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Review of the Squeezebox
The following review was written by Patrick Schoonveld
A few weeks back, I noticed a shiny and lonely piece of kit hanging around the Slashdot offices. Ever the inquisitive [nosey] individual, I asked and was told it was an MP3 player for review. Thinking this an excellent use of my limited free time, I took it home to play with.
The Slim Devices Squeezebox is a networked MP3 player that can either play music from your collection via its open source SlimServer or via Internet streams. Shipping with a power cable and RCA tulip cable, it also provides digital optical and coax outs as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack. This edition is the third generation, which comes in a much more attractive stand up form factor than two previous editions.
There are two versions available, one with 802.11g capabilities built in and one only with Ethernet. The 802.11g edition also ships with an Ethernet jack and can double as a bridge for other Ethernet-enabled devices. The wireless edition is available for $299 and the wired-only edition is $50 cheaper, both from their website.
The first step was to install the software provided by Slim Devices from their website. It is open source and written in Perl, with installers for Windows and Mac OS X as well as RPMs for Linux. I used a Windows laptop with an external drive that had a backup of my music. The installation went extremely smoothly, using a typical Windows installer. Within seconds, the server icon was in the system tray. My biggest issue was that the external drive was connected via USB 1.1 and scanning the 35 gigs of music stored there took over an hour.
On plugging in the device, I was very surprised to find a fluorescent display instead of the usual, inexpensive LCD. Flouros are much easier to see across a room or in the dark. The Squeezebox walked through a wizard-like process of configuring the network choices of wired vs. wireless, WEP key and IP address (DHCP or static) via the remote control. Although punching in a 128-bit hex key may seem inconvenient, it was quite easy due to the mapping of the characters to the numbers on the remote, similar to sending an SMS with a mobile phone. The Squeezebox even found the server on its own and was playing music in just a few minutes.
After it finished scanning my library, I played a few MP3s. I was immediately impressed by the quality of the audio and the speed with which hitting play via the web interface caused music to appear; lag was less than a second. I had assumed that as the laptop and the Squeezebox were both over 802.11g, collisions and traffic issues would be a problem. However, at no time did I ever notice any hiccups. I ran the Squeezebox for several hours while working and downloading a few Torrents, with no issue whatsoever. I also tried adding music to the queue via the remote control. The software on the device makes it very easy to navigate a large music collection using the remote to zip to the first character of any title, again like sending an SMS, hit 1 three time for 'C'. The + button on the remote allows you to add albums, songs or artists' libraries to the queue very easily.
I also played with the Internet radio tie-ins. It took very little time to sign up for a Live365 account and configure the Squeezebox for my account. Although the streams I found were low quality and quite busy, there were many options available including other streaming networks or purchasing a Live365 subscription for better quality streams.
After a week of use, I was very pleased with the SqueezeBox. It sounds fantastic and even using my wireless and USB 1.1 external drive didn't deter the ease of use. However, I had my PowerBook returned to me, which is my main music library and iTunes host. I proceeded to set it up as the primary server for the device. The installation was fairly easy (finding the long forgotten firewall settings took the most time), but the performance was atrocious. I read in the forums on Slimdevice's site that the daily builds have some performance fixes. I downloaded the latest build and still had no luck getting it to reliably play for more than a song. I then switched off the AirPort and plugged in an Ethernet cable and since, have had no problems whatsoever. As it worked fine with my Windows laptop, I am inclined to think it a problem with the Mac.
Since using the Mac, I've also turned on the iTunes integration. Supposedly, it will scan the iTunes library XML file to find playlists and new music nearly instantly compared to searching every MP3 file in a directory tree. I've not found that to be as reliable or easy as rumored on the forums on slimdevices.com. It would be much nicer if there was a "Reload iTunes file" button instead of trusting it will find your music after a user configurable period of time. It did, however, eventually find all of my playlists and make it very easy to play any one of them.
I've used the Squeezebox for another couple weeks with the Mac and have been very happy. The best parts are the reliability and audio quality; 192kb MP3s sound as good as my older Denon cd player to my non-audiophile ears. At $299, it is not an inconsiderably cheap piece of kit as one could build a basic PC to do this and more for a similar cost. However, with the attractive form factor, and great ease of use, I'm inclined to say it's worth it.
Pat's review is accurate. It is also incomplete (but for the squeezebox, that is easy to have happen... you just keep discovering more cool features).
Soooooooooo, in addition to his review I would add the following cool things about this device:
So, you can see there is lots more than just stated in the review, and probably lots more than what I've shown.
I think Squeezebox is a great product (I own three). I am waiting for the day someone (hopefully SlimDevices) comes out with a decent and reasonably priced streaming device that has video out to display liner notes, lyrics, now playing, etc. (and, no, I'm NOT interested in a media center...)
And, by itself, it still doesn't support Ogg Vorbis.
:)
FLAC is a nice plus, though.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
The review is correct that the OSX version does not work reliably. I find that the database becomes corrupt, something which never happened under Windows. It is also very slow to create the index. Apart from this Mac-only problem, it's a terrific device.
I've got 2 so far. There just isn't anything better right now. There aren't many alternatives for playing FLACs and OGGs at all. And the server software is free software, written in Perl! What more could a hacker ask for?
I've had one of the previous generation Squeezebox devices for a couple of years now, and I'm very happy with it. While I could have set up a Linux box doing this, I have limited time to fart around with things and the squeezebox just WORKED. The device itself support mp3 and uncompressed audio streaming, and since most of my music is in FLAC format (from ripped CDs), I thought I'd have problems with it. However, I just installed the software, let it dig around my music collection, and changed some firewall rules and was off and running.
The biggest complaint I have about it is that sometimes if the server is busy (scanning music again, for example), it will stutter during playback. A bigger buffer would be useful here I think.
Also note that the SlimServer software can be used without the device. In fact, if you want to try out how you will like a squeezebox, there is a Java applet that exactly emulates the squeezebox, including display, remote control, and more. A good way to tell if you are going to want to spend $300 on the box. See the http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/ softsqueeze web site for more information.
There's also a simpler client that can also talk to the slimserver that you can run. A friend has been running this on his stereo PC for several years now, without getting a squeezebox. It works great for him, and you control it via a browser on the slimserver, just like with the regular squeezebox.
The browser control of the server is another thing I love about it. If I'm on the patio or in the dining room with music playing, I can just use my laptop to change the volume, skip a song, or pause, instead of hunting down the remote. Plus it works really well to add a particular song we are talking about at a party or the like.
It's a great device. I got it on sale at $249, and am very happy with it. In fact, we have two of them. I want to add another one for the bathroom for showering tunes.
Sean
Squeezebox is now 802.11g, not b
I've had a SqueezeBox v1 for several years and I love it as well. I was originally interested in it because of the server software - that it was Open Source and written in PERL. Plus they encourage hacking of the hardware and of the software. Any company with those morals gets my support.
When I first got my SqueezeBox in the mail it would not play correctly - the sound was all distorted. I sent them an email and they told me to just open it up and see if anything was loose or broken from shipping. I asked "Won't that void my warranty?" and they just said no, don't worry about it. So I popped it open and found that there was a broken piece floating around in it. They just told me to send it back and they replaced it very quickly and covered all shipping charges.
Sure, you can run to your local electronics store and get a wireless MP3 player for less than the Squeezebox, but does it run on Linux, is the software Open Source, is the company 'Not Evil'?
If only more companies were like Slim Devices we would have some really cool things going on.
from someone else with two of the previous generation version.
The present version has got a much better D/A converter, whereas the old one was a bit crap if you had a decent hifi. The good thing is that both versions have digital electrical (SPDIF) and toslink out, so I just run the spdif into a good quality cheap DAC.
As hifi nuts update their kit regularly, you don't have to pay much for some top notch kit which is a few years old, and there is nothing to wear out in a DAC.
You can also use the web interface to manage what is streamed to your computer, and you can co-ordinate multiple players to all play the same thing, which is handy for parties.
Good gadget, but definitely happier in wired mode than wireless, I have found.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
One little correction: the new Squeezebox 3 is an 802.11g device, not b. Even better wireless goodness! (The Squeezebox 1 was 802.11b). I picked up my Squeezebox 3 last week at the Slimdevices road show here in Seattle, and I've been loving it. I also have two of the first-generation Squeezeboxes.
My other favorite features in the new version:
- native FLAC support! (It used to have to convert to WAV before streaming to the unit)
- SqueezeNetwork, which lets the Squeezebox stream from the Internet without a local SlimServer running.
- better DAC
- new grayscale display with cool VU meters, etc.
Does the Squeezebox have proper unicode support? I listen to Japanese music mostly, and it would be sad if the device wouldn't display any of my tags.
In fact it does support Japanese very well - also Chinese, Hebrew, and Cyrillic.
Unicode support was one of the major updates that came as part of the 6.2 software update released along with Squeezebox 3.
Sean Adams
CEO, Slim Devices
yes, it does
go to the forums and search for unicode
http://forums.slimdevices.com/
With AlienBBC you can get the full collection of BBC streams through the squeezebox, too.
Since BBC streams everything in Real format, I think this is the only thing short of a full HTPC that gets the full beeb collection to your living room outside the UK. Even XM and Delphi only have a few beeb channels.
The box itself seemed like too dumb of a client, asking the server about what it should do in response to every action. Perhaps the wireless connection back to my computer wasn't good enough (it was a fair distance), but even so, the fact it could play an MP3 *at all* would indicate it should have a good enough connection to present a usable UI. But the response was always slow, with little indication whether it was working or not. I probably wouldn't have minded the slowness of certain operations if I could tell reliably that it was definitely *doing* something. But instead I'd have to wait 10 seconds and try again if it seemed to have not noticed the remote signal.
For actual listening, I could get maybe 30 minutes of play before it randomly stopped. Getting it going again was hard, involving rebooting several different pieces and finally just praying it would start working. I could never understand what was going on.
It's entirely possible that a bad connection to my computer leads to a general degredation of... everything. If I can get it working again I'll probably try to connect it via ethernet. But even if that is the problem, the degredation is not very graceful.
Another thing that annoyed me, and may or may not still be the case, is that it only plays MP3s. I got the impression that it played oggs from its marketing, but that's just bullshit. The server software happens to be able to transcode to MP3. Having the server transcode to MP3 is stupid (and uses up a lot of CPU to boot), and I ended up simply transcoding all my oggs to mp3 and keeping them on disk instead of having it do this on the fly.
...and it has become an indispensible appliance in my living room. I simply cannot stress enough how wonderful internet radio streams are when they're coming in through your stereo via a remote controlled appliance instead of through your desktop speakers and computer.
I wouldn't say that it transforms the internet radio/mp3 listening experience as significantly as, say, TiVo transforms the television watching experience, but it's still pretty significant.
podcasts are in fact supported!!
I used a Squeezeebox v2 on MacOSX (Panther) for 6-7 months. The server was a dual 2GHz G5. Performance was horrible, the music kept cutting out, etc. I was convinced the Squeezebox was trash. Then one day, it would work flawlessly, seemingly without any change. A week later, the dumpster again seemed like its proper home.
I ended up finding out what my problem was. I was running a few (2-3) Torrents, using Bram's stock BitTorrent software. The number of simultaneous network connections was pretty high. In this situation, the Squeezebox couldn't open connections, or keep open ones open, and it would skip, studder, or seemingly just disappear. Web traffic never seemed to suffer, only the Squeezebox. Today, I've found that my Mac is much happier running the (sometimes laggy on a 1GHz Powerbook) Azureus and limiting simultaneous network connections to 80-100. I believe there is an undocumented issue with Panther not handling large numbers of simultaneous open connections well.
Perhaps the reviewer could verify that Torrents are not in play while the Squeezebox is being tested. If they are, perhaps simultaneous network connections can be throttled. I am interested in a V3 product, but only if it will continue to function on my Mac.
Just like the iPod transformed music on the move this nifty box of tricks has transformed music in the living room. There are several killer features which persuaded me to post my £1,500 Primare CD player on eBay, and invest in a couple of these puppies:
- completely silent and wireless - sits amicably next to the hi-fi
- native flac support and digital outputs for unsurpassed audiophile sound with an outboard dac (less than 50 pico seconds jitter apparently)
- AlienBBC plugin allows browsing of BBC programmes on demand via the remote control - believe me this is the way forward. just look at what the tv operators are pushing at the moment (ntl, sky)
- beautiful vacuum plasma display that is visible from anywhere in the room displaying track listings, rss news feeds, weather reports, etc. you can even set monster sized text.
- open source extensibility - I'm usually a bit of a passive activist when it comes to OSS - but the simplicity of creating perl plugins for this thing encouraged me develop my own curious 'enhancements'
- perfect use-case for wireless technology - stick a couple of these things around the house and without nasty trailing cables you have awesome synchronised multi-room sound
My 300 strong CD collection just got relegated to the attic!
Here's the URL: http://www.archive.org/audio/
I just discovered http://mvpmc.sourceforge.net/ today.
This is a project to convert the ($99 list) Hauppauge MediaMVP box into a MythTV frontend and a SlimServer (Squeezebox) frontend.
A cheap way to get much of the Squeezebox functionality and a lot more and do some hacking in the process...
X.