll-scroll-scroll.....
- cd3o has Search-By-Name both using Voice-Guide Remote Control and in the PC Graphical User Interface (cd3o Control Center)