Stand-Alone MP3 Player With 400GB HDD Launched by Naim

Naim launched its new hard disk player, the HDX. It provides the performance of a Naim audiophile CD player with the convenience of a good MP3 player.

The HDX is a stand-alone Hard Disk player / CD player. It can sit in a hi-fi system connected to an amplifier and loudspeakers and play glorious music. It can also be connected to a network, play music from shared drives on a network, look up album data and get cover art. Once a music collection grows it becomes more and more essential to have good search tools and the Naim Extended Music Database excels in this respect.

The HDX rips CDs at full wav format 16-Bit 44.1kHz. The rip is true bit-for-bit. A combination of the right choice of drive, no caching, reading an absolute minimum of twice, and taking into account the C2 error data gives a ‘secure’ rip – extracting all the music with none of the errors – even on most copy-protected CDs. The data is copied to one of the internal 400GB drives. Every night that drive backs up automatically to the second internal 400GB drive.

If around 600 CDs at full CD quality are not enough for you, then the HDX will address additional external USB or NAS (Network Attached Storage) disks. The database system is tested for up to 20,000 CDs, which should be sufficient for even the most serious collector.

Deliveries of the HDX will commence in Summer 2008.

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