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Cocktail Audio's New and latest X50pro Audiophile Music Streamer/server...Any Love?

So, I have been searching for the holy grail of music streamers from some time now. I have had several oppo blu-rays being used as streamers, their Senica, the Mytek Manhattan II, Metrum Acoustics Ambre, and the Lyngdorf TDAI-3400. All sounded pretty good for their respected price range, the Ambre sounded best. But, I was never totally happy with the features, etc of all these. Then I came across the newly released Cocktail Audio X50Pro, their new flagship audiophile streamer. It’s so new that there aren’t any reviews out there. It was the 1st streamer to check all my boxes of what I wanted in a streamer (except for one).  This has every digital output including three, yes three I2S outputs, 2 bays for hard drives, 7” screen and an HDMI output to also see on your big screen, CD ripper built in, works with Tidel, Roon, and just about every music streaming service, can be controlled with phone apps, even has digital inputs to rip your vinyl to the internal drives if installed. It uses dual 82 femto seconds Crystek CCHD-575 Ultra-low Phase Oscillators, completely encased in aluminum power supply, It has WIFI and Ethernet, build quality is great, and has great looks to boot. So, I guess my question is there anyone out there have any experience with this music streamer? I received mine about a week ago and so far, so good. The sound quality is excellent, but wonder how it would compare to the Auralic Aries G2, or the Aurender N10 that I have not yet tried? I would love to hear feedback from any other users out there. Oh, and as I mentioned, there is only one thing this did not check off my want list, I would have liked to see a HDMI input for SACD use and support.


ron1264
badger_erich's avatar
badger_erich
128 posts
 
In the end I bought a Innuous Zenith Mk III. Despite the fact that the Innuous brand is not reviewed in the audio magazines, they have a fabulous reputation in the online community.
"You can't believe everything you read on the internet." ~Abe Lincoln, 1868.
dznutz
139 posts
 
Nothing is every truly gone once you put it online... I find everything! lol
glreno
224 posts
 
I bought one of ron1264's X50 Pro units. He and I were kind of on the same quest for the best streamer. I had several available at the time I bought it and felt that it was the best of the ones I had. That included the Ambre, which I felt represented a good value but was not the equal of the other steamers. I agree with the software issues. I was emailing Cocktail Audio in S Korea regularly complaining about the glitches in the software and they would keep promising a firmware update. Finally in May 2019, they released one and it fixed all the issues. It now performs flawlessly and sounds great. I don't know of any other component that does everything the X50 Pro does. One of the streamers I had to compare was the X50 D. The X50 Pro is significantly better than the X50 D. I don't store my music on the 2 SSDs I installed in the X50 Pro. I have a Melco N1ZH/2 that I keep my music on and I feel that it sounds better than music stored on the internal drives of the X50 Pro. The downside is that Cocktail Audio has US dealers but no distributor, so dealing with the factory for service issues is a pain. The service tech would always respond promptly, but would make promises about the release of the firmware update that were incorrect. It took months for the problem to get resolved. In the end, it was worth it but a bit frustrating.    
in_shore's avatar
in_shore
596 posts
 
I listen to several brands of servers at home and had borrowed a Cocktail Audio X-50 for two weeks . First off the music management is very annoying and with Cocktails new and improved music management app , it stinks ,,,.
overall playback sound quality is mediocre at best .
Some of you here have mentioned the Innuos brand , well these products are on a completely different level of sound quality playback performance and music management options .
The comparisons have absolutely nothing to do with being subjective about it , if you know what actual music should sound like the Innuos playing into a decent dac is in a different part of the universe , listen for yourself not even close.
ron1264 OP
135 posts
 
@in_shore we are talking about the X50pro here, not the X50, two totally different animals

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