BRISTOL SHOW 2012: Pioneer network players support AirPlay and 192kHz/24-bit audio
Pioneer's new N30 and N50 network audio players are on display here at Bristol, and you can watch our video report on them here.
They support Apple AirPlay for wireless music streaming, and can play high-resolution 192kHz/24-bit music files.
Available in the UK now for £350 and £500 respectively, both players were developed to access music from a PC, NAS drive, hard-disk, Apple iDevice or USB, as well as internet radio stations.
Equipped with DLNA 1.5 certiifcation, the Pioneer N30 and N50 support playback of high-resolution WAV and FLAC files, as well as MP3 and MPEG4 AAC compressed audio.
The aluminium front includes a 2.4in QVGA colour display and control buttons on the right side to maintain the players' 'minimalist' looks.
Watch our video report from the Bristol Show
For optimum audio performance, each player is fitted with a high-accuracy master clock to minimise time-axis errors.
A front-mounted USB port enables charging and playback of any iPod, iPhone or iPad as well as PC files saved on a USB device.
In addition, the N50 gets an asynchronous USB DAC, allowing direct USB connection with a PC or laptop without having to access a home network.
Other N50 enhancements include auto level control, Pioneer's Sound Retriever technology to improve the sound quality of compressed music formats, and Hi-bit 32 audio processing.
Options available on the N30 and N50 include Pioneer's free iControl App, a Bluetooth adapter and a wireless LAN converter.
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Comments
Hmm, i will stick with my Dune Media player going to an external DAC. For the same price range it has most of the audio features of this Pioneer such as playback of lossless FLAC audio; yet can play any video format including Bluray ISO images etc, with full HD decoding.
Can't wait for a review of these little beauties. On spec and looks alone, pioneer seems to be hitting the nail on the head, while the pricing also seems spot on. Well done.