[arthur]

will a day ever come when my ideal source unit will be put on the market at an affordable price? i don't ask for much - all i want is:

- sound quality that is better than any $3000 audiophile digital source
- be not much bigger than a cigarette box
- run on AA batteries with recharge capability and a wall plug
- store 1000 cds and be MP3 compatible
- transmit to a car radio
- backlit display
- USB2 connection
- analog and digital inputs and outputs
- remote control
- built in radio tuner
- easy navigation
- be water resistant
- a nice protective carrying pouch is a must!
- be priced at less than $300

that's all   i ask for. i wonder how long it will take for something like this to hit the market. or do we have to DIY this too

but yeah, if any of you run across such a unit please drop me a line.
thank you

[John B]

Wow, there is a battery powered CD player, though it doesn't quite meet the rest of your requirements...still and interesting design that I had'nt heard about.
http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/holfi-xaurusrex_e.html

[ghersh]

will a day ever come when my ideal source unit will be put on the market at an affordable price? i don't ask for much - all i want is:

- sound quality that is better than any $3000 audiophile digital source
- be not much bigger than a cigarette box
- run on AA batteries with recharge capability and a wall plug
- store 1000 cds and be MP3 compatible
- transmit to a car radio
-- easy ...

To store 1000 cds with some reasonable compression you need somewhere 60-80GB of storage, so solid state is out of question, only the hard drive will do it. I think it is reasonable to expect this capacity from 1'8" format, 'sometime soon'. But powering this source with AA type batteries is trickier. The power requirements of hard drives are fairly high. You need some design optimized for portable players (rather than general purpose drive), with less features. I remember seeing the blurb that one company was working on such drive, but it was 1 inch (or smaller) format, rather than 1'8", and with capacity of something like 4GB.

[Woodsea]

Just add some circa 2012 nanotech solar panels and they can recharge biotech batteries in minutes.  The rest of it will be available in 4 years at that price.