Review The Cocktail Audio X10 is a compact hi-fi component with a network connection for internet radio, audio streaming from shared devices and file transfer. It’s fitted with a 500GB or 1TB hard disk, which serves as your music library, either for existing digital audio files that you copy to it or CDs ripped using its slot-loading drive. You can output to an amplifier or attach speakers directly, as it has a 2x 30W power output, although loudspeakers aren’t supplied.

Beats extract: Cocktail Audio X10

By default CDs are copied in WAV with no additional compression or you can select FLAC (lossless compression), Ogg Vorbis and MP3 in various quality settings. It always rips in WAV and post-converts if necessary. There’s room for thousands of albums and later you can swap the hard disk for one of your own, up to 2TB.

CDs are automatically identified and tracks named through the FreeDB database, an open source alternative to the widespread Gracenote, though it doesn’t find sleeve artwork for you. The database comes from its internet connection or copied to the internal drive from the supplied CD and updated from a USB stick if you’re using the X10 off-line.

All interfacing lives round the back – shame phonos aren't used though

The Cocktail Audio X10 connects by Ethernet or Wi-Fi with a dongle. There’s no tuner, so any radio stations you want need to come over the net, but there are more than 15,000 listed, you can store favourites or even record, as long as the station provides an MP3 version.

The remote control is responsive but could do with fewer buttons. There is also a free EyeconnTroller Android or iPhone app. Surprisingly it lacks an iPod dock, and if you’re looking for the AirPlay facility, you’ll have to go elsewhere. The unit’s colour LCD screen is large and informative but longer text strings scroll constantly in a distracting way.

The overall build quality is slightly plasticky and its connections are the kind you’d find on a basic mini hi-fi – spring clip speaker terminals and mini-jack line in/out instead of RCA/phonos – but in this case it’s not overly detrimental to the sound.

CD collector: rips music in the background, while you play content from other sources

There is a bit of hum and vibration from the hard disk and fan too, so if you want an otherwise noiseless room for music, this won’t help enormously. Audiophiles would undoubtedly get sniffy about all this but there are high-end offerings from the likes of Linn and Naim to cater for such tastes with a price to match.

The X10 can rip CDs while you play anything from the hard disk, internet radio or music streaming. The latter option is reasonably effective but it takes the unit a while to access large libraries. My iTunes folder has amassed hundreds of folders over the years and it took the player nearly a minute to load them.

It works best when everything is stored locally on the HDD and then you won’t need a computer on continually. It also uses Samba to appear as a shared drive on the network, which also makes the library available to other suitably connected media players.

If you use the analogue line output to a separate amplifier then any speakers attached to the X10 are muted but the optical digital audio output works any time, so you could wire up a second zone this way.

Ripped music can be backed up en masse or exported individually. Choosing the USB option seems unusually slow, especially with WAV and FLAC, but it imports and exports over the network much more rapidly. There are two USB ports for attaching external drives too. As well as the formats it rips in, it plays WMA, AAC/M4A and PCM. Data CDs and DVDs containing audio files can also be played or copied from.

Lastly, it can record in WAV format from its line input from any attached device, so you can transfer MiniDiscs, tapes and vinyl from external players, but turntables will need to utilise a phono preamp.

Verdict

The Cocktail Audio X10 manages to keep its potentially complex mix of features fairly intuitive and easy to use. Its audio performance using attached speakers or digital and analogue outputs is about equal to a midrange mini hi-fi, for which this makes a convenient replacement. ®

Thanks to AdvancedMP3Players for the loan of the review sample.

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