2. Hardware Tour

The X5000 is about the same size as a standard DVD player, which means that it will fit in with any other AV equipment that you have. The X5000 seems sturdy enough to support another AV device placed on top of it, but I wouldn't put it on the bottom of a large stack. It sports a steel case with a brushed aluminum front bezel giving it a classy, professional look.

In the box:

Remote control Two AAA batteries (sub-par) 1 HDMI cable 1 RCA composite AV cable Power cord Software disk Quick Start Guide

My general rule is that audiovisual equipment should be sophisticated and simple without distracting the user from the entertainment that it's providing. The X5000 hits the mark beautifully. It has six rounded buttons on the front bezel that control power and some basic media functions. However, the remote is required to navigate through the menu system effectively. With the exception of the Helios Logo and model identification, gaudy stickers and partner-company logos are absent from the X5000's case. I applaud Neodigits for keeping it simple and not destroying the X5000's look with a lot of extra logos.

Inside the case, there's a low-noise LG DVD drive with a standard IDE interface connected to a small L shaped main board. A passively cooled super-regulated R Core linear power supply provides juice to the X5000. R Core power supplies are known for being nearly silent and they produce about half the heat of standard E-I transformers, making the R Core an ideal solution for devices that are focused on good audio.

Under the hood, the X5000 has a few recognizable components.

The power behind the X5000's bag of tricks is the Sigma Designs EM8620L chipset. While it's not the newest Sigma chip on the market, the EM8620 series appears in a number of multiple format media players and it definitely gets the job done. It's capable of decoding a myriad of different audio and video formats, including some that you may not expect. (More on this later)

the LG quiet DVD drive and R Core power supply

I found an excellent quality 24-bit Wolfson Audio DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) in the X5000. The DAC performs the conversion between your binary digital audio files and the analog output (the sound that you hear). Wolfson has a great reputation in the audiophile community and combined with the gold-plated low-noise audio jacks, a quiet DVD drive and stone-silent power supply, the X5000 should live up to Neodigits' claim that it's "the only network media player for audiophiles."

A Wolfson Audio DAC handles the digital-to-analog audio conversion

As for the other functions, a VIA VT6212L provides the USB 2.0 support (VT6212L controllers are commonly found in USB 2.0 hubs and expansion cards for PCs). Realtek handles the wired networking with an RTL8100CL, and an Atheros AR5BMB5 802.11 b/g mini PCI card provides the wireless connectivity. The WiFi card is connected to a removable external antenna to maximize signal reception.

A via USB 2.0 controller is mounted next to a Realtek networking controller.

A mini PCI wireless NIC adds 802.11G to the X5000's features