Escient's new Fireball system is described as an amazingly pain-free way to get the most from your music collection in conjunction with your existing hi-fi set up.

The Fireball package, comprising of the Escient Fireball S-E500i hard disk server (£1200) and FP-1 iPod music manager dock (£400) manages all your digital music, by browsing, playing and transferring music stored on any computer or iPod around the home either wirelessly or wired - and integrates it onto one on-screen user interface.

Once set up, CD burning and ripping is simple as the system can automatically read the metadata, and the Fireball is compatible with FLAC, WMA, AAC and MP3 files.

Analogue turntables or cassette players can be integrated with the system too, as can iPod or any MP3 portable player with the dock integrating iPods into the Fireball system, managing and transferring the content of your MP3 player alongside media stored on your music server.

The Fireball system offers a half terabyte hard disk storage, claims audiophile-quality replay, and "the most sophisticated user interface on the market".

>> Link - Escient