Tubes are back & custom XPCs crop up

Author: Richard Swinburne
Published: 7th June 2007

The sound of music to your ears or potentially an awful, unbalanced racket?

Shuttle has developed a prototype amp, based on good ol' vacuum tubes in association with ESTI to match it's new SG33G5M XPC. It's based on the Intel G33 chipset and includes integrated WiFi, front mounted VFD, remote control, HDMI and 7.1 channel DTS and Dolby surround sound.

Coined as its DVO, Digital Video Opera range, Shuttle intends to (re)take the HTPC space by storm (again). Specifically designed for Vista MCE, the unit has gold coloured plastic instead of the usual silver and in all honesty definitely looks very special.

Where the actual combination will come to market and what price it will be, who knows. Let alone if serious audio enthusiasts will be torn away from their separates to use on-board sound and video. While it looks good, it's yet another mountain Shuttle has to climb if it intends to make a return on the investment placed.

In, yet more Shuttle news, the company expects to finally offer custom chassis and motherboard configurations to those that wanted a certain board (cheap/expensive or with certain features) in a chassis that suits them (size, price, etc). If all goes well, we can expect it as soon as this September in a few regions initially.

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