CocktailAudio X12, Black - Stereo, 60W, USB Connectivity, Highres Audio, CD Storage with Database Function, Streaming, Spotify, Airable, Tidal, Qobuz, Supports MP3, AAC, CD-DA Audio Formats

Thus far this has proven to be something of a mixed product. I bought this with no HDD and added a Western Digital Caviar Green 4TB unit. Firstly I already had a very large music library in FLAC, WAVE and mp3 formats and it took literally days to copy the music on from an external HDD. Secondly I intended to use this as a HiFi component with my existing Rega amlpifier and that has not been a true delight. The sound stage is not particularly open as compared to the Rega CD player and markedly worse thatnusing the Line Out of my FIIO X5 portable player. To try and improve this I tried an external DAC, Beresford Caiman Mk II, which is a very highly rated device. Sadly the X12 does not play well with the Caiman, it emits a constant stream of loud crackling when idle, then very good sound when playing. Each track change was accompanied by a loud pop. All the noises originated in the X12 and were sent down the digital out. This was verified by hooking the Caiman up to the Rega CD player. Perhaps if you want this as total HiFi unit it'll be fine and maybe my expectations were too high but for me, nice try but no cigar.

This little device amazed me with its versatile features. I bought it because I have a huge library of CDs (1000 or more) to rip.It's very fast to rip a CD to WAV (within 5-10 minutes), but very slow to convert them into MP3 or other formats (an hour or more for every disc). Currently I can only rip 6-10 CDs daily and leave it on through the night so that I got MP3 files the next morning. Editing the track names and album names is very time consuming. In iTunes, usually I can enter "Various Artists" for the album artist field, or tick the "Compilation" option, so that an album with many artists can remain as one item, but on this machine there is no such option. An album would be separated as many items if they are performed by different artists. I have to edit them one by one through the web interface, which kind of works but not great.I buy it also because of its connectivity. However, playing through wi-fi is clunky. It works okay when the network is smooth, but when the network is slow, or when you are ripping CDs at the same time, there is noticeable time lag and sometimes even a short gap of silence. And beware that if your laptop's volume is high, it also affects the volume of this unit when you play music through wi-fi.I like the way that it comes with an amplifier. It's not the greatest Hi-fi but certainly good enough for this price. I have two 10-year-old Denon speakers that sounded quite well with it.

Easy enough to install the new disc set it up