Cocktail Audio X45 Streamer/Ripper/DAC Review

[Verig]

8TB drives are regularly found for less than $100 on reddit/r/buildapcsales. At this SINAD I'd say 192 kbps MP3s are more than sufficient. So what's that? About 10 years of music with no repeats. Aye, that'll do.

Better not mix compression loss and artifacts with sinad even when joking.

 

[Verig]

There was supposed to be a smiley there. Looks a bit harsh now. Oh well, I'll get my coat.

 

[dtaylo1066]

It's just me, but I could never buy a product by a brand named Cocktail Audio. Just does not sound serious to me. Who ever came up with that name should be fired.

 

[Music707]

It's just me, but I could never buy a product by a brand named Cocktail Audio. Just does not sound serious to me. Who ever came up with that name should be fired.

Seems like you are not the only one in this thread. Maybe to members of your club a name like Apple for electronic products is much more fitting and serious.

 

[dtaylo1066]

I would have not picked Apple as a name either, but they did OK with it. Spliff Audio would be better than Cocktail, as it sounds more high end.

 

[TonyJZX]

its an korean thing you wouldnt understand

i think there's a place for whimsy in audio... like mola mola and red rose etc...

the name reminds me of Seiko's 'cocktail time' series of dress watches... yes its *THAT* time again and I can see how it translates to this device

 

[FINFET]

For the name Cocktail Audio I think that's quite culture-related. As a non-English speaker, I didn't find "Cocktail" very weird though. However, I don't think it's a good name either because it's too common and thus not quite optimized for search engines. I'm curious about what's a good brand name for native English speakers. Many brands are just their creator's name in their own language, like Sennheiser, Neumann and Yamaha.

While Apple itself can be some IP but its rarely used in their product names like Macintosh not Apple PC and iPhone not Apple phone. Kind of like how Google changed to Alphabet, a change that didn't garner much attention.

 

[TonyJZX]

i think thats a different issue in the same way Facebook went to Meta

they wanted to divorce the brand name or product name from the traded company

 

[PeteL]

It's just me, but I could never buy a product by a brand named Cocktail Audio. Just does not sound serious to me. Who ever came up with that name should be fired.

Still a better name than SOTA reviewed just under this... How pretentious and entitled is that? I don't even know how to pronounce it without going for state of the art.

 

[Mnyb]

Long waiting list to get one of these. 0-60 mph 4.3 seconds.

I have the older T8 since almost 3 years ( it’s going back to the leasing co in August) reliable works great hauling family with ski equipment to mountains and for vacations with bikes , I prefer this to any SUV .
But my next car will bee a KIA EV6 ( also a leased company car ) for some reason there is almost no wagon/estate type of electric car aviable?? The old Volvo 740 estate with folded down backseats could haul a lot of stuff

 

[Talisman]

If you try to think that this product is a mix of DAC, CD player, preamplifier and streamer, you realize that "audio cocktail" is incredibly appropriate

 

[Morla]

even tho my x45 is not switched on often anymore since I went mostly streaming using nv shield it was very good in archiving my compact disks. The way it handles cover art, sorting and everything appealed to me. All stored on ssd (bought seperately). The graphics look outdated especially when shown on the TV using hdmi but it always did what it was supposed to do. After a while (2 years I think?) the unit started to produce a noise from inside the case (not in the signal). Probably time to clean the fan or something but I hesitated to break the seal since those units seem to keep the value on the second market quite well.

 

[Music707]

For the name Cocktail Audio I think that's quite culture-related. As a non-English speaker, I didn't find "Cocktail" very weird though. However, I don't think it's a good name either because it's too common and thus not quite optimized for search engines. I'm curious about what's a good brand name for native English speakers. Many brands are just their creator's name in their own language, like Sennheiser, Neumann and Yamaha.

While Apple itself can be some IP but its rarely used in their product names like Macintosh not Apple PC and iPhone not Apple phone. Kind of like how Google changed to Alphabet, a change that didn't garner much attention.

If I am not mistaken their first successful mass market product was the Apple II.

 

[Music707]

I would have not picked Apple as a name either, but they did OK with it. Spliff Audio would be better than Cocktail, as it sounds more high end.

Spliff? Seriously? Did you care to check the meaning?

 

[Verig]

Still a better name than SOTA reviewed just under this... How pretentious and entitled is that? I don't even know how to pronounce it without going for state of the art.

Not to mention sota means 'war' in Finnish. But then again when I see a massive turntable named 'war'... well, ok ok.

 

[Verig]

Spliff? Seriously? Did you care to check the meaning?

I'm very much laughing here right now.

 

[Verig]

I mean, high... end...

 

[PenguinMusic]

Hi,

To woners of N45 from Cocktail Audio, I wxould have a question.

I recently acquired the smaller N15D.
It was looking to be more or less exactly what I wanted : all-in-one network streamer/USB DAC/Headphone amp/Pre-amp.

But I found out that if it can be used as a streamer and as a USB DAC it can't do both at the same time.
Of course I do not want to listen to USB DAC and Streaming at the same time.
But I would like to be abnle to switch between USB DAC and Streamer.

But it turns out that there is no input selection on the N15D.
So as soon as I connect a USB cable I can't use it as a streamer anymore...
And I can't also not use it with it's internal storage.

Maybe that is just me but that is the most serious misonceived device I have ever seen.
Not being able to select your input makes it useless... at least to me :-(

Is it the same on higher models ?

Thanks for your replies.

 

[Prozas2001]

Hi, I have X45 and have connected internal HD and USB and can use internet streaming and switching between them with out any isues.

 

[PenguinMusic]

Hi, I have X45 and have connected internal HD and USB and can use internet streaming and switching between them with out any isues.

Thanks

Concerning the N15D, I have been in touch with Coktail Audio support.

They confirm that you cannot use the N15D as a USB DAC and a streaming device simultaneaoulsy, switching between sources.

I could not imagine for a single second that this would not be possible when I acquired the N15D.

So this device will go back to ad site ASAP as it does not fit me "all-in-one" needs at all :-( It has 2 major flaws :
- the one described here
- no access to the device with a browser GUI as they removed it for their crappy app.

Bye bye Cocktail Audio for me :-(