Cocktail Audio X10 Customer Reviews

JM Maughan ...... Feb 2014

Purchased a Cocktail Audio X10 6 months ago now and have to say I am very impressed with it. The user interface has improved with the latest firmware updates and you can now add album artwork directly from the internet once a CD has been ripped. The ripping speed for CD's is impressive even when the music is stored at the highest quality and the sound reproduction is excellent.

In terms of the music database this can be updated, but so far apart from CD that include videos and access to additional material via a PC, it has successfully found circa 99% of the albums including some obscure ones from around the world.

An internet radio is also included and you have the abililty to record.

As a complete package and a means to store all you music in one place with a hi-fi quality performance I would recommend this project.

Cusance ....... May 2013

Like many people I could not decide between the Brennan and the X10. I finally decided for the X10 because of all the additional facilities the box had.
I am glad I did. this is a superb piece of kit. I bought the one with the 500G hard disk and sofar have loaded around 210 CDs. I have used only 20% of disk capacity. I rip in MP3 at 192 format. I note that some people have complained about the audio quality. Although I provided my own powered speakers (these were a left over from a multi media PC, so nothing special) using the build in Equaliser in the X10 the sound can be adjusted and is really quite good.

Ripping is done efficiently. The database recognised all kinds of CDs I thought I would have problems with, including Russian, Hebrew, Dutch. All were recognised. Only a very few were not. You can connect a keyboard to one of the USB ports (they typically cost about £7.00 these days) which makes editing, adding titles when necessary easy, or indeed just switch on the Webserver and sit behind your PC and edit there.
Speaking about the Web services, a media streamer is build into the X10 using a SAMBA protocol. Again, you need not know how these things work. Just go to the setup menu, web services and click the SAMBA server on. If you then open your media player on your networked laptop or PC you will find the X10 there. Just click on it, and select the music you want to play. Simple as that.
So if you have any doubt wether you should also buy the WIFI dongle and connect the X10 to your network, then think no more.

Its a no brainer. I had a lot of music collected on my PC. I completed the details of these on my PC by setting details such as album name etc and transferred all to a USB stick.
They were then simply uploaded into the X10 and are now part of the database. Again, simple and easy.
This machine is one of the best bits of kit I have ever bought.
And yes, if you just want to rip your CDs and play them, without taking advantage of all the network tools and facilities, well it does a great job.
The gapless play works perfectly. For example those who are Beatles fans will know that on the St.Pepper album track one and two flow into each other. A normal CD player will create a gap, the X10 plays the album the way it should be played, gapless.
As an IT manager I am use to interesting technology. This is simply a superb piece of kit.
I only had one minus, the manual would benefit from an index in the back. But its a minor point.
the manual is maybe not written in the best english (rather like my review :( but its perfectly clear and usable. You wont find anything that you wont understand due to language use. Its all quite clear.

The Cocktail Audio X10 is a great device for storing and playing all your CDs. It is simple to set up using the wireless dongle to access the music database. It takes about 5 mins to load and store a CD including getting all the track titles downloaded from the internet. Very few of my CDs had no track or wrong track information, usually compilations from newspapers etc.
The sound quality is good using the internal amplifier and my Tannoy speakers. The remote is comprehensive if a little fiddly to use but you can attach a keyboard if you want. The device is so flexible and easy to master. The internet radio function is very useful too, again using the wifi dongle to access the internet. I had looked at the Brennan device but came to the conclusion that the X10 was better value and had more functionality.

I have not been disappointed. Seriously consider this device if you want all your music readily available in one place. Also if you have, say, a simple set of PC speakers in another room it is a doddle to just lift the X10 to the new location for music in another location.

Going to save a lot of time in the future

Did a lot of research on this and the opposition ,but decided on the Cocktail audio as it does more than the rest and gives me the quality in flac which I wanted.I'm playing through Arcam /Monitor audio gear and am impressed by what I've heard so far. Will save time and lots of space in the listening area as all the cd's go to storage. Also saves me getting up and down on my aged knees !

Cocktail Audio 500GB

Was looking for something that was compact and provided internet radio. Looked at others (of which there appear to be few) and very glad I took the plunge. Ripping CDs is a doddle, adding artwork very simple indeed and the internet radio is the icing on the cake (good grief, what isn't there to listen to???)

Decided to use a wired connection simply because I could (thus removing one device off of my wireless network) and have had nothing other than great radio "performance" (the wireless dongle worked just as well, by the way).

I have it linked via the optical option to an existing Onkyo CD/DAB player in my summer room and the sound is very bright, detailed and engaging indeed (ripped everything using FLAC)...don't expect to be blown away without feeding this to another amp though, it's not capable from my personal experience.

Accessing the device via a laptop/tab works well too, really nice to have a real "jukebox" whereby you can line all the tracks up as you come across them....the software could do with a little more development but it does what it says on the tin and that's fine with me.

All in all, extremely pleased I bought it and no regrets worth mentioning

Just Excellent

Having broken my Brennan in less than 12 hours, I have bought this device and am really pleased with it. The 1TB hard drive is more than enough to store all my 700 cds at WAV quality and it sounds amazing.

Other reviewers have commented on the slightly awkward interface, but it's just about usable. I guess we're so used to seeing ALL the information about songs on iTunes that we're disappointed not to have the same on the X10. And as was also commented, maybe future firmware updates will sort that out.

What else to say ? The manual was not originally written in English, nor was it probably translated by an English speaker, so it can be slightly confusing at times. But once you understand the gist of what they're trying to say, you can pretty much work it out yourself.

Some advice : get a cheap USB keyboard [mine was less than £5 from a local supermarket] for editing tags. And also an external hard drive to back it up once in a while. But definitely get an X10 !

More information : Just a warning really. Backing up your T10 can take a long time. Expect over 15 hours for 600 gig.

*** BEST BUY EVER - WELL PLEASED - DOES EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN !!! ***

Whilst buying some speakers in the store, I just happened to ask the salesman what they had in stock that was an alternative to iTunes and they showed me the cocktail X10.
Up to this point, I was using Sonos extensively with a variety of NAS drives (most don't work properly) and iTunes on a couple of different mac mini's over the last

two years - with varying degree of success, but mainly more issues than sucesses !

I bought the cocktail X10 unit om spc, since it appears the only alternative is the Brennan, and they didnt have any of those in stock (normally I would do a lot of pre market research befoire purchasing, but this unit did seem to offer all I wanted, and records at full 16/44 Wav, which is all I ever record at (or higher).

Once at home, I set up the unit, and connected the new Gale speakers I had bought.
Conencted to the Internet via Sonos, and the unit picked up a dhcp i.p. address and proceeded to upgrdae firmware to the latest revision.
Ripped a few cd's into the X10 at WAV quality and tested - impressed with the sound from the internal amps, and search facilties, searching by album or trcks or artist all worked fine.

So I moved on to Sonos, hooked up the output of the X10 into the local Sonos zoneplayer, and output from Sonos into a Cambridge A1 amp - using the same Gale bookshelf speakers. System performed flawlessly, and have been testing for the last three days for at least four hours a day, with not a single drop out, Sonos finds tracks by name or artist and sees to be 100% compatible with the X10.
Two days in and I am realising that this was a VERY GOOD PURCHASE !

I have have been loading something like 50 cd's a day into the X10 - it rips these to WAV taking about three mins per cd - so I just eject the old cd and put a new one to be ripped when I am passing the unit.
There is only about 2 sec latency getting a track to play from Sonos from Cocktail X10, which is better than I experienced with a variety od Netgear NAS units. Some revieweres have noted an appreciable delay getting a track to play when large number of cd's have been ripped in to the X10 - but with over 2000 tracks loaded (and counting) I have not experienced any real latency, and all of the tracks are WAV quality.

Ok, so thats all the good points - what about the BADS ?
Well, the only issue I am having is that some CD's - mainly supermarket oompilations (10 disks for £3) are not found in the database - in some cased the first two diska are found, the rest just display as 'track 1, track 2...etc' Not in any way a showstopper, just have to resort to plugging in a USB keyboard and doing a bit of typing for track name, album, tags etc, but once it is done, it is done !
At the rate I am going, I will fill up the X10 1Tb drive within the next few weeks, so looking into backing up the entire music library once it is on the X10 database, then at some stage replacing the 1Tb with a 2Tb drive and doing a restore, and this seems to be supported according to the tech blurb.

One thing to note, is that if like me, you are ripping cd's in batches of up to thirty at a time, the cd's come out quite hot, which is understandable - the laser is working hard !

Thats it for my review, my prayers seem to have been answered to a working alternative to Itunes/nas/Sonos combibation.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Nick.

I bought this fantastic piece of kit a couple of months ago and totally blown away with it. I have loaded approx 700 CD's in un-compressed WAV form so far and the system names them, track name, album name etc (similar to iTunes) via a database disc (supplied) or updates via the internet using a wireless dongle or you can plug your ethernet cable into the rear of the unit.

Other great features of this unit are the internet radio and especially the AUX-IN where you can transfer anything you like - using mine to transfer my old 12" records from back in the day!

There are regular Firmwave / Software updates from Cocktail Audio via the internet and great online forums which cover all aspects of the unit.

It's great having all tunes in one, easy access unit and it's great listening to tunes I just haven't got around to in years!

Mr G Dench ...... July 2011

Forget the Brennan JB7 or Sony gigajuke - this piece of kit really is the business.
It has all the features that the Brennan lacks including free album database updates, physical connectivity and updates and beats it hands-down on price as well. It's also much quicker to rip than with the Sony.
Ok so it is so new it is effectively being Beta-tested on Joe Public, but regular service updates mean that they are constantly adding new and improved features without wiping your entire collection.
It's so new that it's quite difficult to make a purchase decision because of the lack of reviews but don't be put off with that.

I will be buying my daughter one for Christmas - that way we can provide database backup for each other!
I have had mine for just over a week now and have ripped around 600 cd's so far as WAV/Lossless files and it has taken less than 300Gb!. I wish I had a shop selling them to be honest - it's a complete no-brainer for anyone who has a significant music collection!

Read More Reviews
http://gadgetshow.channel5.com/gadgets/audio-video/cocktail-audio-x10-review
http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/news/article/cocktail-x10--pound;349/8863
http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/news/article/cocktail-x10--pound;349/8863
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/31/review_cocktail_audio_x10_network_music_player_and_cd_ripper/
http://www.mysmartbuy.com/p-546-Cocktail-Audio-X10-500GB-CD-Recorder-AND-Music-Player.html
http://www.itreviews.com/cocktail-audio-x10/
http://www.techspot.com/products/audio-video/cocktail-audio-x10.53206/
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/new-product/audio/3299055/cocktail-audio-music-streamer/
http://www.gadgetspeak.com/gadget/article.rhtm/751/662758/Cocktail_Audio_X10.html