Digital music simplifies life. When you want to listen to a song, you no longer need to rifle around a stack of CD's (or cassette tapes, if you're really desperate). Instead, you just punch up the request in your computer and hit play.

This twentieth-century miracle arrives in your home through a digital music player, like the AudioTron from Turtle Beach. The AudioTron is a box, one that probably looks an awful lot like other stereo components, but, trust me, it's quite different.

First of all, this box is connected to a PC using standard telephone lines. Yes, the AudioTron is networkable and the music is able to move all over your house. The AudioTron runs on a Maverick EP 7212 ARM 720T processor and comes with HPNA Version 2.0, TCP/IP, and Ethernet 10BaseT networking technology. Of course, this means that if you don't already have them, you'll have to buy and install an Ethernet and a HPNA card in your PC to be able to use the HPNA and Ethernet networks.

The AudioTron will allows the PC to work as a huge library of music, either ripped off of CDs or downloaded from the Internet. It plays music files in compressed Internet formats, including MP3 and WMA. Multiple AudioTrons can simultaneously play different music, so you can set a different mood in each room of your house.

Voyetra AudioStation, an Internet-enabled media player, provides digital file management. With this, you can create custom groups of songs and playlists and access songs by genre, artist, album, or title. It even recognizes standard M3U playlists for compatibility with PC jukebox programs.

The stereo component-like AudioTron measures 17 x 1.75 x 10 in, and weighs in at 5.2 lbs. It does not come with any internal memory, as all downloaded audio files are stored on the PC's hard drive.

Pricing and Availability

The AudioTron is currently available for $299.

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