The Brennan JB7

I have several thousand CDs and many hundreds of vinyl albums. I considered the Brennan, the Olive and the Cocktail Audio X10. But I have realised that I already have all I need in digital storage and cataloguing in my iPod, iPad and iPhone. I only had to tap the digital signal available and feed it through my existing sound system! 

Until recently, the full audio potentials of iPod, iPad & iPhone have not been exploited, but new docks are coming onto the market which directly access the digital source material stored in these Apple iUnits, from their 30 pin bases.

I have just found and purchased one such dock, for AUD$130 – the Pure i-20 which has a high spec DAC built-in. The DAC feeds RCA outlets which I have connected to the AUX sockets on my 30 y.o. amplifier. Music is rich over the entire sound spectrum and vastly superior to what comes out of the headphone jack. The Pure i-20 dock also gives me digital optical & co-ax outlets plus component, composite and s-video outlets for connection to TV, and for when I choose to update my home audio and video equipment. It also has a full function remote control with volume control and, unlike the Brennan, it does permit scanning fast forward through a long track to reach a preferred portion.

Cataloguing with cover art is mostly done automatically by iTunes in my Mac, except for vinyl tracks from a turntable connected via USB, which have to be catalogued manually in iTunes thru the Mac keyboard, and I presently have 11 headings through which to access albums & tracks, audio & video. 

My lo-fi 78's and pre-stereo vinyl seem not to suffer in audio quality by being compressed to mp3 format and all CD and audiophile quality downloads are stored in full fidelity in lossless formats.

The only improvement I could wish for would be that the next generation of Apple iUnits offer more digital storage for people with larger libraries and that sound quality in WiFi connection between iUnit & amplifier, is equal to what is produced via copper wire. I have yet to compare my wired system to WiFi connection, but WiFi presently allows for reading track titles directly and easily from the iUnit in the hand, and controlling the playing from anywhere in the room, without need of a dock for transmission. In the meantime, if I run out of digital storage capacity in the classic iPod, I will simply buy an additional iUnit and partition off the Classical from the Jazz & Modern. Backup is always in the computer in iTunes and the best of my sound library comes to the car with me in my iPhone, cradle mounted to play through the car speakers via the base pins.

Ah, the Brennan JB7 thread has returned, albeit heavily culled, with at least 2-3 pages worth of posts missing. I notice that all the comments relating to the JB7's physical defects have been expunged, rendering this thread a presentation of rather less than a balanced view of the JB7. An unbalanced thread is worse than no thread at all, and I would suggest that you moderators would do better by removing this thread altogether, permanently.

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the jb7 is a is a good product, its not for all, so for those saying that they would rather invest in an i pod, oviously do not understand what the jb7 has to offer, do more research before you come and sway people away from buying a product you clearly do not have any clue about.

Ok Atonal it does not display images point taken, but if one has thirty seconds to spare they could just tag the several pieces with a v1(version), v2 v3 etc using the remote control that comes with the brennan.

hey guys will really like to have your opinion on this, christmas is coming up and i have been thinking of getting my grandfather the brennan, i dont personally have one but i have seen the adverts on tv and was very impressed, it seems ideal for my grandad as he is not very good with electronics, and has a huge cd collection, and he complains about his cds getting scratched. is there any one that has bought this prodcut and if so is it worth the money?? 

help!!!!

I've had one for over a year, but it's been back twice for repair. The collection and delivery is trouble-free, (except I can't understand why, in these mobile phone days you have to maybe wait in all day for the courier to call). Repair charges can be up to £75 but it includes the latest software being installed.

As I'm elderly the highest of fi is no longer a necessity. That lives on in my memory!

I solved the lengthy Search problem by assigning a 3 digit code to each CD (more for multi composer ones) - e.g., Z01 - Z99, each being added at the end of the title. Letters Z, Q, X, J etc were favoured to avoid any clashes with embedded text. (Larger collections would need a 4 digit code).This makes finding an item takes only a few seconds.

Of course it needs a printed index (unless you rely entirely on your computer), but when you are up into the hundreds of CDs some kind of finding aid is wanted anyway.

What I don't like is the bother of renaming embedded track names and the huge amount of time needed to backup.

Maybe the biggest benefit - as advertised - is rediscovering music I'd probably not bother to seek out from my collection.