Turtle Beach AudioTron

By Rick LaBanca

When I first found out about the AudioTron, I knew it had home automation potential! I'm finally writing this review because it's to that point now. But what is it?

The AudioTron is an audio component for your stereo system. With it you can play mp3, wma, and wav files on your stereo. Nothing new right? Wrong! Well it's one of only a few.

The AudioTron connects to your stereo via RCA analog connectors, like any other component, or if you have digital input, connects via TOSLINK optical cable.

But unlike those small hard drive or CD based portable players, the AudioTron has no storage. So where does the music live? In your computer! Hey you've got a server running all the time for the swell home automation anyway!

The AudioTron connects to your computer via 10-Base T, or via normal phone lines using the HPNA 10 megabit standard. It simply looks for shares on your hard disk with particular names (i.e. "Music"), and finds the mp3, wav, or wma files you have. Once that's done, you can play your music via the front panel!

Included are a remote plus ethernet, phoneline, power and analog cables. You'll have to cough up for your own TOSLINK digital cable though.

Now don't confuse this with cheaper solutions that beam the sound from your sound card over a connection. This is reading the data itself, your computer sound card isn't involved. In fact, superior to the similar Rio Receiver, it requires no software on your PC (other than Internet connection sharing).

This in itself is a great thing. Spin the dial on the front of the unit to see songs listed by song title, artist, genre and play. This is assuming you've ripped your CD collection into the computer. It comes with AudioStation for doing that, and encoding. I use other tools, and didn't review that software, which is really OK because how you get the music on your PC is up to you.

But wait, there's more! >>