Logitech Squeezebox Wi-Fi Internet Radio and Wireless Music Player by Logitech
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Digital camera reviews of Logitech Squeezebox Wi-Fi Internet Radio and Wireless Music Player
Digital camera Review: Awesome product
Summary: 5 Stars
I use the Squeezebox every day, connecting it to my house amplifier. Since I work in a home office, music is on at all times. I use an Internet music service, so I am able to customize the play list. Before Squeezebox, if I tried to play the music service through my computer speakers, based on memory usage, I was constantly getting sound dropouts. Now, it's like listening to CDs or perfect reception FM radio. The difference is that I get to customize my channel to reflect what I like to hear. After reading the instructions a second time, it was fairly easy to set up, and it has worked flawlessly since. I am reasonably sure that I have sold several other people on the product as well. The Squeezebox is right up there with sliced bread.Digital camera Review: Best money I've spent in a good while...
Summary: 5 Stars
Got it, set it up easily, installed software on my PC, located and scanned my hefty (33K songs) iTunes database, and I was in business. Very easy to configure, plays ALL my non-DRM songs regardless of format (there are limitatsions, but AFAICT, if iTunes will play it, i think the Squeeze will too.
Only drawback is that, since the music is now playing through my Yamaha Z-series receiver and Polk speaker setup, I had to re-code my songs to a higher bit rate when possible. The SOUND this thing outputs is GREAT!!!
I control the unit from anywhere around the house with either a laptop or my iPhone (buy iPeng for the iPhone to make your iPhone into a great Squeezebox remote with album art). Why did i wait so long to buy one of these?
Digital camera Review: Best solution I know for whole house music
Summary: 5 Stars
I have 3 of these. One functions as my alarm clock, and provides music in my bedroom. (What can I say - waking up to Holst's "Mars, God of War" is really the only way to go for me, and not many alarm clocks come with that as an option.) Another for the living room and the third is in a home theater.
As others have noted, to handle your own music collection, you have to install the squeeze server software on a computer, and if you want music available 24/7 that means you need to leave a computer on 24/7. People with no technical background may find installation of the software slightly daunting, though not worse than most. Note that you don't need to have a PC running if you just want to use the squeezebox for internet radio. For you own music collection, though, you need at least a modest computer to be on.
My computer solution is an Asus EEEbox, which only draws 13W for typical use, so leaving it on all the time is not too rough on my power bill. There are other computer solutions that may draw less power, but I like the EEEbox because it is more than fast enough to handle the squeeze software, and I already have it on anyway for other purposes.
In the home theater I use the squeeze box's optical out, to take the digital signal into a Bryston preamp with a very good DAC. But the DAC in the squeezebox is pretty good too, and I'm generally quite happy to use it in the other two rooms (but see addendum, below). Musically, these little devices do a very good job, better than most people will ever need.
Note that the Squeezebox has a software-adjustable (not physical) volume control, so you can connect it directly to an amp; a preamp isn't strictly speaking required. But if you go direct to an amp, make SURE you lower the volume setting on the squeezebox before turning on the amp for the first time. Out of the box, the squeezebox volume is at 100%. That's not a mistake you want to make. (Addendum: the one I just bought to replace one fried by lightning, was set to 50%, out of the box. Smart move.)
I'm not very fond of the web page interface to the squeeze server. It's not terrible - I just don't like web interfaces for device control in general. So I wrote my own interface to the squeeze server, and the wonderful thing about the squeezebox system is that it lets a software person get complete control of the device. If you can write software to open a TCP socket, you can build any sort of user interface you like. This is *wonderful* in home automation. In my house, the squeezeboxes are not only the music providers and alarm clocks; they make "gong" noises when someone rings the doorbell, play short melodies when important events are coming up on my calendar and and talk to me when there's a water leak in the basement. In my experience the squeeze server software is not perfect, but most people will never notice the limitations, and I was able to work around every problem I found. Logitech's support is NOT as good as the original designer of these devices, but all the documentation you need to write custom software for these things is out there if you want it.
The remote control is adequate. I really only use mine to turn off the alarm clock, since I have the aforementioned software to control them all, but scrolling though albums with the remote isn't all that painful, and the squeezebox display does a good job of letting you know what you're doing.
The devices are robust - the only one I ever had that died was during a lightning strike that fried my entire network (it was a wired squeezebox, not a wireless one, and the ethernet port took a serious jolt when the ether switch on the other end cooked.) They just work. People using wireless connections should keep the squeezebox near the wireless access point; the wireless interface is somewhat forgiving, but it has limits and there's no way to affix an external antenna to boost range. I've never had a stutter at 15', but 100' might be a very different matter.
It's possible to "slave" multiple squeezeboxes so they all play the same song in unison. This is probably nice if you want to have your whole house filled with the same music; I don't use the feature myself. And the various "screensaver" modes tucked away in this thing are somewhat amusing.
No moving parts, high reliability, really good sound quality, fairly simple web interface. It plays .wav, .flac (my favorite choice), .mp3, and a number of other formats. It's hard to go wrong with this thing. Very recommended.
Addendum: I don't want to overstate this device's capabilities, so I'll add this. My much loved audio processor (Bryston SP1.7) got fried by lightning, so I swapped in a Bryston BP-20, which for stereo and analog purposes is about equivalent. But the BP-20 is just a preamp - no DAC and no optical input. So I used the DAC output from the Squeezebox, for the first time in this room.
The difference was so startling I went back and checked the wiring, and then checked the squeezebox's software settings. It's admittedly quite unfair to compare a $200 device with a very high end audio processor costing well more than ten times as much. The squeezebox does a very decent job, but just it's not in the league of much more expensive gear, like Bryston's. In comparison, things sounded warm, sometimes glassy, and sometimes vague ("hazy"), to risk some audiophile jargon. Again, this is in comparison to high end gear and shouldn't be taken as condemnation of the squeezebox. For $200 you are unlikely to do better. But through a Bryston preamp, Bryston amp, and VMPS RM/x speakers you'll hear what it can and can't do, and I'm going straight back to the Bryston processor as soon as it's repaired.
Digital camera Review: Best thing that ever happened to Internet radio
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had this product since it was first introduced (7+yrs ago??)... I bought one of the first hundred or so produced. It has performed flawlessly... never a glitch. Superb sound quality when wired to a superb sound system (it won't compensate for a poor quality system, of course). It has been one of the greatest pleasures of my life. Grab the nusic you love and dance 'til dawn! Worth more than money!Digital camera Review: Better than the Duet
Summary: 4 Stars
I have an SB3 and a Duet with two receivers and the SB3 is much more stable. The Duet has proven to be a disaster, crashing repeatedly and just too buggy for it to be useful. The SB3 in contrast has performed perfectly out of the box with no connection problems, no wireless network problems (and a greater range than the supposedly improved duet receiver)It would be nice to have the bells and whistles of the Duet Controller but I would advise anyone starting off to buy the SB3 and wait until - if - they get the bugs out of the Duet. One other advantage of the SB3, you can actually see the readout in sunlight, the Duet's LCD screen is illegible in the sun.