Hey, look at that -- the Squeezebox Duet just popped up for pre-order. Slim Devices's answer to Sonos was pretty impressive when we played with it at CES, and it looks like pricing is exactly what we heard: $400 for the wireless controller and a single Squeezebox Receiver, which can stream music off your home machine or tune into Rhapsody or Pandora. Units are expected to ship at the end of the month, but it doesn't look like you can buy additional $150 receivers or $300 controllers yet.

[Thanks, Gregg]

Now's your chance to cast your ballot for the 2006 Home Entertainment Device of the Year! Our Engadget Awards nominees are listed below, and you've got until 11.59PM EST on Sunday, April 15th to file your vote. You can only vote once, so make it count, and may the best tech win! The nominees: DirecTV HR20, Slim Devices Transporter, Slingbox PRO, Sonos ZP80, Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray player, TiVo Series3, and Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player.

What makes a $2,000 digital music player a $2,000 digital music player? When you're Slim Devices, that's a pretty tricky question to answer. After all, its relatively affordable Squeezebox line has garnered extensive praise and a nearly rabid following over the past couple years -- especially in its latest (and most attractive) incarnation. What's more, Slim has positioned the Squeezebox as an audiophile-friendly device from day one, touting its extensive tweakability, high quality digital-to-analog conversion, and compatibility with the surprisingly useful SqueezeNetwork. Don't get us wrong, we suspected there was room in Slim's portfolio for something above the Squeezebox. Something with a larger display, perhaps something that'd fit in an A/V stack. What we never saw coming, though, was a price hike of seventeen hundred dollars over its little sibling. So just what does two large (that's over six Squeezeboxes with the WiFi option, for the record) buy the discerning music connoisseur these days? Let's take a closer look.

Back in July, we regaled you with a post about the Slim Devices Transporter, that super high-end digital audio stereo receiver. You remember, the one that plays WAV, AIFF, MP3, WMA, and FLAC at up to 96KHz sample rates over Ethernet or WiFi, right? Well, we've just spotted the first review of this $2,000 DAC from TrustedReviews. So, what's on the plus side? TR says the jacks are top-notch, bringing everything from a pair of gold-plated phono sockets to a word clock input. Beyond that, the front dials (or knobs, if you prefer) are high-quality and come in a slick brushed aluminum. But, on the minus side, the casing felt a bit flimsy to the reviewer's touch, noting that a flexible panel can vibrate along with the music, which is not usually desirable to the discerning audiophile. What about the audio quality? TR says that when compared to a traditional CD or a Super Audio CD, the Transporter "lacked the punch, presence and sheer excitement on offer from the humble disc spinner," and was generally left unimpressed by its lackluster performance and high price.

Ah, can you smell; the autumn in the air? For some that means it's iPod season, which, incidentally, just celebrated its fifth birthday this week. We've got the scoop there and on how you too can avoid blowing out the Windows virus candles your iPod may have shipped with, as well as some talk on Logitech snapping up Slim, Art Lebedev's latest project, and some interesting (albeit unsurprising) details that surfaced about the Treo 680 on Cingular. Tune in, Engadget Podcast 92 coming right up.

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Hosts: Peter Rojas and Ryan Block

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Program:
00:33 - Apple says some 5.5G iPods shipped with Windows virus!
06:52 - The iPod turns five
17:00 - Logitech acquiring Slim Devices
21:32 - Here comes the Upravlator!
26:30 - Treo 680 headed to Cingular
29:08 - Listener emails
47:56 - Contests: deck out tech for Halloween, sing an Engadget song, shoot some sweet photos

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There's nothing we love more around here than a bit of surprising news, and next to HP's recent purchase of VoodooPC, Logitech's just-announced acquisition of Slim Devices caught us off guard like nothing has in awhile. According to Slim CEO Sean Adams, his company -- which makes such streaming audio products as the Squeezebox and Transporter -- will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Logitech -- maker of nearly every kind peripheral under the sun -- with the entire Slim team having already accepted employment offers from their new overlord. The newly-swallowed Slim will remain in its Mountain View offices and retain its executive structure for the "foreseeable future," while gaining the marketing power, retail partnerships, and economy of scale benefits enjoyed by larger corporations. As you're probably aware, Logitech has already dipped its toe into the streaming audio pool with such products as the Wireless DJ Music System, so snatching up Slim will give it a better foothold in this market along with the invaluable expertise offered by Slim's employees. For the consumer, this partnership will probably result in lower prices as well as attractive bundles featuring Slim gear and Logitech speakers / remotes, although you can never really predict how an acquisition will affect a company's innovation and product quality. Still, quite the interesting bit of news, and we're excited to see what kind of swag the Slim team will produce now that they have more muscle and capital behind them.

From past postings it would seem that Infrant has developed quite a little fan base for its ReadyNAS line of storage solutions, so all you NASheads out there will be happy to learn that the company has just added a new member to the family, the Gigabit Ethernet-equipped ReadyNAS NV+. Available in sizes ranging from 0GB (B.Y.O.HDD.) to 3TB, the four-bay NV+ adds several key features to the previous NV models, including a quieter design, LCD status window, and the RAIDiator 3.0 firmware that boasts enhanced power-saving features and improvements for Mac users. On the multimedia tip, you're getting built-in UPnP support along with SlimServer software (resulting from the partnership with Slim Devices that we recently reported on) for use with your Squeezebox or Transporter. You can pick up your own NV+ immediately, for anywhere between $650 for the diskless version and $2,999 for a massive 3TB black hole of storage.

Audiophiles, listen up. (Oh, how we do love saying that.) Slim Devices has got something you'll want to check out if you've been on the hunt for a Sonos alternative: meet the Transporter (and we ain't talking about Jason Statham). Slim's new wireless audio distribution system moves your music (in WAV, AIFF, MP3, WMA, and FLAC up to 96KHz sample rates) via 802.11g or Ethernet, and outputs in XLR, with optical, S/PDIF, and coax ins and outs. But thats not all, you've also got RS-232, infrared, even a clock input port to make sure using and controlling the audio chugging through its Super Regulator-driven 120dB SNR AKM-built AK4396 DAC is a pleasurable experience. They're not going to let you off easily though, this piece will set you back two grand when it debuts September 18th. Slim Devices will, however, throw you a bone for your hard earned thousands; pre-order the Transporter before it's released and they'll toss in a free Squeezebox to say thanks for skipping out on rent (yet again).

Squeezebox owners, listen up! If you've been pining away over Rhapsody access on your Slim Devices music streamers, your time has finally come. the release of SlimServer 6.3 and a Squeezebox firmware upgrade enable Squeezebox 2 and 3 owners to use the service like those Sonos-using next-door neighbors; too bad those Sonos loving friends of theirs they haven't yet gotten their PlaysForSure on like Slim, but hey, as far as Rhapsody support we're just about all on level ground now.

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

A partnership announced today by storage specialist Infrant Technologies and Squeezebox-maker Slim Devices promises to give consumers an easy way to store and stream up to 200,000 songs around the house, no computer necessary. The two companies are now offering a bundle which includes Infrant's 1TB ReadyNAS network attached storage device pre-loaded with the SlimServer software along with two Squeezebox 3's for $1,500, advertising that the coupling signals the "death of the CD player." We'll wager that many of our readers have already kicked the CD habit long ago, but there's no denying the appeal of having a full terabyte of RAID-protected tracks in a plethora of different formats that can be streamed anywhere your little heart desires.