Escient FireBall SE-80

ESCIENT FIREBALL SE-80 MUSIC SERVER REVIEW - Fire Up your Digital Music

June 2006 By ––Grant Clauser

Once populated, browsing the FireBall for artist, track or genre is a lot like browsing a TV program guide. When you find what you want, just press “play.” You can also browse Internet radio stations the same way, though the tenuous nature of Internet radio means not all stations will be available when you want to hear them. I enjoyed listening to college music from San Francisco, jazz from Denmark and Japanese pop music.

The FireBall has a few other tricks. The CD drive is also a CD burner, so you can create mixed CDs or copy whole albums to take with you. You can access and control the unit from a web-connected PC or PDA and even playback FireBall content over a networked PC.

What sets the FireBall apart most from less expensive music servers, Wi-Fi bridges and iPod connectors is the sound quality. While MP3 files are technically inferior to their CD counterparts, the FireBall doesn’t treat them like some mere data file—it treats them like music. In nearly every instance, music sounded nearly as rich and colorful from the FireBall as from the CD, and significantly superior to playing the same tracks directly from my MP3 player into my A/V receiver. And since it is a hard drive server, you don’t get any signal drops or hiccups associated with Wi-Fi bridges. Owners of large music collections, who insist of higher-quality sound, will appreciate what a FireBall can do. yy