Review of Squeezebox MP3 Player

Anyone who is a frequent reader of these pages knows of my obsession with MP3 players. From portables to stereo components. From machines that stream, to flash devices with just a tiny bit of space. I love these things. And now, one of my favorites is back. Slimdevices has released the Squeezebox- the 802.11b update to its already excellent Slimp3. Read on for my full review.

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.