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| Product: MusicStore |
Company: DigMedia |
| Web: www.digmedia.cc |
Phone: 760-431-3500 |
| Platform: stand-alone or Windows |
SRP: US$500
Street Price: same |
Cred Rating: | Special Award: |
Desktop MP3 never really "took" with me. Call me old fashioned, but I guess I'd rather listen to music on my home stereo. But the times they are a changin' and I decided I finally wanted to get in on the MP3 craze. But how? Enter the MusicStore from DigMedia.
The MusicStore is a total MP3 system. It's designed to allow you to listen to MP3 music without a computer, and it makes it easier to listen to MP3s you may already have on your computer via your home stereo. As a bonus, it also lets you take that music on the road (sort of).
There are essentially three components to the MusicStore. The first is the CD player, which plays regular audio CDs and can convert them (called "ripping") to MP3 format by recording them to the other chief component - the 6GB hard drive. The hard drive holds all the music that you've ripped from your CD collection. At 6 gigs, it holds up to 2000 songs (depending on the recording quality you choose). The hard drive can be accessed by hooking it up to a PC through the USB port located at the back of the unit so you can transfer music from PC to MusicStore.
The third component is the portable MP3 player, the SoulMate. This plugs into the MusicStore base through a docking port, which allows high-speed transfer tunes from hard drive to the portable. Plug it in, choose your music, and half a minute later, you're out the door. The super-fast transfer to the Soulmate is something to be envied by other MP3 players (but that's about the only thing to envy -- more on this later).
Adding tunes to the MusicStore is straightforward -- all you have to do is pop in the CD and use the numeric keypad to enter the name of the artist and the album -- it does the rest. The keypad uses text prediction software called T9, which is remarkably accurate. I don't know if they programmed in all of the artist's names they could think of, or if they use an English dictionary, but it was able to guess The Pixies, Sugar, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and others, without a problem.
The only big problem with the MusicStore proper is that the CD player doesn't rip fast enough -- you essentially have to play every CD in your collection in "real time" in order to get it into the unit. That's at least 5 times slower than with a PC. The manual recommends that you record as you go, not sitting down in one long evening to get all your CDs into the unit. That's not realistic, since most people will want to put all of their music in quickly, especially if they plan on using the MusicStore someplace other than where they keep their music collection.
Once the music is in the MusicStore, you can play it back any way you want. You can shuffle all the music together for an eclectic mix, or you can access it by genre, playing jazz, rock, world music, etc. Since the categories are user-defined, you can create categories like "ambient," "hardcore," or "show tunes," anything you want. You can either play the mix through your stereo or directly through low-powered speakers (not included), or you can move a mix to the Soulmate.
The Soulmate - this is where things get problematic. It is large compared to many other MP3 portables, is not expandable, and has a very poor user interface. While the idea of a docking station for a portable is a good one, docking the SoulMate is a pain because it's not always sure if it's connected or not. Rechargable batteries would have been a logical idea so that the portable would recharge in the docking station, but no such luck. The SoulMate operates on two AAA batteries that last about 10 hours. If you're serious about portable MP3, you'll want to skip the Soulmate.
The other problem with the Soulmate is the annoying copy protection scheme. The MusicStore "checks out" music when it's moved to the SoulMate, so you can't have access to the music in both places -- it's still saved on the MusicStore, it's just not available for playback. This is always a hassle, but it can turn into a major problem. Once, due to a glitch with the transfer of some music, the tunes were listed as unavailable on the MusicStore and not yet transferred to the Soulmate. I had to delete the music from both and re-rip the CD in question to have access to the songs again. If this had happened with a mix, you can imagine the hassle involved.
The MusicStore is great for a first generation machine of its kind, and has a decent pricetag for what it offers, but there is plenty of room for improvement. A larger and more user-friendly interface would be much appreciated, as would better construction and styling (it just doesn't fit with most home stereo décor). CD ripping needs to be faster. Much faster. The copy protection scheme needs to be fixed or eliminated because the danger of losing music is far too great. Finally, the interface software for the PC needs to have better transfer and management tools so that you can have complete control over what's on the MusicStore and how it's organized.
- Nate Heasley [2/16/01]
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