Compaq Brings Back iPaq Music Center, Drops Price

scaramush writes: "After initially pulling it from the market, Compaq has re-released the iPaq Music Center, complete with a $600 price drop (was $999, now $399). The size of a 17" standard component, the music center features a 20 gig HD, or as the copy breathlessly enthuses, "Enough capacity for nearly 400 audio CDs or 5,000 individual songs". Slashdot has covered similar devices like the Rio Central, which (at the moment) costs $1500. Will this price point be enough to lure users?" The site doesn't mention whether there will be any onerous playback-restriction technology included as a free bonus.

Comments

$600 off?

[EggplantMan]

Sometimes the markup on these devices is ridiculous. No wonder they weren't selling in the first place, the people who would be interested in this device are the type of people that would know if they were getting hosed on it.

Networking not yet available-

[purduephotog]

if you read the article, down at the ^2, theres a statement that 'Home network file transfers, analog recording of LPs, cassettes, etc., and S-Link changer control will be available via a free, automatic upgrade available in the near future.'
Translation: If it works, you'll get it, and we'll update your software without telling you :)

What about SliMP3?

[danro]

Why not use the much cooler (geekier) SliMP3?

And get cool stuff and an even cooler open source project to participate in / benefit from.

And, no, I am not affiliated with Slim Devices in any way.
I just think it's neat.
Guess I just can't resist the bright, bright VFD...

I told them it was too expensive in a focus group

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in a focus group a couple of years ago for this thing. They asked us how much we would spend on it, and I said $300-400, so they kicked me off the focus group. Most people said $500-1000.

My reasoning was that I could put together a cheap linux box for $300-400 (at the time I had done two like this) for playing mp3s on a stereo. $400 is much more reasonable than $1000 for this thing, but the difference in a $400 computer two years ago, and today is pretty significant. Though the form factor and (hopefully good) user interface may make this worth more.

Finally, I hadn't heard this was pulled from the market, but kicking people off the focus group when they say things that you don't want to hear is a good way of getting a false sense of the product. "Let's get rid of everybody who would pay less than $700, then we can tell the suites the price point is $1000."

Just build one yourself

[zbarone]

All the hardware and software parts to do this yourself are already out there, mostly for free. Fetch an old pentium out of the trash, qet your own 20G HD. You already have a CD player and probably a sound card in the thing. You might want to hack with the power supply/cooling to reduce fan noise. Here is an example of why a slower machine would be better.

Since you probably don't want a video monitor atop your stereo, add an ehthernet card so you can remote manage it, or read the serial port console HOWTO. Install Linux, install mpg123 and cdparanoia, check out The linux remote control project to learn how to add infrared remote capabilities, and there you have it. Since it's on a LAN, you can access songs over the network, and vice-versa.

You could even build this thing diskless and access everything over the LAN, which would make it really quiet. Check out The etherboot page for booting over a LAN, or consider a flash memory drive (more money, but simpler to implement).

I'd have done it myself by now if there weren't 10^6 more important things to work on.

this is a no brainer...

[archetypeone]

HP bought Compaq and are sorting out which products to keep and which to biff. HP's de100c Digital music cente is clearly a superior product so they're ditching the Compaq product. This will most likely also mean no support, no upgrades and no point in buying it.

Network Players for the Home

[asv108]

I've seen quite a few of these devices with storage built in, but for the home you just can't beat a device that plays off of network drives. The fact is most of the music enthusiasts who would be willing to take the plunge on a home MP3 device already have some type of home network set up. There is no advantage to having media files stored locally on the device, its only redundant.

There are 3 network players that I know of, one which has been highly publicized on /. is the SliMP3. The other device, which has been around for quite some time is the Turtle Beach Audiotron. There is also one made by RIO.

I recently bought a network player after a few weeks of wrangling I decided to go with the Audiotron since I already had samba set up and I wanted and SPDIF connection which the Slimp3 does not offer. Anyway, you can check out my review.

The reason these fail

[90XDoubleSide]

is that most people who are interested in making an MP3 library of all their music already own a computer, and it's hard to compete with the $4.99 price tag on this alternate solution for playing your MP3 collection on your stereo.