For the last couple of years, perhaps you’ve been ripping CDs like mad, and thanks to your zippy DSL or cable connection, you have downloaded hundreds of song files. Wouldn’t it be nice to listen to them all on your sparkling new, high-end sound system? You could run a set of audio cables across the house and connect the computer’s audio output directly to the sound system, but that would be messy.

The hardware portion of the c300 consists of a sleek, small component that sits near your audio system, and a comprehensive remote control that’s used to select the music to be played. The software, installed on the host PC, creates a library of songs based on your files’ id3 tags, and supports standard playlist files. Playback can be controlled on the PC using the cd3o software, or with the remote control.

The remote control is equipped with dedicated buttons for most of the playback functions, and you can browse genres, artists, albums, tracks, and playlists. The numerical telephone-style keypad lets you enter specific requests, with pattern-matching keeping the number of presses to a minimum. Feedback is provided by Voice-Guide technology that announces your selection as soon as it’s been found.

The company calls the c300 a plug-and-play device, and we have no doubt the production version will live up to that billing. Our early release model, however, required considerable fine tuning to be recognized by the network, and it came with release notes describing various operational "issues" that should be fixed before your c300 (or other model) is shipped.

C300: $249