Kenwood announced today that its new Media Keg HD30B9, successor to the equally excitingly named HD30A9, will be available at the end of September. Aside from a few minor cosmetic differences (the most notable being that the A9 was cobalt and the B9 is black) and an enhanced digital amplifier, the two players still bear a very striking resemblance to each other. Both can use either the bundled Kenwood Media Application software or Windows Media Player 10 to tranfer MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM9, WAV, and Kenwood Lossless audio files via USB 2.0 from a PC to the device’s 30GB hard drive.
Even though the HD30GB9 doesn’t support video playback, it still sports a 2.2-inch color TFT (320 x 240) for comfortable viewing of track info and album art. Its built-in lithium ion battery is good for about 20 hours.
No firm word on price yet, but most estimates hover around the $500 mark.
[Press Release via AV Watch]
1 Comment
Utew on September 11, 2006 1:17 AM
I’ll take two, but drop the Kenwood Lossless nonsense.. and make it FLAC compatible… or Monkey Audio, etc. One more proprietary codec is one more too many.