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Review of Squeezebox MP3 Player
The Squeezebox has no local storage. It is entirely reliant upon some other PC in your house to store your data. Now I have used a great many devices with internal storage, and external storage, and what it comes down to is that this is the best of breed for streaming devices. You install a tiny server application, and go. The server app itself is written in perl, and has been ported to Linux, Windows, and OS X. For this review I tested by running the server on an iMac so I could try out the iTunes integration.
The server installed in seconds. The only real setting required of me was to choose the source of my music in a freshly installed prefPane. You can choose either iTunes, or an arbitrary directory. Setting up the Squeezebox was just as easy. Plug it in, turn it on, and answer a few questions. In my case, the only question I had to enter was the password key for my wireless network: DHCP takes care of the networking, and the client detected the server running on my iMac through Rendezvous without any action on my part.
The unit itself is incredibly minimal. Of course there is a power jack. Next, your input options are a standard network jack, and an antenna for 802.11b wireless networking. And finally for output, you can choose between a standard set of RCA analog outputs, an optical digital port, and a coaxial digital port. You plug the thing into your stereo, and you're ready to go.
So after barely a minute, I'm ready to listen to music. First, you can use the included remote control to choose artists, albums, or playlists. You can play. Shuffle. Skip. All the usual things that you want from your remote. But that's only scratching the surface of the power behind this device.
The Squeezebox makes use of the new 5.0 version of the fabulous SlimServer. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that this is the best web interface available for playing MP3s... and as a little secret, the player will work with any shoutcast capable client. I used an earlier version in my house to stream to laptops before daapd and iTunes 4 made that unnecessary. But I still use it to stream occasionally if I want 2 locations to be playing the same music.
The web interface provides you with an extensive roster of tools for manipulating playlists, viewing cover art (available from thumbnails, or from ID3 tags). The web interface makes dealing with larger MP3 collections quite simple. And since it announces itself via Rendezvous, you don't even need to remember the IP of the device. As if that isn't enough, the interface is tremendously flexible: almost everything can be changed, from the contents of the menu, to the skin of the HTML.
As if thats not enough, the device is capable of playing AACs (not the encrypted variety tho!) or OGGs if that happens to be your format of choice. Things will sound about as good as can be expected for MP3s. If you have a decent stereo and use one of the digital outputs, you wiil really want to start ripping your tracks at much higher bit rates.
The Squeezebox has done great things to integrate with iTunes, but it could go a few steps further. The only major thing lacking from the interface is the concept of track rating, and I would love to see that available to me at least from the web interface, and possibly let me use the remote to add or remove stars- I think this is the only really substantial thing lacking from this system. Besides the rating system, it would be great if iTunes & the Slim Server shared values for things like when I last played a track, or the total number of times I've played a given track. Then my numbers would add up no matter where in the house I was listening to my music. Lastly, it would be nice if the playlists in iTunes and Slim Server were truly shared. As it stands, iTunes playlists are read only to Slim, and Slim playlists are non existent to iTunes. I'd love to have a single unified interface for tracking my playlists.
It's also worth noting that the Slimdevices folks continue to develop their web interface. There are frequent updates, and they are constantly adding new features. And of course, since the whole thing is perl, I guess I could hack all of this in myself if I wasn't such a lazy bum.
Now it's time for me to cover the one and only downside to this great little device: The cost. Yes, we're talking $300... and you still need an external machine to host the actual songs. But you are not limited by disk space that way. And with the 802.11b, you can plug this in anywhere in your home... even those pesky rooms that didn't come with cat-5 already wired in. So yeah, it's a bit steep of a price to pay, but this device is really your best bet for getting your large MP3 collection to any location in the house you desire. The elegant web interface, the amazing customizability, the simplicity of installation, and the flexibility of server applications really make this a no brainer.
Anyone who is a frequent reader of these pages knows of my obsession
I'm sure they're both aware, yes.
anyhow.. 802.11b MP3 players? Very cool, however the product page doesn't mention encryption, does this leave the product open to lawsuits by RIAA for transmitting the music where a neighbour could potentially snag it?
Trolling is a art,
said any advantage this mp3 player has over other ones, would there really be any point in upgrading from my current mp3 player? It would be nice if you could discuss those points.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
As cool as this device is, I think I'm going to let the market for devices like this take a little more form before I start buying anything.
Yes, I know what the song really means; that's why I posted AC
My DVD player does MP3, and is connected to my Sound System for Dolby Surround. If I didn't have the DVD connected, nor a MP3 capable mini system, still a portable MP3 CD Player would be more value for my dollar, even if less geeky.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
... if you haven't already got fibre routed throughout your dwelling, you're no geek in *my* eyes! :-)
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Maybe he was using "Lame" as a noun, rather than an adjective. You know, the encoder. I know it doesn't make sense, but coming from him it might, no?
Man receives expensive mp3 player for review
Man likes it, of course, it's really nice
Man posts good review of it on his website, guaranteeing he'll receive further units for evaluation in the future
Circle of life completes, wheel in the sky keeps on turnin', etc
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The main problem I have with devices like this (I own the Turtle Beach Audiotron) is that they don't support crossfading. This seems like it would be trivially easy to implement in firmware - so why hasn't someone done it yet?
I think I'm going to wait until I can get a cheap box that will play DVDs, CDs, as well as connect to a network and play MP3s and DIVXs... Doesn't the hush do that?
It was a lame product then and it's a lame product now. There are many other products doing more for less.
does a much better (professional) job of reviewing things like this, by the way.
I had a friend looking for something like this a few months back. I'm going to dig up his email address and send him this review. Plus, this is probably what I'll end up getting for my living room, playing it off my Linux file server. As long as the server can run text-mode.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
It's $299. You could buy an xbox and mod it for the same functionality for under 200 nowadays. Anyone ever here of xbox media player/center? Store music on your xbox or stream from your computer in a variety of ways. You could even splurge for an xbox 802.11b adapter if ya want.
I had been considering a slimp3 player since they first came out. I convinced myself I didn't need one, and I could wait until they integrated wireless and a digital optical out.
In the mean time, I purchased an audrey from ebay and set that up. The audrey is on the network, and offers touch-screen browsing of music and playlists right at the machine, instead of having to build your playlists on a computer through a web browser.
Man, tough choice though, they're both seriously cool.
idiot - this isnt about handheld players
5. Price. For once, Apple is not selling the most expensive product on the market. The iPod sells for very little above what the HD alone would sell for
As much as I would like to own an iPod, I have to disagree with the above statement. Check Pricewatch... EIDE 30 Gig disk, as low as $39. Or a firewire 30 gigger for about $54. And a 30 gig iPod goes for upwards of $450. I love the iPod and really want one, but they are darn near the most expensive product in it's class.
The iPod is a completely different beast. This review is talking about a standalone player that is permanently hooked into your stereo, useful for people who don't want to find their ipod and plug it in every time they want to use it with the stereo, or want to listen to shoutcast in the living room
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
I have a Rio MP3 Receiver which I bought for $55 USD. The out-of-the-box software isn't that great, but that's easily changeable with anyone of a number of different projects. It also has a network jack (no wifi, but so what...you can just plug it into an access point for a total cost of far less than $300), plus Home PNA, and it also sounds great.
So what makes this thing worth all that extra money ?
And what do people here think about wireless multimedia devices anyways ? I've had enough problems trying to get my laptop to even talk to my wireless router through a few walls when they're less than 100 ft away... it seems to me that trying to stream multimedia over the same sort of link isn't going to be that reliable if you have a larger home and/or less than ideal geometry. It's exactly this concern that prompted me to spend the money to retrofit my house with CAT6 throughout.
The iPod is a completely different class of device. Comparing it with this is like chalk and cheese! I have a SLIMP3 and it's a great device - much better in the home than disc-based players. I wouldn't want to take it with me when I go out though - that's what your iPod is for.
Symphony no. 9 in D Minor.
;)
I guess, to avoid ALL possible snarling from the RIAA, they made it be playing something nobody could ever find on Kazaa.
Damn right! That 99.00 USD you pay for a battery is about the least expensive batter in the world!
AHHHHH!
Looks like our humble reviewer forgot to mention one big side effect of one on the cons.
The fact that it cannot play encrypted AAC mean that it would not be able to play the songs you purchased on iTMS. So long for iTunes integration.
Sure you can burn your playlist and convert it to MP3 but it would be better if that step would not be required.
Yeah, but those are plain old IDE hard drives that are mass-manufactured by everyone under the sun, whereas the iPod uses an extremely small laptop hard drive produced exclusively by Toshiba.
"Programming is like sex - one mistake and you'll have to support it for the rest of your life."
This device is not intended to replace an iPod. It is intended to be a permanent part of a home entertainment system. iPods typically don't come with a remote for instance and do go missing when your wife goes out. The only thing it has in common with the iPod is that it plays compressed music. Don't get me wrong, iPods are cool but are not the first idea that is going to occur to me if I want to add a music player to my entertainment system.
I like the idea of a finished, small, and featureful device that uses the music already on your computer on your big stereo. The problem is that this thing costs waaaaay to much. I'd pay a hundred for it, a hundred 125 tops.
I would think that it would be possible to add more data sharing between iTunes and the SlimServer app. Most of the iTunes data is stored in an XML file in \My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music Library.xml. The SlimServer is open source, so if you really wanted that feature you might be able to hack it in yourself.
I looked at the older non-Wifi SLIMP3 before deciding it was rather expensive, but the device itself is INCREDIBLY simple and all the work is done in the server software. That means that there's no fundamental reason why you (or Slim) couldn't add cross-fading to the server. But they haven't done this.
By the way, does anyone know any decent MP3 players that do crossfading on Linux. All the Windows ones seem to be getting all sorts of clever auto-mixing capability but Linux stuff just plays 1 song then the next.
In soviet russia stale jokes recycle you!
You go jogging wearing jeans? Oh well, to each his/her own....
You can stream uncompressed PCM audio to it, so in a sense it supports anything you want audio-wise.
Ipod is better ? So is a Chevy Malibu, for driving. The iPod is a personal listening device. The slimp3 is a home stereo add on. Completely different purpose. And I dont see an optical out on an iPod.
Yep... and we know how well a 30 GB EIDE or Firewire drive fits in your pocket. Let me guess... you built that PDA in your backpack yourself? Oh, that's not a backpack, that's your PDA? My apologies. At least your back's getting some good exercise now, right?
Now if you actually USE your link and notice that the pocket USB drives run $150 for 40 GB, then your argument holds less water, now don't it. Then, add in the LCD screen, the remaining CPU and chipset, and the audio equipment, and it holds even less.
But I can vouch for the server side of it, since I'm currently streaming music from my server downstairs to here.
I particularly like the fact that each player can have it's own playlist if that's what you want, so everyone can stream from the same server, but have their own playlists set up so that you don't piss off the person downstairs by skipping the track you don't like.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
I just got a new Sony self system that has 'Wireless Audio Transfer' (WAT). Basically, it has a seperate RF attenna that you attach to the sound card of your PC (or other audio device) and the shelf system will pick up the audio feed wirelessly. Not quite as versitile as the system reviewed here, but the sound on this system is incredible! Plus, you get the whole system (has a 60 CD changer) for $299. If it had an MD player instead of tape deck it would be perfection.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
I've had this capability (plus much more) for about a year through my xbox. Highly recommended for those who have an xbox but realize the game selection is microscopic.
I know the functionality is lesser, and there's no digital out (we ARE talking about mp3 here), but I'll stick with my TiVo with Home Media Option. One device, consistent interface, public server API, and more importantly, ONE box in my cabinet... can't beat it.
Does Squeezebox support Ogg Vorbis?
If you have both LAME and the oggtools installed, SlimServer will automatically convert Ogg files to raw PCM on the fly for playback.
I mean.. this isn't ideal, but it will play them.. so who cares? In some ways, this is even cooler, as it allows you to play anything can be changed into a PCM stream (some hacking may be requird, but if they already have it set up to do one, I can't see it being that hard to have it do others)..
I think it's cool. And to everyone who says it's too expensive, you need to get a real job. I'm sick of all these high school and college kids saying "ooh, it's too expensive.. why would you spend $400 on a video card?" BECAUSE I CAN. Just like I can spend $300 on a streaming music player. I'm not rich, but I make a good living as a software developer and can afford cool toys. I wouldn't want them to dumb this down to make it $150. I want a $300 player with a sweet interface and a nice remote control.
...i've been thinking about these two concepts a lot lately, wireless bandwidth and digital media...
Now that we have mwISP's (mobile wireless ISP's), there is the potential to stream any song from your home network right to your laptop. AT&T's mobile internet services are up to 200 kbps burst speed with 100 - 130 maintained...so it's possible to stream your 128 bit rate mp3's ogg's and the like (forget thoughs evil wma's) right to your mobile phone or laptop. No need for local storage...
Imagine having access to your 5,000 song digital media library...ANYwhere!
Watcha think?
Disclaimer: I don't know what I'm talking about.
Please note that the information in the article is wrong. As far as I can read on the products web page, it does not support Ogg Vorbis or AAC. It does however support uncompressed sound, which is probably WAV or something much like it, and the server can (of course) decode whatever codecs you put into it (it's open source!) and stream the uncompressed audio.
This doesn't feel right. I'd rather have native support. Come on! Put a CPU in the box instead of an MP3-decoder chip. The Wi-fi stuff is probably where the cost is anyway!
I can because think of all of the millions of ME, 2k, XP home, XP pro, and soon to be longhorn machines that get hacked every day! In an unsecured wireless connection with the default "MSHOME" (85-86% of these are), I can be able to print porn on the person's printer, initiate a small scale DoS attack, get kiddie porn, and sniff out all personal information, without doing much more than clicking a couple of buttons in XP's wireless adapter options. Think of this: silent millions against the responsible few. Where's the majority of insecurity? Not where you say it is. Get a life you stupid troll.
litigious bastards
suck it sco!
A) Please tell me why you need optical out on the iPod if you are using it for a stereo add on. No really, please tell me. what are you hooking it up to. Cus the iPod does hook up to your stereo making is a personal listening device and a home stereo add on.
B) What world do you live in where a Chevy Malibu is better for driving!?
__
Thou hast besquirted me, O leotarded one.
Actually AC, you're half right. Sure a pocket 40 gig goes for $150, that's still $300 less than the sticker price of an iPod. Not, as the OP said "just a little above..." Read the whole thread son. Now I remember why I don't post here anymore....
I own the previous model (slimp3) and I have to say that it is the best purchase I have made in quite a few years. It cost a pretty penny getting it up into Canada but it was worth it.
I now have access to every CD I have ever owned (ripped at 320kbs) at the push of a button. This reality has literally changed my life. I now watch less tv because getting my slimp3 up and running is easier then turning the tv on and hunting for something to watch.
No, the squeeze box isn't portable but that's not what it was designed for; just as the iPod wasn't designed for stereo integration. The SqueezeBox gives you audiophile quality sound, infinite expansion capabilities, ease of operation, no moving parts, a high quality display, and an open source server that will never leave you high and dry. No other product on the market has this level of flexibilty, adaptability and openness.
P.S. I urge everyone to think about the non-obvious benefits of instant music access. In these trying times music can offer an unexpected shelter from stress and frustration.
Cyclone Music Key
Ain't it cool?
for those of your attempting to download the slimserver software (seems their download form is currently not functioning), the direct download URL for the latest version's source is:
_ v5 .0.1/SlimServer_v5.0.1.tar.gz
http://www.slimdevices.com/downloads/SlimServer
*loads up wifi card and scans area for squeezeboxes :D*
:D
:D
Can you imagine the fun one can have with this
Next up, wifi tv
"I believe that the cult of the particular brings only death - for it bases order on likeness." St.-Exupery
Wow. It's stunningly obvious that you've completely missed the point of SlimDevices products.
1. You don't need to synch - there's no local memory/storage
2. It's not a portable device
3. It supports both OGG AND AAC
4. See 1 and 2
5. It's the same price as the cheapest IPod (ok, $1 more), but this is pointless because they aren't even competing in the same market!
IPod = Portable digital music player / HDD
Squeezebox = Wireless, digital home audio player
A TiVo unit with lifetime subscription is $600, and I've read that the media player function is tied to the TV listing subscription.
I had been worried that it would be too painful to find music from as large a collection as mine using only the remote control's numeric keypad, and that I'd end up having to use the Web interface to control playlists, which is less convenient. However, the browsing and searching functionality built into the Squeezebox worked much better than I'd expected. Browsing by artist is quick - you zoom down to the right section of the alphabet with a few keypresses on the remote's numeric pad (e.g., press "7" once for P, twice for Q, and so on), then use the up/down buttons to scroll to the right artist. You can then browse the list of albums or tracks. You can also do a search for keywords in the title.
One feature that surprised me, but that I quite like having seen it, is that the indexing software ignores prepositions in artist names. So the list of artists starting with "S" went something like "Sarah McLachlan", "The Seekers", "Severe Tire Damage", ..., "Sting", "The Strawbs", "Sunday's Well". It also handled accented characters without a glitch: "äaut" was treated the same as "a" in terms of sorting and searching. Neither of these features is really appropriate outside the English-speaking world (in Swedish, "äaut" shouldn't sort with "a", but at the end of the alphabet), but they work great for me. (Yes, those should be real a-with-umlaut characters but Slashcode seems to strip them out if I enter them properly. Sigh.)
The display is bright and easy to read, and if you're too far away, one button press on the remote switches it to double-size characters, which can be read from across the room.
$300 is a little expensive for a toy like this, but it's going to make a huge difference to the way that we listen to music at home. We'd already got a dedicated 24/7 home file server holding the music collection, and the Squeezebox is the perfect complement to that. We're already discussing whether to get a second one for another room.
hahahahahahaha good troll, now we can stop feeding it.
really caught a crapload of em eh?
Idiot. Laptop hard drives are 2.5" -- still much bigger than the footprint of the iPod. The real kind of hard disks used are 1.8" drives, which are even more expensive.
even those pesky rooms that didn't come with cat-5 already wired in. You mean like the ones in every single house not built in the last 5 years?
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
Taco forgot to mention the display. This is really the best feature of my first-generation SliMP3 (which has the same display AFAIK). It's a large, bright VFD that can be read from across a large room (my living room is 25 feet long). No TV required.
Squeezebox. Maybe it's been optimized to play accordion music.
You mean it's not a portable player with 802.11 for wireless P2P when several users ride the same subway? Damn! Any HK company developing a plugin for iPOD yet?
I picked my wife up one of these: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1051806 327788&skuId=5446902&type=product
Anyone used one that can give me some thoughts before she starts using it?
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I'd like to pick one up if I can find it cheap enough.
Not quite, Dell uses the Hitachi 1.8" Drives vs the Toshiba ones and it managed to make their player 100-150$ cheaper then the iPod. I love my iPod dont get me wrong, but its not made exclusively by toshiba, and thats not why its so expensive.
You are wrong. It is "oGg", although "ogG" is considered acceptable, though not 100% correct.
but I am at work. :(
Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps. -- Emo Phillips
The key difference between devices like this one and the Audiotron is that they rely on having the mp3's stored in another location. This means that you never run out of capacity (when you do, you jsut upgrade the hard drive in your PC).
As the previous poster said, this is a home audio device, not a portable player, so it's a different approach and a different feature set. Better in absolute terms? I dunno, maybe. Better for the home-audio environment it was designed for? Almost certainly.
A very cool device, but it requires special server software. This is presumably because the unit itself does not have enough horsepower to support NFS/SMB/etc. for accessing MP3 files from a music server. Either that, or they were too lazy to put the required code into the player itself. In any case, a good player like the Audiotron can do this, and has ethernet/home plug, so I see little reason for buying this MP3 player. It would make a good hacker toy, since the guts apparently live on the server side, but otherwise I'd get something else. (Yes, the Audiotron does not yet support WiFi, but it will soon. You can also use a WET-11 or the like for an additional $50 or so.)
So successful bashing is based on plurality alone? You mean comment bias doesn't exist? You live in Florida, right?
You're a marketer's dream (10 out of 15 respondents swear our product is best!!! ).
The features are all really cool and everything but what I really want to know is "how good is the sound"? Without getting into signal to noise ratios yada yada, is it quiet between tracks? No hiss. No hum. Not picking up any interference from flourescent lights, or garage door openers or anything. I want pure sound when the tunes are cranked. So... is the sound really clean?
GlooLabs HomePod Of course, it's currently vaporware, as it was originally supposed to be ready last March and it's not available yet, but it's $50 less and looks as if it may do more, if and when it ships.
I was keeping up until we got to the TV part. I can't afford one of those.
And to everyone who says it's too expensive, you need to get a real job. I'm sick of all these high school and college kids saying "ooh, it's too expensive.. why would you spend $400 on a video card?" BECAUSE I CAN.
OK, "Because I can" is fine - it's a free country and you're free to spend as you wish for what you want. I also agree that it's silly to complain that anything like this is "too expensive" - but for a different reason: the company can charge whatever they think will be profitable to them. It's not like I deserve to be able to buy whatever I want.
However, I'm calling you on your blatant classism. As if only high school & college students are unable to get a high-paying job. As if there aren't millions of people struggling to get by in this country, let alone the rest of the world. Janitors, line workers, waitresses, telemarketers - heck, any job you or I or anyone else I can think of - these are all "real jobs", and pejoratively saying that people who are not skilled enough or lucky enough to have a job like yours "need to get a real job" is terrible.
You may not be rich, but just because you can afford the toys you want doesn't mean those who can't are somehow not working hard enough.
It's extremely silly for anyone to complain about the price of such obvious luxury items, but it's extremely rude to suggest that there's something wrong with people who can't afford such items.
As i understand, you DO need a web-broser to interface with the box, so why not just connect the PC directly to the stereo?
...
If you are worried that will feed the sound when you're watching pr0n into the stereo add one more soundcard.
I got a P3-700 sitting under my video, hooked to the stereo and TV. It does PVR, mp3-play, routing, dhcp server, NAT, print-deamon, wireless access point,
The whole thing set me back around $190, one year ago.
SLOGEN [ http://ungdomshus.nu : Sebastian cover music]
...but what if you can't? I can't. Family considerations are very important, and I can't just put a big frickin' 480GB RAID5 fileserver in my living room. My kids would destroy the thing. I want instant access to all my FLAC files, and the Squeezebox provides it.
Cool toys... grow up, you tool. Do you seriously think that the only people who think $300 is a lot for this thing are students? How about people with a shred of sense? Are they all students? I don't remember suddenly becoming a moron after I got my degree.
The next time you're going mimbo your way into BestBuy and swipe your Visa for some gadget with a stunningly large markup, stop for a moment and think about where else that cash might be better spent. I'll tick off a few: retirement savings, the needy, further education... there are many, my child. Consider them and be enlightened.
Frequent readers also know about your Who obsession.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
It's the choice, not the expense.
server running all day just for music.
You seem to know a lot, what would you recommend for a good, wired component with storage to play mp3s?
(I just spent a MONTH running one cat5e cable to my family room and I am going to get the most out of it if it kills me. For future reference, do not assume it will be easy to run a cable up two stories on an external wall (no internal walls) in a half brick (brick = 3 wall layers, not 2, with lots of cross members) half vinyl home an attic that would be a tight sqeaze for a rat that is filled with blown fiberglass insulation. Yes, now that I have 5 holes in the wall and unknown number of holes drilled I will run a second cable along the first, or maybe more)
If you own 1000 cd's?!
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
In my book this is aimed at the intersection of the hardcore audiophile and computerphile crowds -- and I'm not sure how big a market that is, really. A fair number of them would be high school and college students, wouldn't they? Is this the same set of people who'd buy an iPod? Seems a little less mainstream and a little more hard core, to me -- people who care if it's lossless, right?
(And yeah, our poster seems to respond to the price point argument by saying "Why would I overpay for this? BECAUSE I CAN." S/he'd probably like to dispute the price point, but got a little worked up and went off before s/he aimed things just right. Oops)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I think Slim Devices has a wonderful gadget here, but the price is on the high side of outrageous. You can buy a gigantic Sony 400 *DVD* changer for $400 standard retail, and it'll even support MP3 encoded CR-R discs and Super Audio CD's. Yeah, it's nice to be able to stream audio straight from your PC, but if you want to store uncompressed or losslessly compressed audio, that's going to take a lot of storage space if you have a 400 disc collection. I've ripped pretty much every disc I own to my hard drives, mostly uncompressed, and it consumes well in excess of 250 gigabytes. Factor the cost of that kind of storage into the equation, and getting a proper Squeezebox configuration going (including a wireless router) could add up to well over $500.
I went with cd3o's $200 wireless media receiver a few months ago, and I've been pretty happy with my decision. Does most of what the Squeezebox does plus a few things that it doesn't do and costs $100 less. It's also a Linux device like the Squeezebox, although their server software isn't currently available for Linux (though others have apparently written a Linux server for it - check their support forums).
I think these gadgets are certainly the wave of the future, though I suspect we'll see their functions rolled into standard receivers / preamps at some point.
Thank you for your prompt and informative answer. Unlike whoever modded me down for flamebait. That person can go to hell.
Now THAT'S flamebait!
__
Thou hast besquirted me, O leotarded one.
Jogging: running to the kitchen or bathroom.
I really appreciate these guys for supporting Mac OS X and iTunes the way they are.
Why do I work 60 hour weeks if I can't splurge once in a while?
--- Ban humanity.
Mama's got a squeeze box
She wears on her chest
And when Daddy comes home
He never gets no rest
'Cause she's playing all night
And the music's all right
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
Well the kids don't eat
And the dog can't sleep
There's no escape from the music
In the whole damn street
'Cause she's playing all night
And the music's all right
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
She goes in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out
She's playing all night
And the music's all tight
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
She goes, squeeze me, come on and squeeze me
Come on and tease me like you do
I'm so in love with you
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
She goes in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out
'Cause she's playing all night
And the music's all right
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
you show me where to get a prehacked xbox for 100 or less, and i'll show you the laws covering posession of stolen property!
I like instant access to your wife's box. Fortunately, she provides it.
You must not be talking about the AudioTron. It too relies on external storage of the MP3's.
SLiMP3 and AudioTron are the only two (out of about half a dozen) makes of these devices that have made the vital realization that it is stupid to try to store the files locally on a hard drive.
..major thing lacking from the interface is the concept of track rating, and I would love to see that available to me..
They probably left track rating out, figuring you'd then create mp3-meta-rating, then a karma system, and finally another totalitarian localopoly.
The server component of SqeezeBox is free, and is called SlimServer. It's one of the best if not the best web jukebox interface available. I'm using it for a web jukebox on a server machine that is directly connected to my stereo. I'm running gstreamer as a daemon and it connects locally to the http stream that slimserver provides.
gst-launch httpsrc location=http://127.0.0.1:9000/stream.mp3 ! mad ! osssink
Free, and works great.
I opted to acquire a free, semi-broken (monitor image "shakes" on occasion, for lack of a better way to describe it, otherwise works great) 400 MHz iMac G3. This is the slot-loading variety and is fanless. I replaced the paltry and noisy stock internal drive with a cheap, larger silent Seagate drive and now the system is completely silent, ideal for music use. It sits a foot or so from the TV and stereo, and as a plus makes a great and very convenient web browser, etc, plus acts as game machine for my 2 2/3 year old. It's a fantastic music box without any of the limitations of the squeezebox and its kindred. Mind you, not everyone will be able to get one of these free, but they are getting cheaper and are already price competitive with the squeezebox, even from eBay.
--- What?
Your cave living means you failed to notice the ones worth buying are all platform independant. Linux, OS X...anything w/a browser can access and admin.
"The" is an article, not a preposition. (Those would be words like "on", "to", "with", etc.)
Sorting "a" with diaresis (umlaut if you prefer) along with "a" is not correct for Swedish, but the rules differ for each particular language. German is not the same as Swedish, for example; as for Finnish, I don't know. But for English, sorting it as an "a" is correct, since accents are, to monolingual anglophones, essentially invisible, or just decoration at best.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
You can sync or desync multiple devices around the house. Play the same playlist in sync at multiple points around a large house. With any remote, browse the library or change the music everywhere at any device. From any PC in the house, browse the library or change the music everywhere.
These things are thin terminals and the "server" box can remain in one out-of-sight location to serve files.
One poster said you can get an XBox to do the same thing. Sure, but not in sync with other XBoxes (out of the box). And not wirelessly. Sure, you can buy the wireless adapter, but then you're exceeding the price of the Squeezebox, aren't you?
It's not for everyone. Fine. Neither is the iPod, or the XBox, for that matter.
[
B) A world where the Malibu is a car, and capable of moving occupants around at high speeds, and the Slimp is a small plastic box that has no propulsion system,and would probably get crushed if you sat on it. I don't know, that's the kind of world I live in anyway. Last I checked. Did you see them building an express lane for MP3 stereo component drivers, and I missed something?
A better analogy would be to say that it is like comparing cheese with lettuce. The two are not so radically different that they would deserve chalk to cheese obstructions. So, by analogy, your analogy was somewhat like a red chair that never gets sat in.
Nothing is more clever than nothing, which is then something and no longer nothing. So it isn't really clever any more.
Rogue Amoeba has a product called Nicecast that works well with the SLIMP3 devices. Using this, you can "play" encyrpted AAC files, as well as any other format, via the SLIMP3.
Even if you do not have one of these slim devices, you can still take advantage of their server. It will allow you to stream music to other computers on your network, or even the 'net. This is a really nice feature, since sometimes I just want to stream my mp3 collection to Winamp running on an old PC in my basement. Yes I have a slimp3. I am a happy customer.
I've got two SliMP3 players now, both running wirelessly to two different stereo systems in my home off an iBook server that's connected to a 25GB music library on an external FW drive. The comments here make it clear that you really have to buy a SLiMP3 (now Squeezebox) and *use* it to appreciate how sweet it is. I've gotten rid of two CD players and stacks of CDs since the SLiMP3s came to visit, and they look GREAT nestled there in my component rack. But the single best thing about the SLiMP3 is that it boasts the best tech support of any consumer electronic or computer device I've ever purchased, bar none. Drop an e-mail to the users list and it is literally swarmed within minutes by Slim Devices staff and other experienced users who can answer any question you could ever have; it's an impressive thing to behold.
dave
I picked up the home media option more for the ability to drop the phone cord, but we're using it a lot to play MP3s. The wireless connection drops once in a while, which sucks, but there you have it. Software installation on the PC Just Worked, haven't touched it since, and as somebody else mentioned we play music more and watch TV less 'cause it's easy. Yes, I am that lazy.
Isn't it just a $200 version of something you can buy for $2.99?
dave
--->Tech stuff and NYC
I've got a cheap, high-quality solution with a do-it-yourself flair: Take a 5m cinch-cable, plug one end into your soundcard's line-out, take the other end to your stereo's amplifier, plug it in, voila! All my music, at a touch with all the comfort and features of XMMS (or Zinf, Juk, Amarok, etc.). In my opinion, a portable music player should carry around its own music, otherwise "portable" means "within 15 meters of your real entertainment center.
BTW: "Those pesky rooms without CAT5"... I live in a 14 square meters student dorm room. My net has an average speed of >1 MByte/s.
Divide et impera!
The addition of digital outputs makes this (at last) a reasonable competitor to the AudioTron.
Because they are trying to keep the price down, both SlimDevices and Turtle Beach used cheap DACs for the D->A conversion. Thus, the analog sound coming from them was pretty bad -- OK for background music but no better. And I'm no audiophile...this quality problem has been oticeable to lots of people.
The AudioTron has always had a digital out, whereas SLiMP3 did not. That means one could use the nice, high-quality DACs in a medium or high end receiver/amp, and get decent sound. That's why I bought two AudioTrons rather than these.
Now, I would probably get these instead. Ignoring the fact that Turtle Beach is due for a new device soon, we have the following differences:
AudioTron:
+ No server software, works with NAS devices
+ Typical audio component form factor
+ HPNA for those without any kind of LAN
Squeezebox
+ Additional flexibility in Perl server
+ Better web interface, integration
+ Both kinds of digital output
+ 802.11b free instead of $50 add-on
dont you pay for a real domain name instead of dyndns crap? blah blah blah not everyone can wast 300 bucks on a stereo ADD ON you asshat.
looks like they share a lot of the same features
That looks like what I want. That's the problem with XMMS; you need to understand all the things hidden in obscure plugins to discover it does everything you could possibly want.
In soviet russia stale jokes recycle you!
I have a lot of home automation gadgets, but one thing I'm still looking for is something like this that can be interrupted and passed an alternate mp3 (something like "The garage door has been open for 2 hours") via script.
there are many other products doing more for less only if you want something that is large bulky full equipment size without a good display...
The slimp3 is also 100% opensource (firmware & server software). The squeezebox has an opensource server and they are trying to work out the licensing issues to be able to release its firmware similarly.
Wired readers wouldn't give a shit about that but people reading this sure do...
I have an iPaq w/ 802.11b and there is at least one PPC program (Pocket MVP) that can connect to an icecast / shoutcast server. So I just run an icecast server to my local net, plug my wifi enabled iPaq into the stereo and there you go.
Of course, you can't change songs from the player nor do you have a remote, but if you already have a wifi PDA, might as well use what's already there.
For the love of $DEITY, loose != not win!!!!!
without a good display...? You mean like the large LCD screen TV my 'other' is connected to? While you're squinting to see what the song title is, I'm looking at image slide shows, cover art and movies off my computer...all on my large screen home theater.
:) - that's the funniest line I've seen in days!! But you're right. The average ./ reader is such the bottom feeder when it comes to doing things right.
Wired readers wouldn't give a shit about that but people reading this sure do...
Quite the snob & demographic man-about-town today, aren't we
Have a laugh at this stupid drunken slut!
I think this is the first time I've ever seen an original article, written by a Slashdot editor, on Slashdot. Why isn't this a link to somebody else's review?!
The portable player requires burned CDs
Maybe that is the reason his post's subject was "I'll rather burn CDs"
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I like the idea of a finished, small, and featureful device that uses the music already on your computer on your big stereo. The problem is that this thing costs waaaaay to much. I'd pay a hundred for it, a hundred 125 tops.
Give it a year or so...
Off topic? Off Topic?! A post of lyrics to a Who song, on a story by Taco - and the song is the same as the name of the product reviewed - is off topic? Ten bucks says that tune was at least thought of during the writing of the review.
Hell, I don't even really like The Who, and the song got stuck in my head. I'm actually suprised the review wasn't from the "daddy never sleeps at night" department.
why not just buy another soundcard and some really nice cables for $299 ?
When your music collection changes, you admittedly have to update the iPod by carrying it to your computer. How often does this happen? I don't know, but I think it's worth the following exclusive advantage:
I don't doubt, though, that the Squeezebox is one kickass box of electronics. Perhaps it's worth the price of admission just to tinker with it.
Not to dog the product, but $299 isn't realistic in this market.
Why spend 299 on a wireless mp3 player when you can get a DVD player with the same types of outputs that'll stream mpegs, photos *and* Mp3s - in either wired or wireless mode? Same setup - a server on the PC, all streamed to the player.
Check this one: GoVideo Networked DVD player
And THAT one is $249. It's a great unit - really added a lot to the home entertainment center.
Did you really write that all by yourself, Rob? Near-impeccable grammar and spelling [only one typo "wiil"], and made for quite an interesting read.
Well done.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
My friend will be buying a house in the springtime, and I am going to install slimp3 boxes in each room. They will be recessed into the wall and somehoe make them blend in. Also in wall speakers will be used for all but the game room. What made me go with a system based on the slimp3 rather than the more common home automation systems for the entire house was the ability to get the same music going in every room with no effort (they're will be many parties, this was a big concern). Currently I use the server software to listen to my mp3s at work.
and play not just music but video and pictures.
Makes $300 for just music a little silly.
$300 for that thing? Come on. Compare to:
IBM PC (P2-450) on ebay = $35
Add'l 64MB of RAM salvaged = $5
Belkin refurbed wireless adapter = $25
60GB hard drive = $70
Grand total = $135, and you (I) have a full-blown PC that can house 60GB worth of tunes and movies, serve as an allmusic/imdb station in the living room, etc. and run any script or program I care to write or use to mess around with my MP3s, instead of a fugly piece of plastic that does nothing but get files off a network.
Morons.