[SwedeSound]

I have been seeing ads lately for Trekstor media storage hard-drives, and I was curious whether any AC'ers have tried their products or had an opinion about them. I am trying to anticipate a life without CDs (*though not until all downloads are lossless), and I wonder whether something like Trekstor might fight the bill. In this case, there's no need for a PC. It hooks into your TV and that serves and the interface.

Which makes me wonder why bother with a Squeezebox, Transporter, Wadia or the like? If the ultimate source is "discless," why not dispense with the middle man, rip a load of lossless files into your Trekstor drive (or equivalent external HD), send it through a nice DAC and then into your rig? Seems pretty simple. What am I missing?

-Jason

[Upstateaudio]

Some of us don't want to deal with a TV as an interface.  My TV is separate from my stereo and is not as important part of my life as my tunes are.

[SwedeSound]

And neither is my TV... but it just so happens that it sits smack dab between my speakers, and if that otherwise blank screen could serve as an interface with my music, why not let it, provided there's a way to develop a decent discless system?

[Upstateaudio]

Of course, that does make sense for you.  My TV is not even in the same room.

[EchiDna]

well I don't read German, but from the specs, it doesn't do any form of lossless audio, only mp3, WMA, OGG and WAV - all only up to 320kb/s. that alone is a deal killer for me.

http://www.trekstor.de/en/products/detail_entertainment.php?pid=1&page=3

unless there is another model I didn't see? 

[SwedeSound]

Wow. Nice catch. I didn't notice that. I guess I assumed it was a hard-drive and that it would happily play whatever I loaded on there. I see it's designed for a more specific application -- and the lack of lossless playback is also a deal killer for me. Thanks for the heads-up. Moving on... *sigh*

jason

[NewBuyer]

Wow - that is one of the coolest looking products I've seen in a very long time. For audio, I only rip as .WAV (and the very rare MP3) anyway, and this product does video too! Personally I have no problem whatsoever with the television as the interface - this works great for me.

Thank you for posting about these TrekStor gadgets - I am definitely going to check them out!