It's taken some time, but the Diamond Rio and other portables have carved out a nice market for MP3 players and generated plenty of interest in online music. Now, the first home stereo CD/MP3 player has made its debut, and a variety of devices are set to follow in its wake.
With a price tag of US$300, netDrives' Brujo is more expensive than a standard CD deck. But it but probably offers enough unique features to justify the extra bucks. The main advantage is that it allows you to play MP3s burned onto CDR/RWs, and the deck will read up to 200 files per disc.
Here are the nuts and bolts: The Brujo supports all the big audio formats -- CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, ISO-9660, and MPEG 1 & 2 Audio Layer III, better known as MP3. The unit comes with an infrared remote control that has all the standard functions, including that important volume button.
The Brujo also includes a sampling of songs from amp3.com and the Music Match Jukebox MP3 management software.
At 10.5 x 13.25 x 2.75 inches, the Brujo is a bit smaller than the rest of my decks -- which makes you wonder what's in those boxes -- but the design is pretty sleek and fits in well with traditional components.
The installation of the unit itself was straightforward. But it took a while to figure out all the controls on the remote. It's worth the effort because you can use the remote to program up to 63 songs in memory for quick recall -- a handy feature if you have 200 songs on a disc.
CDs played on the Brujo sounded virtually indistinguishable from those out of my CD player, and the songs on the amp3 disc showed MP3's true colors.
Some of the songs had a crisp, well-rounded sound, while others seemed as if they were recorded in a gymnasium. Or maybe just encoded with a low-quality software.
The bottom line is this: There are a lot of variables that come into play with MP3s, from the initial recording to the encoding software to the sound card to the burner. I wasn’t too excited by many of the 104 MP3 songs included in the package -- I'm fiercely snobbish on music -- but I do like the idea of giving unknown bands more exposure.
What netDrives and other companies in the nascent business of MP3 devices realize is that to drive product sales, they must also foster enthusiasm for MP3 music by partnering with the online music outlets.
"Nobody can afford to be exclusive right now," said Jennifer Wolfe, president of netDrives. "We're working with Musicmatch and are in talks [with other companies]. Everyone is trying to figure out 'how can we partner and make the experience more meaningful, and how do we get repeat business out of the consumer?'"
With the recording industry's Secure Digital Music Initiative in a state of perpetual delay, the Sanyos, JVCs, and Yamahas of the world are also in limbo, struggling with the decision of whether or not to embrace MP3.
The RIAA has shown only a modest interest in MP3, and until they give it a stamp of approval, it's unlikely that the home electronics giants (who want to stay in their good graces) will develop products around it.
For now, a bevy of new tech companies are more than happy to own the MP3 electronics market.
"When we first kicked off, I thought by Q1 [of 1999] my window of opportunity would be closing, but as the SDMI process goes on, my window has been elongated," Wolfe said. "Now I'm asking myself, will SDMI truly ever happen?"
Other companies making bids in the hybrid CD-MP3 market are Audio Request, which has an all-in-one storage, playback, and encoding deck with lots of nifty features and a hefty $800 price tag. Vertical Horizons showed me some neato prototypes a few months ago, but there's no sign of a shipping product yet. Also generating a lot of buzz is Pine Technology's new D'Music hybrid portable, which can handle regular CDs and MP3s alike.
Wolfe said the company is gearing up to develop more MP3-based products. Next spring, netDrives will ship one of the first MP3-based car decks. And next summer, the company will have a next-generation Brujo that will have a direct connection to the Internet and hard drive storage.
But reading the Brujo's FAQs, you get the impression that MP3 devices may have some work to do before they're ready for mass-market users:
"Can the Brujo scan subdirectories for MP3s?"
"Yes. You'll get the best 'load' time with all the files in the root directory, but it does understand subdirectories."
Uhhh, yeah, got it. Now where's that play button again?
