Tuesday 30 November 2010

I've got one word for you....

Bamboo!

Yeah that's right... so stay tuned.

Wednesday 24 November 2010

just a thought...

Tonight is just one of those nights where I have decided to switch my brain off early.

Surfed a few sites and TV channels and found nothing remotely interesting to me... and for some reason I am fed up with all the technology that surrounds me but doing nothing for me on an evening like this one...

So I decided to call it a night as I felt like listening to a bit or radio and read a bit by my bed side, like I used to all those years ago...

One word came to my mind: FAIL!

I wanted to listen to the radio and found the Wi-Fi enabled iPod being left at work and prolly flat too... so next, I enabled Virtual Radio on my SE W995 Symbian mobile on it's docked speakers, and oh yes, within a couple of searches I got fed up it's incredibly rubbish sound and tired of looking for a decent preset channel.... so that wasn't working for me.

Now if I open my lap top I know I would end up pressing more buttons than listening, going from channel to channel and eventually I end up reading nothing and getting all mighty mad at my noisy HP Entertainment Laptop!...sigh... If only I had a simple radio next to me with no glaring back light, clicking hard drives, whirring fans and flashing led's all over the place... Oh wait... I got an idea... let me dig out my 1950's Philips valve radio...

Sorted!

I now have warm sounds and since it can only pick up a hand full of channels, I quickly settled on one... and the room is faintly lit by the FM dial back-lit by a genuine filament bulb!

Nostalgia? Definitely!
Happy? Yup!
Did it keep me awake? I'll tell you in the morn..........................


Monday 1 November 2010

Man and Machine part II

Once all the zillions of holes have been done, counter bored and tapped... we turn our attention to the other side... the top side... the side where everyone will get to see!

As the Morpheus Server is available in different colours, we have decided to do away with printing as that can only be done after anodising it... which adds cost and time to complete. So why don't we put all the important logos etc. into the metal, and anything boring like serial numbers underneath with a sticky label... job done!

Next job, we had 2 choices... engraving by man, or engraving by machine. After asking talking to our experienced engraver John on which way to go, he explained that he would prefer doing it by hand. To him the hand engraving adds a final personal touch to each product and we agree!

Here's John in action:

Man and Machine...

After the main box section is cut and machined down to size, we have to start adding all the holes, slots for all the internal bits to mount on... This is one bit we have to rely on our computer aided machines to make sure all the right holes are in the right place...

There you go, my first video in my blog!

OK, so it isn't an amazing video I know, but I hope people now realise that even with computers and machines, these things still take considerable of time to complete, one by one. I remember having to explain to some people there isn't a machine out there that you pour in materials from one end and out comes the finished products from the other end! :)

Wednesday 13 October 2010

Introducing the Morpheus Server!

Yes think it's time to do a piece on the Morpheus Server!

A while back I have done a bit here and there on the Morpheus Server but a lot of that was based on the pre-production unit and it always amazes me after the prototype stage how much more work is required to get the unit in production with all the cosmetics ready!

Anyway, as you may or may not know, the Morpheus Server is designed to be beautiful and quiet from scratch. It is not just a re-badged PC that rattles you to insanity, but a rather desirable piece of electronics. Stylish and functional, attractive but discreet.

The Morpheus Server casing starts off with a solid piece of aluminium tube with 6mm thick walls, cut and CNC machined to exact size required with all the apertures required to allow the unusual assemble process. Unusual because as case is actually a tube, all the assembly needs to be done inside with access only from the sides of the tube (it's a bit like knitting a sweater inside a bucket... not that I do any knitting!).

Some pics of the server case in progress:

Another one while on the CNC:






I'm back!

Not that I have really been away... well actually I have... Beirut of all places and no I wasn't kidnapped! (Well, sort of, by my other half lol...)

Well October usually is the usually time when we realise that we'd really have to pull our fingers out to get ready for the CES 2011 in Las Vegas... and like every year, I tell myself: "I'm going to get everything ready ahead of schedule... I'm not working till almost midnight on the 24th December..."

See if I get it right this year... so stay tuned!

Thursday 10 June 2010

Ghosts in the machine...

Been going through my photo archives the other day just to have a clear out since my camera phone memory is almost full, so was my other camera and my 2 other memory sticks. While going through the pictures, I stumbled on these pictures proving that indeed the Morpheus does have a sense of humour... (have a look at the display, I promise you these are not staged!)


Morpheus is feeling pretty!



Morpheus feeling a bit broke!



What Morpheus thinks of our internet provider!



Priceless.... ^_^



Thursday 3 June 2010

Necessity is the mother of the Morpheus Server...

Right, 2 months no real (or fake) updates... hmmm sorry about that! New years have always been hectic beginning with CES in January, then followed by yet more shows in Japan, Canada, Munich and I think somewhere in there was the Dutch show too (hmm can't remember, must have been a wicked show then!)... So for the last few months the office shouted "Man down!" Erm... sorry, sales, production, shipping was priortrised over the blog thingy....

Anyway, over the months the Morpheus Server went from concept, show sample to full production and this week, we are shipping the last one out of the first production batch... not bad going for a brand new product! I can think of several reasons for that though... Firstly I think it is a smashing looking product in the flesh, really easy to use and finally I think the market is ready for such a product... Opps... I meant the product is finally ready for the market!

The Morpheus Server was born not from an idea, but rather from necessity. We needed a music server to partner our Morpheus Music centre but we could not find something good enough, reliable enough, or easy enough to use. I mean, is that possible for we are not even early adopters! So after months of searching for a suitable product and failing miserably, one day I joked with Haider: "After spending so much time searching and evaluating, we could have built the perfect one by now!" Well, that was back in September. In October we had a prototype running in the office!

Tuesday 30 March 2010

Montreal was unreal....

Haider just got back from the Montreal Hi Fi show and sounds like it was a huge show with lots of interest... The colour schemes seems to have gone down well and the Morpheus Server worked flawlessly over the week too... So there you are, the real first production launch of the final unit... you can catch more on our facebook page: Yup! The fabulous Sonneteer Facebook Link! and while you are there why not become a fan too so you can keep up with what's going on at Sonneteer too (erm, thats what I do!)

Next... hmmm... I know it looked like I have been rather lazy on this blog but not really, I have been documenting the progress of the new Morpheus Server and hopefully over Easter weekend I will have some time to put it all together and if I can work it out, embed some videos too!

(ok if that sounds like a bore-fest... you can always watch the F1 GP this weekend and pray for rain again since the FIA have really, trully, finally and ultimately screwed F1 this time... I feel a rant coming on haha... don't worry I won't subject you to that just yet!)

Thursday 4 March 2010

MIA

hmmm.... sorry been missing in action for like a month... heavy schdeule to put the server into production... i promise loads will soon come on this new baby from Sonneteer... I even shot a video or two... ;o)

back soon!

Sunday 24 January 2010

The nitty-gritty.

I thought I'd mention a few more design considerations of the server!

The less holes there are, the less chance for noise to escape! As mentioned before the buttons are made from cast acryllic but I forgot to mention they are transparent so that we can use them as status indicators, so the production version will no loger have the holes next to the buttons for indicators... less holes less noise to escape from! The production version will also have a velvet curtain over the CD slot as the last hint of noise was heard through the CD slot in the prototype, so we have now addressed that problem too... every little helps!

Notice the side panels are recessed in the server. Apart from showing off the thickness hence sturdiness of the case, these side panels are made from 2mm thick aluminium and shaped to fit the hole. As the case is made from an extruded tube, the holes on these tubes will never be all exactly the same. Hence the side panel will always need to be slightly smaller than the tune's hole, hence the side panels were designed to "expand" when you tighten the side screws in order to seal the tube sufficiently.

Why recess them? Well it was an insurance policy during the design phase. The idea was to allow extra damping material to be added on both side of the side plate should we need to take the noise down another level! Fortunately the pre-production unit proved that was no longer necessary as the noise supression was already so effective, so now it simply leaves scope for the customer to specify a different custom side finish... Penaudio ply veneer anyone? :o)

Tuesday 19 January 2010

Now you don't hear it!

Finally we have launched the Morpheus Server (and ripper) at the CES show in Las Vegas a little over a week ago... and before then, I couldn't really say too much the product! Now that's all over we can have a closer look at the product and some of the design aspect of the unit.

Oh yeah, the first unit made was in a Bordeaux Red... well I like it and thankfully eveyone else did too! Since the unit is all aluminium we can anodise it in any colour we like, so we made a black one too for old time's sake!



The Morpheus server's design specification was really simple:
Simple to use, quiet as hell, small, and green (enviromentally that is).

I have had computers working as servers and NAS drives at home and honestly, never again! The computer was ugly and noisy, and the NAS drive was just plain noisy, especially when you want to listen to your music and relax! So the Morpheus Server needs to first tackle the noise aspect very seriously, infact nearly all the effort was focused on the noise issue!

Now you hear it! has been our slogan for the longest time but not this time for this bad boy! This unit has to be ultra quiet itself and also vibration free so it would not casue noise to its surroundings. So the first thing was to get rid of the need of fans in the unit. All the main components, power supply unit etc. must also be fanless versions so they can operate indefinitely without needing a fan to cool it... sounds simple until you realise that they are like hen's teeth to find! Only the latest generations of components are thinking along that way to save power and be silent!

Vibration elimination was a bit more complicated! We have 2 fast hard disk drives inside which whirls, crackles, clicks and vibrates like hell, so the way they are mounted has to be carefully looked into. Having been into cars and our office situated not far from a Lexus dealer, I have looked into ways cars have used to reduce vibration, centrifugal or torque issues when mounting their engines! After some experimentation, the hard drives inside the Morpheus are now mounted on 8 rubber damper mountings, selected by sampling several shores and numbers used before deciding on the best combination. The drives themselves are coupled in a way that their individual vibrations cancels each other, inspired by silent shafts used in car engines, and the final result was rather spectacular!

Of course all these efforts can easily be lost again if the box is made like a tin can... but not the Morpheus Server! If you look closely you will see the case is made from a seamless aluminium tube and the walls are 6mm thick. Aluminium is a low resonance material and seamless means minimum noise can escape for the box and it won't fall apart in years to come! Aluminium conducts heat very well which helps the cooling of all internal parts and thermal stability is assured. The fully assembled unit weighs a hefty 5kg and all that weight rests on 4 soft, natural rubber feet, making the unit even more silent and vibration free! Infact when Haider first took one home, he wasn't sure if the unit was on or not cos it was so quiet!

Here are a few shots of the unit:






The eagle eye'd reader will observe that there are only 2 buttons on the unit (specially made from cast-acryllic for the Morpheus). One to switch the unit on and off, the other is to eject the disc in an emergency! I say emergency because the CD is automatically ejected once it has been recorded! We couldn't have possible made this unit easier to use... 2 wires to connect, one button to push and then stick a CD into its slot and go make urself a drink! After a few minutes the CD is ejected signifying that the CD has been recorded and stored into the immense 3TB hard disk. You can then access all your music from your Morpheus Music center or any other UPnP streaming devices!

Are we Green? Oh yes! We never over look the enviromental impact of our products and the Morpheus is probably one of the greenest servers around!

More design details later... :o)

Friday 8 January 2010

2nd day at CES

Sorry peeps been too busy to get any pics sorted... the show so far has been quite good for us... with many visitors and press coming to see our range of products and the Morpheus System is going from strength to strength.

Now with the Morpheus Server, it all seems to make so much more sense to the visitors and it makes it so much easier for us to explain the Morpheus home audio system to new faces! It is also quite exciting to customers tempted to order the Morpheus server in different colours too! Okay to begin with we have taken order for a Black one from a conservative customer, but soon we have taken orders for a Electric Blue one, a Titanium coloured one and soon we will be taking order for a Bordeaux one too- one of my favourite colour! (you can catch what it looks like on the Sonneteer news blog page).

This year, it seems more people are appreciating the convenience of storing their CD collections electronically especially if it its a simple no-brainer operation to do it... just stick a CD in and wait till it comes back out and it's done... and with the Morpheus they can listen to their favourite tunes just as easily....

With so much interest we need to paddle quickly on this one and we hope to start shipping them out in March! So with the Morpheus Server almost put to bed I can now start working on something new which has been in the think tank for the last year or so... :o)

Wednesday 6 January 2010

CES begins tomorrow!

Yes I am in Las Vegas an spent today with the team setting up... shame some of our friends are still stuck in Gatwick airport due to the snow storm in UK but at least most of the equipment is here for the demonstration!

Hopefully tomorrow I will upload some pics of our demonstration room... right now the clock next to me says 9:45 p.m. but my body is telling me 5:45 a.m. so I am going to bed :o)

Monday 4 January 2010

Las Vegas here we go again!

Yup it's that time of the year and we are going to the CES show in Las Vegas and showing off our current and latest creation the Morpheus Server http://www.sonneteer.co.uk/newsblog/.

A couple of posts ago I briefly mentioned the server and finally I am allowed to talk a bit more about it yay!!! Well here it goes...

The new Morpheus Server will hopefully serve as the heart of our music system where the user can store all his or her music in one place. It also has a CD ripper built-in so the user only needs to pop it into its slot and go make a cup of tea (or coffee) and by the time the tea (or coffee) is ready, so is the music ready to be served up using the Morpheus Music centre or any streaming device! For those who are disorganised by nature such as myself, it will categorise the music for you together with album art and of course all the details of the Artist etc. As a server, you can stream any song or the same song to multiple devices around your home, controlled by the remote control that came with your streaming device, or using an i-Pod touch or i-Phone running an application called PlugPlayer http://www.plugplayer.com/.

Taking a detailed look at the Morpheus when you have a chance, you will find the Morpheus is rather special. First time you switch it on you'd swear that it is not working! (When Haider borrowed the prototype to play with he actually wasn't sure either!). Why? Because it is silent! If you have ever used a PC or another high-end server, you will probably frown at the amount of noise it makes, and not to mention vibration. They are not products designed to be installed in a living room, or indeed, your listening room... I certainly wouldn't have one of those anywhere near me at any cost.

When designing the Morpheus, the challenges this time are not only surrounding the electronics, but also with the mechanics involved. Think about it, most of servers and especially PC's used as a server will have at least 2 or 3 fans... some of them are exposed outside of the case and they all go like wooooooooooo wooooooooo.... and they also have grills and vents leaking even more noise from within. The Morpheus fan count is ZERO, and it's a sealed unit so no leaks! But what about the mechanical noise? Barring the minute CD noise that only occurs when it is copying a CD, the Morpheus Server also has two high speed 1.5TB hard drives spinning continuously at 7400 revolutions per minute. Like it or not they will create noise and worst of all, they will vibrate and resonate with its surroundings. Now that the real challenge and a half becasue each home is a different surrounding and we cannot predict that!

A little more about the Morpheus mechanics later... I'm tired and I'm flying in 12hours and will have ample time to write about it on the 747... :o)

Saturday 2 January 2010

Whats's up with that?

No I'm not singling along one of ZZ Top's songs but rather questioning what on earth is going on these days with companies pushing out products that simply don't work!

Recently I was offered a free speed upgrade from my broadband provider... great! The e-mail said: To get 2Meg speed (from 1Meg), all I have to do is to unplug my modem router and plug it back in and it will automatically be upgraded to 2Meg. Ignoring my general scepticism, I stupidly obliged and I soon realised I have lost my internet connection (and because this was a one way upgrade, I can't go back either). For the next 2 hours I trawled the internet on my phone to look for answers and later I managed to change some settings on my modem and got some connectivity back, at 1Meg and with some dropping of connection. I can put up with that for now.

The next day I spoke to the broadband provider and they tell me they have had some issues with some modems and I need to call the manufacturer to see if I can have a "firmware update". I said to the guy that it should be him talking to manufacturers not me to be honest! Anyway, knowing that was it pointless talking to him, I rang the manufacturer and they told me I need a new modem router because technology's moved on and there are no more updates for my "upgradeable" modem! ... so I last night I went out and bought a new modem while still feeling that I have been robbed.

Got home, connected it up and all my PC and laptop worked... Yeeessss! I thought but then I realised my sister's Mac and my Morpheus won't connect. I know how this game works now.... I probably needed another "firmware" update! So I Googled it and I found out that there is an update for people with Mac problems but the solution came from the modem maker cos they've screwed up... hidden somewhere in their website there is an "un-certified" version that seems to solve the problem. I tried it and suddenly the Mac worked, and so did my Morpheus.

So, had I not had a Mac here I would still be online searching for an answer for my new modem! What's up with that?

p.s. If you got a Belkin modem and are having WiFi connection problems with your Mac or WiFi radio, ping me an e-mail, I can probably save you some pain.

Friday 1 January 2010

Here's to 2010

Wow it's been a while since my last post and next thing I know its 2010!!!

Well CES is just around the corner and you may recall we were busy getting the next idea ready! Much debate during 2009 in the Sonneteer camp on what to do next and believe me when I tell you that we don't seem to lack ideas here... far from it... Haider often got his straight jacket on the ready for me sigh!

We had several choices... upgrades or add-ons for the Morpheus, another Morpheuesque product, or something totally different. In the end it was felt that if we were to promote Sonneteer's idea of a modern music system, the heart of the system would need to be there, and the Morpheus isn't that, it is more of a facility, with lots of style of course!

So what is it? Well we tried and tried in the office, long journeys, telephone conversations and emails to decide how to call it. If we went geeky then we would call it a Media Server... which we hated. However each time we tried to explain what it does to the parties interested, they always say: "Oh, you mean a music server?"... so in the end, we can't escape from the fact that the "server" name is on everyone's tongue and it is not likely to change... so, okay then, its the Sonneteer Morpheus Server! No can we move on?

Right... so it's a computer right? Sort of, but not as we know it! We needed this to be not like a computer at all... but a dedicated piece of equipment for entertainment. For us, PC will never belong in a living room. It has to be simple to use, reliable, super quiet and easy on the eye. Sounds simple until you know whats going on inside it!

More later...