Cyrus Streaming On Tour

Since the February 2011 school half-term holidays and my brother's visit with his Cyrus DAC-X and PSX-R, life hasn't been quite the same.  With my own versions of these components now firmly in place in the main system, Cyrus has become a topic of interest.

Recently they announced their streaming range and I'm looking forward to hearing their offerings.  It will be interesting to hear what the Stream-X does for its £1500 in comparison to a Squeezebox Touch being used purely for Ethernet streaming.  It looks like I'll have to book my own session with the local dealer, but for those who are fortunate enough to live near one of the tour date locations, Cyrus are on the road to demo their new kit between now and late May.  Book a place if you can:

http://www.cyrusaudio.com/register-for/cyrus-digital-music-tour-2011

Was It Inevitable?

Its a shame, but this is the way of new technologies and web sites at the moment.  You're lured in by free services, then they add advertising, then they charge, then the service deteriorates, but by then you're dependent on the service!  Oh, and by then they also have huge quantities of data on your usage habits, preferences, links to all your mates etc......

Now the rather wonderful-so-far Spotify service is suffering from this as they reduce the service offered for free:

http://www.whathifi.com/news/spotify-to-impose-limits-on-free-music-streaming-service

I currently have the subscription service, but how long before the price creeps up, 320kbps becomes 128kbps, adverts creep in etc.

Please Spotify, don't do it, keep up the current excellent service.  If you want to make more money, add users, or add quality, don't mess with your existing customers!

:-)

Interesting Thread at Amazon on MP3 vs FLAC

Good to see that this kind of debate is taking place on a site as commonly used as Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/tag/mp3/forum/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg1?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx28IXQIV6LBRU4&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx3251XECL26B7J&displayType=tagsDetail