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Thoughts on Music with K/Is K falling behind?

It is unfortunate that you had to spend 10K when the ksystem has the potential to be as good or better than sooloos, hopefully k will wake up and upgrade music to be competitive with sooloos.
 
moviefan said:
It is unfortunate that you had to spend 10K when the ksystem has the potential to be as good or better than sooloos, hopefully k will wake up and upgrade music to be competitive with sooloos.
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Frankly, if you'd ever used a Sooloos, you wouldn't say that. Sure the ksystem has the potential to be as good or better than sooloos in the same way that my son has the potential to be as good or a better swimmer than Michael Phelps. Could it happen? Sure, though since he can barely swim, it isn't likely. And, in truth, if the ksystem were only as good with music as it is with movies, that might be enough. Sooloos is so far advanced from that its amazing. In a bizarre way, kscape is lucky because for all the troubles that the lawsuits has caused them, there has been a huge benefit as well: no one else has dared openly market a competitive product. One probably doesn't need the extensive ability to find and arrange movies that Sooloos provides for music, but I think that if Meridian were able to add movie capability to the Sooloos's amazing facility to get at and into your music, it could be real competition. But maybe not. Kscape was designed by movie fans and it has an incredible interface for dealing with movies. Sooloos was designed by music fans as a way of getting deep into one's music collection. Two different things. The swim and focus features allow you to discover your music in new and different ways -- I've discovered dozens of songs on disks I already own but never listened to using those features.
 
sigh... another [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Recovery-Eminem/dp/B003KUSUG8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1277150788&sr=8-1"]major release[/ame] not in the DB
 
K and music!

Any news on this matter? I am particularly interested in possibility of streaming audio (eg. Sonos).
 
Not long ago I was told that improvements to the audio side of K were "in the works," but I've heard nothing since that comment. I do expect we will see improvements, but I've heard nothing official (nor unofficial for that matter) regarding when that will happen.


Jim
 
While it would be nice to have some improvements- Im not sure there is much in the way of cost/ benefit to K to do it.
 
I would think that although Kaleidescape may not be able to charge much more for any audio improvements in their already expensive line of hardware, it might just make the product more appealing to a wider audience. I have read on some sites that "K-systems" were not recommended for serious listeners of music. In that regard, it was recommend that one consider the Meridian systems. Seeing how good K is with videos, I would believe that a few software tweaks could go a long way...



Matt
 
What software tweaks would you recommend then?

As for the sonics, I will tell you that K doesn't make it easy but if you use either the coax or toshlink outputs you will get bit for bit accurate performance.

I don't think I know anyone whose bought a K system because of the music capability. While its nice to have, and Im glad to have it, the big draw I think is the video side.
 
JerryL said:
What software tweaks would you recommend then?

As for the sonics, I will tell you that K doesn't make it easy but if you use either the coax or toshlink outputs you will get bit for bit accurate performance.

I don't think I know anyone whose bought a K system because of the music capability. While its nice to have, and Im glad to have it, the big draw I think is the video side.
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I would like to have wireless/wired streaming audio, similar to what Sonos and other brands offer at a reasonable price. The cheapest way for K is to make the audio content available so it can be downloaded by a Sonos or equiv. system.

The music player they offer now is out of date. Multiroom with cables is no longer acceptable. I want ONE system offering the best audio/video distribution possible.
 
Im sure they will read this and Ill say that Id like that also but I wouldn't likely spend the money on such a setup as I have the older wired, multi room setup- but for new business I think it would be smart. It would also be nice to be able to access music on NAS and play/decode itunes bought content, and also have things like Rhapsody and Pandora. But- like I said- I think K can make a business case for Blu Ray- without BR ability I think they would be in trouble in the long run- but I really don't think they will lose sales because their music system isn't the absolute best. FWIW, I think its pretty good as it is now but yes, there is room for improvement. Also in the interface. I like what Sooloos is doing there.
 
One real improvement would be to have the ability to output / have a music data stream based upon open standards like FLAC so as to be able to use a device such as a Linn DS to listen to the music in the same way as the K-Players connect to the network. Here in Europe many of the Linn dealers are also K-scape dealers and as it stands the Linn Klimax DS is a quantum leap in quality compared to K-scape or Sonos.
 
I have to agree to Mark H. Although I really love the video side of the K-System I do hate the audio side. I also have a m-300 Player back to back with a Linn Klimax DS. The Klimax is playing in another league. Best thing would be, if you could use the nice K-Scape System to stream to the Linn flacs, wave ans MP3. I am really waiting for something like that. I would even pay a premium for that feature, because I hate the Twonky Media Server Stuff.

Cheers!

Dirk
 
One thing I will give K props on is how they handle selecting music to play. On the iPod (in the car), if I choose artists, and let's say I was going for Lady Gaga... There's an entry for Lady Gaga, one for Lady Gaga ft Beyonce etc.

The "Lady Gaga" entry will only pull up songs that she's on alone, whereas on kscape if you select an artist, it will pull up every song that artist is on (which is more how iTunes works actually). I prefer it, especially if you just want to hear a wide selection of songs an artist is on.
 
DirkAndres said:
I I also have a m-300 Player back to back with a Linn Klimax DS. The Klimax is playing in another league.
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I think that is a bit unfair - the Klimax DS is 4 times the price of the M300, and doesn't do video !! Saying that the lower end DS (new Akurate DS) also blows the M-300 away...

DirkAndres said:
Best thing would be, if you could use the nice K-Scape System to stream to the Linn flacs, wave ans MP3. I am really waiting for something like that. I would even pay a premium for that feature, because I hate the Twonky Media Server Stuff.
Click to expand...

Me too. I too have Linn DS kit for listening rooms, and run Kaleidescape for the "ordinary" multiroom stuff - this means I have 2 copies of music everywhere.

Is the Kaleidescape music interface published ? If so I can write a program that "copies" the Kscape music into my Twonky (upnp) server automatically and I wont then have to rip my music twice (once into Kscape and once into Twonky) - not too worried about the disk usage, just the dual scanning is a pain

BTW, turning OFF the kaleidescape setting in the normal user preferences that is "Adjust the volume so that songs play at similar volumes." seems to improve sound quality !


Richard
 
Richard, yes it does (turning off volume setting)- also my experience is you will get better quality for music playback if you use the SPDIF (coax/optical) outputs.
 
Steven said:
This may belong in another forum, but one of my problems with K's music is that it is very tedious to get to when I'm trying to 'surf.' I have a Kscape player in my exercise room, for example, but when I want to listen to music, I find that my iPod is much easier to move around on to find songs than the Kscape is. It is tough to go through my library to find songs, unless I have created some playlist before-hand....
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I totally agree. A big downside of the Kscape is that you cannot do a search by song title. Many times you know the song title but, especially with compilations, you don't know where to find it. I often use my iPod to search a song, then go to my Kscape to play it.
 
Why couldn't K hook up with HDTracks and work on a direct purchase solution where people could buy music directly rom HDTracks to go to their K server. Or, if that is too complicated, why not do an itunes conductor type thing, or just use the USB port on one of the players to import HDTracks directly in to K?

The whole Rolling Sones collection is siting over there at HDTracks... waiting... waiting... in 176/24 ...
 
I am a big fan of HD tracks. A K server would be a good secure place to keep them.

Will the music side of K handle high definition music?
 
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