Jon Iverson
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Bladelius Mimer Music Server
CES 2013
Jon Iverson • Jan 17, 2013 • 0 comments
Two of the products I most wanted to see in the flesh at the show didn't actually arrive due to the exhibitor's respective shipping services. The first was Antelope's Rubicon DAC, lost by DHL; this time it was the Mimer music server from Bladelius, lost courtesy of UPS.

Too bad, because the photo in the brochure is quite enticing. The Mimer is essentially a wall-hung touchscreen device about 7.5 inches wide by 13.5 inches tall. You can see by the photo of a photo how the touchscreen display is arranged for album cover art and control/navigation. The chassis looks about an inch thick and inside is an upgradable hard drive for storing music as well as support for NAS and USB drives, 32/348 files, 4 SPDIF inputs, Wi-Fi and ethernet, internet radio and Spotify, headphone amp, multi-room support and analog input (for the built-in analog preamp).

Though I'm sure many will differ, I've always been partial to music servers that have always-ready built-in navigation screens like Meridian's Sooloos as apposed to relying on iPad apps. I'm hoping to get my hands on the Mimer in the future and see if it lives up to the photo and spec sheet.

Blu-ray Edge?
News
Jon Iverson • Nov 29, 2004 • 0 comments
We all know by now the perils of proclaiming a winner before all of the votes have been cast, but with the possible future of high-resolution audio and video data storage at stake, the temptation to call it early is great.
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Blue Man Group Says It Can't Fit into Stereo
News
Jon Iverson • Nov 28, 1999 • 0 comments
One of the challenging attributes of the new DVD-Audio format is the ability to release music in high-resolution multichannel (four or more) sound. For some this will be a thorny issue: Can previously released recordings be remixed to take advantage of the extra channels without sounding gimmicky? Should classical and/or live recordings use the surround channels for concert-hall ambience? How long will it be until consumers even care about setting up their systems to take advantage of more than two full-bandwidth channels?
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Blue Smoke Black Box Music Server
CES 2010
Jon Iverson • Jan 11, 2010 • 6 comments
Music server manufacturer Blue Smoke returned to CES this year as part of the Rockport Technologies suite in the upper echelons of the Mirage. The company's product is the $6,995 Black Box music server where they focus on creating an optimal environment for digital music on the hardware side and assume the customer will choose a Windows compatible music player and interface. For their demo, Windows Media Center was used with a Dell touchscreen (seen on the right) and keyboard/mouse combo for the control functions. A MSB DAC, located under the Black Box in the photo above, converts the data to analog.
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Blue Smoke's "The Black Box" Music Server Revealed
CES 2009
Jon Iverson • Jan 09, 2009 • 16 comments
The touchscreen music server market has picked up a new face with the official release of Blue Smoke's "The Black Box". Demonstrated in prototype form at last year's CES, the final version is a sleek, um, black box with a single disc slot on the front and an array of connectors on the back. Retail is $6995 and should be hitting dealer shelves Q1 2009.
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BMG Joins the Digital Download Club
News
Jon Iverson • Aug 27, 2000 • 0 comments
Last week, BMG Entertainment, the music and entertainment division of Bertelsmann AG, revealed that it will join several other major labels (see previous stories EMI and Universal) by bringing its own digital downloads to the Internet this September. The company says that it will start with approximately 50 songs and 50 complete albums, to be made available via several retail Web outlets at prices ranging from $1.98 to $3.49 per song and from $9.98 to $16.98 per album.
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BMG Plans to Have It Both Ways
News
Jon Iverson • Oct 15, 2000 • 0 comments
The most common complaint about record companies: CD prices are too high. In fact, many blame Napster's runaway success on the insistence of "greedy labels" on pricing discs at $15 or higher. Apparently BMG Direct, a division of BMG Entertainment, has put two and two together and found it equals $9.99.
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BMG Restricts Discs
News
Jon Iverson • Sep 14, 2003 • 0 comments
More compact discs that attempt to restrict how you use them are coming to a record store near you. BMG announced last week that its Arista Records division will be the company's first label in the US to release a commercial CD using copy-restriction technology.
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Bootmarks Are Coming
News
Jon Iverson • Mar 30, 2003 • 0 comments
It's no secret that the music industry has added watermarking to its arsenal in an effort to restrict how audio content is used. With SACD, DVD-Audio, and now CD, audio watermarking has been used mainly for digitally stored content. But the music business also has problems with live concert bootlegs as well as bootlegs surfacing after special broadcast events.
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Both DVD-Audio and SACD Get Much Needed Software Boost
News
Jon Iverson • Dec 24, 2000 • 0 comments
If it's the software that sells a new format, then several recent announcements bode well for both SACD and DVD-Audio. Last week, DTS announced plans to begin shipment of the first DVD-Audio music recordings produced by its company-owned DTS Entertainment record label by late February 2001. Also, the first multichannel SACD to be produced by a major label from an original multitrack master, Mike Oldfield's recently remastered 1971 classic Tubular Bells is due for release from Virgin Records in February 2001.
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