Philips WACSes lyrical about wireless player

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 01 February 2007 07:14

Your IT - Home IT

Philips' WACS7000 music system delivers the contents of up to 1500 CDs plus whatever tracks you've stored on your iPod to as many as five wireless stations spread around the home.

Those stations can either play the same track so you can keep listening as you move from room to room, or they can be used independently.

The 80G hard drive plus the docking cradle for an iPod or GoGear player aren't the only sources of music. You can also play files stored on a USB memory stick, and PCs with appropriate UPnP software can send or receive content via the wireless (802.11b/g) or Ethernet interfaces.

The WACS7000 can be used without a PC. The hard disk can be loaded by ripping CDs via the built-in hard drive, and an available internet connection will be used to fetch track information from the Gracenote database.

If you do have a PC, it can be used to back up the WACS7000 hard drive, to load the drive with audio files, or to update the unit's firmware.

The main unit with one remote station costs $1579.95. Additional stations are $529.95 each.