Brennan JB7 store all your music in one place
Brennan’s innovative JB7 is a Digital Jukebox that’s a little different to the more traditional offerings you might have seen before. To begin, with the main control unit closely resembles the design of your typical car stereo. It’s around the same size and is finished in an attractive metallic blue effect. Along with this you’re supplied with two full-range speakers, designed to handle the 60W of power pumped out by the amp.
The JB7 includes an internal hard drive with a choice of capacities from 20 to 80GB, and with the help of the CD player and USB interface it’s designed to collate all of your music from external sources, such as CDs, MP3 players and other audio devices - or simply a USB stick full of tunes - onto the internal drive to build a complete collection.
Track and album information for any CDs you transfer is automatically retrieved from the pre-loaded FreeDB database, and you have the ability to rename specific tracks or groups of tracks yourself by manually entering the information using the supplied remote control.
Building a comprehensive library of music is pretty easy, then, and we were impressed by the usability of the interface, the information provided on-screen and the range of options you have available to customise music, such as adjusting the bit-rate and location.
You can play music while ripping from CD or transferring elsewhere, and browsing around to find your favourite tunes is pretty easy using the Artist/Album/Track menus. To narrow down a collection of potentially thousands of songs you can use the remote to enter text, which filters down a list of matches to a more manageable number. You’ll find a ‘history’ option for quick access to previous searches, and the ability to create playlists on the fly by simply pressing a button on the remote when the track you want to add is playing.
As well as transferring songs to the JB7, you can also transfer them directly to connected USB storage or a mobile phone or MP3 player. These devices can also be connected and browsed via the JB7, allowing you to take advantage of the powerful speakers to play back tunes via your portable device.
The JB7 is an intriguing device, and despite the fact that it omits features such as wireless streaming and Internet radio found with other audio solutions like Philips’ WACS 7000, we think it’s an excellent way to store and browse a large collection. It’s a stylish design, the performance through the supplied speakers is good, and the usability of the device, despite the remote being occasionally a bit unresponsive, is also good.
Brennan - JB7 features - Verdict
If you have a large collection of music and want to keep it all in one place, Brennan’s JB7 is one of the most effective solutions we’ve seen yet for helping you do this, while remaining compact, stylish and easy to use.
