Digital Trends

Nitro Pro Music Server

August 25th, 2004 | by Jeff Fila

Setup and Configuration

Since ReQuest caters to the custom installation market, installation is usually done by the reseller in conjunction with other audio and video components. However, it doesn't take a professional to install or configure the Nitro. The Nitro is shipped in a well-protected box with the hard drive removed. Besides plugging in the normal audio and video cables, the only other requirement is to slide the removable hard drive into its caddy, and lock it into place with the included key.

Once powered up, the Nitro Pro Media Server takes less than a minute to start up and be ready to play music. Since it is based on a computer it does require that boot time, but there's no reason why you can't leave it on all the time. In fact, it's designed to stay on all the time, with the actual power button being hidden behind the aluminum faceplate. The included remote controls have a power button that puts the device in more of a standby mode, turning off the audio and video. The Nitro has two 80mm fans that spin slow enough to not be too loud, but they do produce a slight noise. The server is not completely silent like other networked media devices we've seen, but the fan noise is only noticeable from a few inches away from the unit.

There are two ways that you can get music onto the Nitro Music Server; transfer your music to the Nitro Pro over your network; or rip your CDs directly to the hard drive via the Nitro's CD ROM drive. Be aware though, if you have a large collection of CDs, converting them all to MP3 format can be quite time consuming. ReQuest and its dealers also provide CD ripping services, so that you don't have to do all the work yourself.

Since the Nitro only comes with hard drive sizes of 40GB or 60GB, all of your music must be in MP3 format and must be compressed. “Only” is a relative term though, since ReQuest estimates tat you can fit about 300 CDs-worth of 320Kbps MP3 files on the 40GB model and 450 on the 60GB model. ReQuest sells two other lines of music servers, the Fusion and Terra models, which offer much larger hard drive capacities — up to 900GB - and the option of using uncompressed WAV files or the lossless FLAC format.

By default, the Nitro Pro is set up to automatically rip and encode CDs when they are put into the CD tray. This makes for quick work while converting your entire collection and makes it easy to rip new CDs after you buy them. When a CD is inserted into the tray, the Nitro Pro will access the internet and retrieve CD information including a complete ID3 tag, and it will try to find album art too. Album art (usually the front cover of the CD) can be downloaded and viewed onscreen while playing and browsing music. ReQuest offers the option of encoding CDs anywhere from 64Kbps to 320Kbps, and one option for variable bit rate (VBR) encoding. By default, the unit is set to encode at 320Kbps, which is so close to CD quality that most people can't tell the difference. Ripping and encoding a CD should take about eight minutes or less for an average CD. The first CD we encoded with the Nitro Pro was Bad Religion's “Stranger Than Fiction”. It took almost exactly eight minutes for the Nitro to rip and encode the 15 songs, as well as download and resize album art for the disc. We were impressed at the speed in which the Nitro encoded, but if you do the math, you'll realize that encoding 300 CDs - a conservative estimate of what the 40GB model can handle -  may take you upwards of 40 hours.

You can also transfer music to (and from) the Nitro Pro via any computer network that can see Samba shares. This means PCs, Macs, and Linux computers can browse the Nitro's music collection, upload new albums, and even play music streamed from the Nitro. One great thing about uploading music to the Nitro Pro is that it handles it just like it would a regular CD and it goes out to the internet to retrieve ID3 tag information. If your MP3s are mis-tagged or don't all follow the same naming convention, the Nitro will fix them. In all of our testing, we could not find a commercially available CD that the Nitro couldn't name, and it had no problem renaming mis-tagged MP3s. Browsing your network shares, you locate the “Upload” folder on your Nitro and drag and drop music there. Folders that store your CDs and encoded music are protected so you can't accidentally delete the music. The unit also allows you to transfer WAV files to the upload folder, and it will automatically encode them to MP3s as well.

Although the CD player is primarily used to encode your music to MP3 format, it also acts as a regular CD player, allowing you to listen to audio discs without having to encode them.