We had a chance to sit down with the crew at Neuros Audio again this year at CES.

If you're not familiar, Neuros is famous around these parts for the Neuros digital audio player, which debuted back in 2002. At the time, it was one of the few players available based on a hard drive. It had a unique design, featuring a modular backpack that housed both the 2.5-inch hard drive and battery. You could buy extra backpacks and swap them with the main control module, which had the screen, brains, and physical controls. Other notable features included FM radio, radio recording, a built-in FM transmitter, line-in audio recording, and 5 customizable preset buttons. While capable, it had a hard time finding an audience. The modular design made the Neuros rather big, and it came with a USB1.1 interface right after USB2.0 had recently become the standard. A year or so later it was upgraded with USB 2, but by then, other players were using a 1.8-inch hard drive... making the Neuros even bigger by comparison. It faded out of the spotlight as smaller and sleeker players became commonplace.

Still, a small but dedicated community evolved around the Neuros, especially after it became one of the first players to support the OGG Vorbis format - an increasingly popular alternative to MP3. The community has grown even more since the company released the hardware schematics for the Neuros and open-sourced both the software and firmware. As far as I know, Neuros Audio is the only DAP-related company to actively encourage and support participation from the open source community. The wizards at RockBox.org have hacked open some old players made by Archos and iRiver but it's certainly without their blessing.
At our meeting with Neuros, we spoke with Joe Born (CEO) and his sister, Kathryn Born (Head of PR), along with Collin Anderson (President) and Johan Abadie (Director of Sales & Marketing). As they explained, the company has decided to focus on open hardware and software platforms - the main thing which will set them apart from the competition. Neuros Technology currently has about 20 employees, half of which are based in the US and the other half being a design team in China. Their best-selling product right now is the Neuros Recorder 2. This is a small set-top box which records video from TV or DVD into to MPEG-4 files, stored on flash memory cards. These videos can then be transferred to portable devices like the PSP or Apple iPod. Rob has one of these now so we'll put together a review sooner or later.

The Next Big Thing from Neuros is going to be a portable media player based on open-source principals, from the ground up, and this is what we were most interested in. Their current portable media player, the Neuros 442, is a transitional product as they say. You can read our review of it here. The 442 is fairly average as PMPs go, but the next version will have an improved GUI and audiophile-grade components like a 24bit/96kHz DAC. It's going to be based on the DM320 chipset (an ARM9 design) from Texas Instruments - just like Cowon's A2, one of the best PMPs on the market right now.

The way they described it, the 442.2 seems promising, but IIRC they intend to use the same casing as the current 442. It's not bad, but not too great either. The design is kind of retro-looking, which some people might like, but it's at least an inch thick and too big to fit comfortably in your pants-pocket (but the same can be said for most PMPs). On the plus side, it's made of steel. You could totally brain somebody with this thing... it's built like a tank. Presumably, using the same case means that it will have the same screen as well - one with a 4:3 aspect ratio and 320x240 resolution. We expect a little more from a high-end portable media player these days. For instance, the Archos AV500 and Cowon A2 have a 480x272 widescreen and the display on Creative's Zen Vision has a resolution of 640x480.

They said we should see the 442.2 arrive in late Q2 2006. A nice option for owners of the original 442 is the ability to upgrade to the new version by sending it in to Neuros along with $ 100 to install the new PCB. I don't know of any other company with such an offer.

Beyond the 442.2, Neuros plans on a digital audio player based on the same platform but without the video features. This will be called the Nueros III. The version of the Neuros III that we reported about last year has been scrapped. Also, a hard-drive based home video player (like my TViX) is in the works, one that features video recording as well as playback.

All in all, we walked away with a positive impression of the company and its plan for the future, but we'll have to wait and see if 2006 is the year where they can go from making good stuff to making great stuff. We like the open-source model so hopefully it will work out to everyone's benefit.