Last year, the Escient FireBall won our Editors' Choice among high-end digital jukeboxes (After Hours, October 1), and it was one of our Best Products of the Year (January 2003). This year's model is even better. At $2,999, the Escient FireBall E-120 isn't cheap, but it's well worth the cost.

The E-120 is a 120GB digital jukebox with a 6X CD-RW drive. It also serves as the front end to your audio/video system. To connect, HPNA (phone-line networking) has given way to Ethernet. And setup, which was finicky in the past, has become drop-dead simple: Unpack the E-120, plug in the audio cables, plug in Ethernet, choose default answers to a dozen setup questions, and enter your local ZIP code. In 5 minutes you're ready to rip your first CD and listen to Internet and Sirius radio stations.

For track information, the E-120 accesses Gracenote, the best-known and slickest of the online CD-lookup services. The Integra and Kenwood jukeboxes also use Gracenote.

The E-120's rear panel has input and output connectors for TVs and computer monitors, infrared extenders (so you can hide the player in a closet), and analog and digital audio and video. The remote is heavy on buttons—58—but it's fairly logical as button-heavy remotes go. Even so, many users will opt for a custom remote ($1,000 and up). Ripping a 1-hour CD took 11 minutes, pokey by PC standards but decent for an audio device.

From the PC perspective, the only knock on the E-120 is its price: No PC device with a 6X CD-RW drive and 120GB would cost this much. (A 40GB version, the E-40, is $1,999 list.) Among audio devices, though, when you want the best, you have to pay for it.