Hi All. back in July all my electronic equipment including hi-fi, computers, radios, telephones, everything electronic! was fried when my home was struck by lightning. It took around 8 to 10 weeks to get the insurance thing sorted out and buy new equipment. I decided to take the opportunity and upgrade my stuff and I now play my PC through an Arcam Solo Neo mini system with Cord interconnects and cord speaker cable driving the B & W CM8 speakers. I have a higher end system down stairs in the lounge but for this room up here it is adequate, in fact very good. It has taken me until now to turn my attention to some of the facilities of the Arcam Solo Neo. This unit has FM radio, DAB radio, A CD player; this CD player is what it says it is, a CD player. It won't play MP3 discs but it has a USB port for a pen drive so it is unimportant that the CD player won't play mp3 discs. It has a power output of 75w per channel and has the ability to feed speaker systems in different parts of the house, if that is your thing. The bit that interested me the most is the internet radio so I set about finding out if a blind, a totally blind person can access it. Via the unit it's self the short answer is no as there is no verbal feedback and the menu system is too complicated to memorise so unfortunately I can't use the main unit for internet radio. The good thing though about it is when you do get into the radio stations you can use your up and down arrows to browse through the stations. However the positive thing is, although I can't access the internet radio via the Solo Neo, I can do so through the arcam internet radio web site. When up and running you can browse stations via location. If you choose this option then you can scroll down through countries which are put into continental blocks. So, if I scroll down to North America I have the choice of Mexico, The United States or Canada. I chose the United states. When in there the list is broken down into states and you are informed by each state how many internet stations are available in that state. For example; Tennessee had 63 stations but Virginia had 129. When you click on the state you want then the list gives the name of the station, what kind of station it is and location. When you click on play you are connected immediately. You can create categories for your favourite stations i.e. news, talk, music or sports etc. and these can be saved in your favourites section. Interestingly what you do on the website is also duplicated on the Arcam unit itself. So when on the website I've so far created two favourite categories; Talk and Country. Now if I could use the main unit I would find these options there also. The website is completely accessible but the Arcam Solo Neo is not. If you have an Arcam product such as the Neo then you have to get sighted help to register it buy inputting the unit number and creating an Arcam account but it is fun not having to search for internet stations on the web where things can be hit or miss. Here you have a list of stations you can connect to with ease. I hope this information is helpful. Walter.
--- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org
