I said that I would post a longer piece about the Sysrock.
First of all the one that I have had was a pre production model but it was a pretty mature version of what I am sure will be produced soon - there were no wires hanging out and the screws keeping it together did not look as though they had be touched after initial assembly.
Good Points:
The radio is compact (same form factor as the Syslite) and quite heavy so it will sit all day at the end of a bench or tucked out of the way somewhere.
The look and feel is typical Festool - a nice simple and logical layout and nothing gimmicky.
The sound quality is very good indeed but I realise that this is hugely subjective and my ears are pretty shot up (literally). I am sorry that I was unable to play long excerpts of radio stations or my iPhone music but some of the broadcasting and performance rights people can be very picky with regular YouTube creators.
Playing music from the smartphone is very easy and I would rather get glue/plaster/chicken sh*t on the Sysrock controls than on my iPhone.
You can receive calls whilst the Bluetooth source is selected which is probably only useful if you are covered in glue etc as I would rather use my phone than let the plumber know that Norm just called !
The Sysrock will take any of the Festool system batteries and there is a battery fuel gauge in the top right of the display.
Bad Points:
I think that many people would prefer to have seen DAB included. The switching over to DAB is not as far forward as we had hoped and there is no country that I know of that has actually switched yet. I think the most likely first will be Norway doing a partial switch in 2017 but I am happy to be corrected on that. I love DAB but that is because there are particular stations or programmes there that I cannot get anywhere else. This means that I actually want to listen to the content rather than have it as background noise (amongst the other noise) as I work. So, perhaps this is not a huge big deal at the moment. Also, with a smartphone you can stream anything you like or, as I do, listen to a podcast.
There is no internal battery. A pity as it could then be used as is and one would imagine it could be charged and listened to at the same time. I put this point to Festool who told me that there was insufficient room for the 5? cells required, the extra charging circuitry and the loss of free space inside would reduce the sound quality. They did not want the overall size to go beyond what they have created.
There is no USB charging socket. Some may see this as important but I can plug my phone into the car or a £3 charger I bought from ebay.
Summary:
I think that we can get carried away with the importance of DAB but I do understand people favouring it. I certainly made sure my new car had a DAB radio. I have a growing collection of podcasts and listen to these quite a bit if it is quiet enough and streaming is another way around the problem.
There was a bit of debate about being made in China. Please do not resurrect it here on this thread but...
I did not even look to see where it was made until I saw what was being said. Without knowing where it had been made I had concluded that this was another piece of high quality kit produced in the Festool German factory. It is better to keep an open mind until you have at least got one in your hands.
I think Festool will get their investment back and I hope that in 5 years time, as circuit boards and batteries get smaller, that they can upgrade the Sysrock to include DAB, an internal battery and USB port all within the same form factor and with the same super sound quality.
Peter
