The Como Audio Solo
Alas, I find that I’m frequently blamed by SWLing Post readers who cite this blog as the reason they spend so much money on radios.
But for the record, I’d like you to know that such spending is actually a two-way street! A couple of days ago, Post contributor Robert Gulley sent me a link to a cool Kickstarter campaign for two new multi-format digital radios: the Solo and the Duet by Como Audio.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/819585793/solo-and-duetto-one-touch-music-streaming-with-hif
Having just completed an in-depth review of several WiFi radios for The Spectrum Monitor magazine, the good-looking Solo in its wood casing really caught my attention! (the Duet, meanwhile, is a two-speaker version of the same rig). At first glance, the Solo appears to be compatible with a much wider range of digital formats than many of its competitors, so naturally I’m eager to determine if this is so. Here’s a list:
- Internet radio accessing 20,000+ stations
- Spotify
- Bluetooth with aptX
- NFC Android Bluetooth connection
- DLNA WIFI
- Music player allowing easy navigation and playback through a USB or network-shared library of music files, including AAC+, MP3, WMA, WAV, and FLAC
- 4 High-Res inputs: 2 analog, 1 Optical, and 1 USB.
- Google Cast-ready
- Amazon Dot-ready
It even has a “high-performance” FM tuner and is DAB+ compatible, especially great if you live in Europe.
It also sounds like they’ve spent time designing a proper acoustic chamber/chassis and are fueling a 3″ woofer and 3/4″ dome tweeter with a 2 X 30 watt RMS amplifier. This radio should pack some audio punch.
The Como Audio Duetto
The only obvious thing I see missing on the Como Audio WiFi radios is an internal battery.
Still, after watching the video and reviewing the specs, I backed the campaign to receive a walnut Kickstarter Edition Solo. If all goes well––and I never actually expect a campaign to produce and ship a product in the amount of time they expect––they may be shipping the radios as early as October.
The campaign has already met it’s goal of $50,000 and is now stretching for $100,000 with more incentives.
So, I didn’t really need another WiFi radio, but thanks to Robert’s email––yep, I bought one! Now the only question remains: can you actually make impulse purchases on Kickstarter? I think I just proved that you can.
