Escient Digital Audio Receivers (DARs)

The Bottom Line: The Escient FireBall E2 offers sophisticated home-integration capabilities for your digital audio--but its assortment of high-end features come with a price tag to match.

Specs: Digital audio server, Stereo, MP3, WMA, FLAC, Network audio player - MP3, WMA, FLAC, Remote control (Infrared), Black, 17.4 in x 11.9 in x 4.6 in, Hard disk drive, -1, Yes, Yes

The Bottom Line: The Escient FireBall E2 offers sophisticated home-integration capabilities for your digital audio--but its assortment of high-end features come with a price tag to match.

Specs: Digital audio server, Stereo, MP3, WMA, FLAC, Network audio player - MP3, WMA, FLAC, Remote control (Infrared), Black, 17.4 in x 11.9 in x 4.6 in, Hard disk drive, -1, Yes, Yes

The Bottom Line: The Escient FireBall E2 offers sophisticated home-integration capabilities for your digital audio--but its assortment of high-end features come with a price tag to match.

Specs: Digital audio server, Stereo, MP3, WMA, FLAC, Network audio player - MP3, WMA, FLAC, Remote control (Infrared), Black, 17.4 in x 11.9 in x 4.6 in, Hard disk drive, -1, Yes, Yes

The Bottom Line: If you have a large DVD/CD collection and wads of cash, you can't go wrong with Escient's DVDM-100 DVD and music manager, which supports up to three compatible DVD/CD changers.

Specs: DVD/CD manager / digital multimedia receiver, Universal remote control

The Bottom Line: The FireBall E-40 is one of the better DARs we've tested, but its $2,000 list price leaves us cold.

Specs: Standard remote control, 17.4 in x 11.9 in x 0.1 in, 14.0 lbs

The Bottom Line: Well-heeled technophiles will love this convergence device, but for everyone else, it's overkill.

Specs: Digital multimedia receiver / CD recorder, Remote control

Specs: DVD/CD manager / digital multimedia receiver, Stereo, Remote control

Specs: DVD/CD manager / digital multimedia receiver, Stereo, Remote control

Specs: DVD player / digital multimedia receiver, Stereo, Remote control

Specs: DVD/CD manager / digital multimedia receiver, Stereo, Remote control