SSI 2010

Regardez—pas des câbles avec Micromega's Airstream

John Atkinson  |  Mar 31, 2010

I had been impressed by Micromega's Airstream, the WiFi-connected DAC ($1595), when Jason Serinus and I heard it at Axpona at the beginning of March. But it was the French company's new owner, Didier Hamid, who caught showgoers' attention with the Airstream at SSI. Holding his MacBook Pro in his hand and playing songs from iTunes, Hamid dramatically demonstrated the benefits of doing away with wires. (The rest of the system included Focal 1038Be speakers driven by Micromega amplification; control of volume was provided by the iTunes level control on the laptop.)

The Airstream incorporates the guts of an Apple Airport Express to provide self-configuring WiFi set-up and feed digital data to its D/A and analog sections. The Airstream is thus currently limited to Red Book resolution and sample rate, but as a no-fuss, no-muss entry into computer audio, I am sure it will sell like gâteaux chauds.

COMMENTS
spinsLPs's picture
Submitted by spinsLPs (not verified) on March 31, 2010 - 5:39pm

It's about freakin' time someone came up with something like this!

alain godrèche's picture
Submitted by alain godrèche (not verified) on March 31, 2010 - 7:57pm

Nice to see you use our language but in french we do not say like "gâteaux chauds" but like"des petits pains". You nearly remembered the expression. Like to read you anyway. AG

John Atkinson's picture
Submitted by John Atkinson (not verified) on April 1, 2010 - 7:47am

Thanks, Alain, for the correction. You are, of course, right. The problem with all translation is whether to translate the words or the idiom. I chose the words so that English speakers would get the point but still with some French flavor.

Yvon Bourget's picture
Submitted by Yvon Bourget (not verified) on April 3, 2010 - 3:18pm

Good idea ! The step is to build a pair of speaker with DAC and amplifier built in and get rid of all the wires.

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