Review: SliMP3

Frequent readers of Slashdot know that I'm an MP3 junkie. Hell, even casual readers probably know that at this point. This week I review another MP3 player, Slim Device's small wonder, SliMP3. And this $269 is really worth a good look.

So what is it? Its a small MP3 player with no internal storage of its own. It has an ethernet port, RCA audio outputs (you'll need an external amp!), and a power plug. It has a really bright little screen for displaying song information and a remote. It's about the size of a car stereo faceplate, but a little thicker.

It doesn't have a fancy plastic box. The backside is simply an exposed circuit board. But thats sorta the idea: this is a toy that can work for users, but is also hugely designed to be a hacker toy.

Configuring the device is easy. The latest version has DHCP, but I tested it on a network that lacked the protocol. I put the IP in of my 'Server' and gave the unit its own IP and I was off and running. The server is a perl program you download from the Slim Devices web site. It supposedly will run on on Linux, Windows, MacOS, FreeBSD, BeOS, and MacOSX. It worked great on my linux box. Trivially easy. This unit was the easiest to set up of any MP3 player I have ever used. Of course, I was already running Linux and had Perl ;)

You can control the SliMP3 with a remote control, but the server optionally can just serve up HTML on a high port number and set your playlists up via an acceptable web interface. And since its perl, its all ready for you to hack yourself. The code itself is fairly legible... there's a mailing list, and it is actively being developed.

The closest competitor to the SliMP3 is the Audiotron. The audiotron is almost the same price, has an optical output, a more developed HTML interface, and is physically a nice stereo component. It is a far more mature product. But the audiotron uses SMB file sharing and controls everything within itself. The SliMP3 uses an open source server program to stream the audio to the player. So the smarts are mostly on the PC. Which of course lends itself to easy hacking.

The interface currently is pretty sparse. Some places display filenames where ID3 tags would be preferred. I was unable to get it to load a 20,000 track playlist. But the server software is under active development, and these things should both be resolved in a not-so-distant release.

There are a variety of cool projects that could conceivably be hacked into this thing. A GTK-Perl interface would be super smooth. Cross-fade functions. Intelligent playlist creation. Tivo style thumbs up-thumbs down track rating for music playback. And this is the first MP3 player I've seen that things like this are possible because the code is right there and ready to rip apart. It's even legible!

If you need a pretty box, or demand optical connections to your reciever, go with the audiotron. If you want something tiny, or just want to hack at your MP3 player stereo component, this is a great way to go.

Comments

"The code itself is fairly legible... "

[seanmeister]

Does this really mean anything, considering the source? I've never looked at Slashcode, but I've heard rumors...

I must be missing something

[kilgore_47]

What is the point of controlling it from your computer? Why not use WinAmp? If you're running ethernet to your stereo so you can use this little device, wouldn't it be cheaper to just run audio cable to the stereo? It's a cool product, I guess, but I just couldn't see shelling out that much money for a device that will give me zero extra functionality over a PC with a soundcard, especially when that device still requires the PC.

Re:I must be missing something

[.@.]

The web feature allows you to control the device from _any_ computer (it's a web server), to easily build playlists and similar, and to provide functionality comparable to similar devices. You don't have to use it. It's just a nicety.

The SliMP3 will also play audio streams (Live365, Shout/Icecast, etc.) as well as locally-stored MP3s.

Does it do something more than my computer? You bet. It lets me listen to all my MP3s, playlists, and streams in my living room on my $5,000 stereo, rather than in my home office on my $200 speakers. I even use it via 802.11b, so there's really no problem with wiring.

Re:I must be missing something

[4mn0t1337]

From what I understand:
wouldn't it be cheaper to just run audio cable
1. Audio cable runs can only be so long with out degradation of signal. Cat5 has longer run length.

Why not use WinAmp
2. Web interface. Is there client control for WinAmp?

3. The device has an IR remote. Much better than running upstairs (or downstairs) to switch tracks on a server in another room.

4.It is designed as an audio component. It can sit with the rest of your stereo. And can be operated as such by people that don't need to be messing around on your computer.

5. It can serve mulitple devices. You can serve your 80GB audio collection throughout the house to multiple locations. It is much more difficult to split line level audio output across 4 locations.

Re:I must be missing something

[easter1916]

Salut à toi EX Punk anarchiste devenu nouveau mouton conformiste...

You don't honestly think that there's any difference between an anarchist punk and a conformist sheep, do you? Punk may have been non-conformist in the 70's, now it's just another fashion.

Re:I must be missing something

[adolf]

I must be missing something, too:

1. Audio cable runs can only be so long with out degradation of signal. Cat5 has longer run length.

Wrong. 100MHz ethernet over Cat5 tops out at, what, ~100 meters? Analog audio can go for hundreds of miles. The local loop for my telephone here is 25 miles big.

The trick? Balanced signals. For the price of this box, one can have balanced line drivers for every room in the house, which can consist of as little as an op amp, or a transformer, or a somewhat more-expensive pre-fab box. In my line of work, I've used -lots- of several-hundred-foot runs of audio cable, and a few thousand foot runs in places like schools and factories. Never a problem, as long as it's balanced... better audio equipment includes balanced IO out of the box, anyhow.

As for the rest of your claims and queries:

There probably is a Web interface for Winamp, somewhere in the world. However, why do you care?

You're worried about it being operated by people that don't need to be messing around on a computer. But, whatever the case, if not winamp, there's a thousand other players which -do- have some manner of intregration with http.

The remote is a nice touch. And if you'd studied your X10 popups like a good boy, you'd see bit of kit they sell which has remote, expressly intended for controlling an MP3-playing computer with, say, Winamp running on it. If you speak unix, you might also look at the LIRC project for remote control.

And, it's vastly easier to install audio wiring to multiple points than computer networks. No need for a hub, or expensive termination tools - wirenuts, solder, or crimp-on splices from the telco industry are the order of the day. It doesn't get much more simple. If you're running things balanced, Cat5 will work fine for wire, though I prefer Belden 2200. It's cheap, stranded, a little heavier-guage than cat5, shielded, and can withstand a lot of abuse during installation (as opposed to Cat5, which will break if you look at it funny).

That all said, >$250 for a device which can only play MP3s stored elsewhere, over a network, seems silly to me. Especially when it doesn't even match the rest of the stereo - did you even read the review? It's the size of a car stereo faceplate, but a little thicker, with a bare circuit board on the back. Not my idea of a finished, quality audio component.

Hmmm...

[Kefabi]

$250+ for an MP3 player that doesn't have it's own storage with a display that doesn't exactly look as professional as other MP3 players on the market...

And it's not even availiable yet! I wonder how CmdrTaco got his. A "free" review copy perhaps?

Re:Hmmm...

[seanadams.com]

$250+ for an MP3 player that doesn't have it's own storage with a display that doesn't exactly look as professional as other MP3 players on the market...

Umm... not storing the files on the player is the whole point! The idea is that you can have two or three of these in different rooms of your home, and they can all be controlled idependently, with your music all stored in one place. So the amount of music you can access is not limited by the player, and you don't have to replicate your collection between several hard disks.

The display is vacuum fluorescent, as opposed to LCD. They're much more expensive than LCDs, and much more readable. I had trouble taking a good photo of it though - you really need to see it in person.

I chose to go with the VFD because even though it's expensive, the $30 price difference vs. the LCD is not a huge percentage of our cost right now. Some day, we'll might make a cheaper version with a backlit LCD. Right now it doesn't make much sense cost-wise, and people generally feel that the VFD is worth the $$.

And it's not even availiable yet! I wonder how CmdrTaco got his. A "free" review copy perhaps?

Yep, I sent him a prototype so he could write the review. The product will be available for sale in 1-2 weeks.

Sean

It's cool, but expensive

[zutroy]

For $10 you can get PalmAmp software to operate WinAmp/XMMS remotely. Add some extra-long speaker cables, and you've got a more functional version of this for a whole lot less. But this is still pretty cool.

Re:Just for the sake of asking...

[toupsie]

Which portable MP3 player has the smallest form factor? How about smallest form factor with the most memory (say, 64 or 128 MB)?

The Apple iPod is:

• Height: 4.02 inches (102 mm)
• Width: 2.43 inches (61.8 mm)
• Depth: 0.78 inches (19.9 mm)
• Weight: 6.5 ounces (185 g)

Has 5 gigs of storage (4.66 formated). Thats alot of memory plus it has 20 minute skip protection. The case is also pretty strong, I just dropped mine on to a NYC street from 3 feet with only minor cosmetic damage and major heart skippping.

Danger!

[rho]

These are beer-guided MP3 players, evidinced by the second photograph down.

Not sure I want my MPEG decoder chips soldered by some beer-swilling hacker... :)

Empeg/SonicBlue/Rio Receiver

[dschuetz]

The closest competitor to the SliMP3 is the Audiotron.

I'm amazed how few people know of the Rio Receiver. It's a great little box, can be found on eBay fairly cheaply, and there's even a couple of Linux servers out for it (check out JReceiver for a hideously-complicated but wicked-cool mpeg server back-end. It's designed to interface to multiple types of systems, and could probably even have an interface built for the SliMP3.)

$250+ for an MP3 player that doesn't have it's own storage

I'm further amazed by how many people on slashdot apparently don't have networks. If I've got 30G (or more, maybe, haven't looked at the total lately) of MP3s, I don't want to have to deal with replicating that collection on different MP3 players scattered all over the house. Put it all on one box, and let smart devices do the playing. That's what SliMP3, AudioTron, and Rio are all about. Store once, play anywhere.

Now if we could only get this to be a VideoLAN client, too... :)