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Electronics : Squeezebox Wireless Network Music Player - All Black
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Rating: 
- Good product, quite easy to use, good value
Dear review readers,
I have struggled to get one of these. Other internet vendors are unable to get stock from Logitech. The suggestion is that Logitech are producing the Boom in order to promote it heavily and keep letting vendors and their customers down so I was surprised when Amazon/Pimxania had any. Pix call it a Wireless Network Player although everyone else calls it the Classic. Not sure why. Logitech need to realise that setting stock delivery dates that they repeatedly fail to meet is annoying people. Plus why put all your eggs in a product which will never be hifi when the success of the range thus far has been a decent DAC which only appeals to nerds (like me.)
Anyhoo, it has now arrived. Well packaged. I set it up in about 10 minutes, instructions still in bag up until the point where I had to determine the firewall settings. I am no IT genius but I got it connected to my hidden and encrypted wireless network after a few attempts and as I had already downloaded Squeezecentre and loaded up my entire 8 days worth of CD collection I was listening to music in a different part of my house within quater of an hour.
I had bought it for summer evenings on the back patio/conservatory. I suppose thats next year now. My main hifi is in the dining room where it gets most use. I didnt want an Ipod/docking station (for the garden/conservatory) as I have fat fingers and felt this was the best alternative/use of new PC. I secretly fancy a sonus system but I am not currently wealthy enough. I bought an aego 2.1 active monitor set to go with the squeezebox which sound good. It will work well, and the display looks like it will be very visible, through red wine induced summer evenings.
So far have struggled to get the range I need for the garden but I suspect with a little jiggling and moving of things that will be fine. Old house. Thick walls.
Whilst I am familiarising its currently hooked up to my hifi in the dining room. I compared the sound quality with CD direct. Its quite close. The CD player is a 4/5 year old £300 NAD player and matching NAD amp through some nice speakers on iron stands. Nothing too special but hifi none the less.
I can tell the difference but I have to say the squeezebox isnt bad on sound. Probably just a little thinner than the CD but barely noticable once youve adjusted the gain for what appears to be a slightly weaker line level from the Squeezebox. I suspect it has as much to do with my file format as the Squeezebox itself. For information I loaded my collection onto itunes (squeezecentre can be directed to the itunes directory easily) using the AAC encoder at 256kbs.
I am still getting use to the controls to find the music I want. However, the shuffle feature is re-opening some wonderful familiar memories of music I forgot I loved.
Wonderful little bit of kit. Really very special. Anybody on here who has down marked this due to finding it a bit difficult to set up shame on you. Dont buy things you dont understand unless you are prepared to have a fiddle, do a bit of research, or ask a youngster to help with. Find something less revealing about your technical inadequcies to moan about.
Next gadget will be a external hard drive so I can turn my PC off and still use the squeezebox. But that can wait.
Love it.
D
Rating: - Brilliant, but maybe upgrade the power supply
I'll start by saying I think these things really are very good.
But...
When I got my first Squeezebox 3 I was slightly underwhelmed by the music quality. It was good, but it lacked a bit of sparkle when compared to the original CD (and that was with flac files). There was a lot of discussion on various Squeezebox forums about upgrading the power supply, so I gave that a try. All sorts of exotic and expensive solutions were recommended, but they didn't have any of that stuff down at Maplins. So I ended up buying a "Variable Voltage Switched Mode AC/CD Mains Adapter" for about £30.
Boy, did that make a difference. Now I can't tell the difference between the Squeezebox & CDs when I switch my amp between the 2 different sources.
Now I generally think that the hi-fi "business" of spending silly money on 6" lengths of wire is a bit "emperors new clothes", unless you have the hearing ability of a bat (or cat). So if I can hear a difference, there really is one. I guess it's because the new power supply can deliver 5 amps as opposed to the 2 amps of the original equipment.
I'll add a proviso here - it's a year or 2 since I bought me Squeezeboxes and they may have improved the power supply since then. Check its amperage rating I guess.
Apart from that, I endorse all the 5 star ratings here. It's great. It will make you realise how bad the tagging is on all your music files though. Get ready for a few evenings trying to get them all sorted!
Rating: - The finest thing I have ever bought.
Last.fm on this thing is amazing; personalised music radio station, it even crossfades the tracks.
six stars.
Rating: - Start ripping your CDs!! You're going to love this!!
This is without doubt, my most favourite gadget to date, and yet I'd never even heard of the Squeezebox until a few weeks ago. Whether you listen to a lot of music... or whether you have a lot of music that you never get around to listening to, the Squeezy will change your listening habits forever. I have around 700 cds and until last week, a single-disc cd player.
Half my listening time was spent wondering which cd to play :)
But since buying Squeezy, I've been listening to everything. It's fantastic. I now have around 500 hours of continuous music coming through at any time of the day or night and I don't have to change a single cd. It's like escaping from the zoo, it's really that liberating!
Once you've downloaded the Squeezecentre software (current version is 7.1), you're almost set. I connected to my wireless network expecting to be tearing my hair out at the end of it, but it went without a single hitch. I went through the setup instructions on the unit itself, entered my WEP key, and was ready to go within a few minutes. It was that quick and simple.
There are several options for searching, each one easy to use via the remote control. You can:
1. Browse by genre, years, artists.
2. Search album, artist and songs by "initial".
3. View "now playing" details, which tells you track number, artist, album, etc.
4. Change the settings, screensaver, brightness, track display format.
Honestly, it's packed with enough options to keep everyone happy. The unit itself is brightly lit (can be dimmed if wanted), and easily visible from 10 feet or so. You can even adjust the size of the font and make the display bigger. My cds were already ripped in wma lossless, but Squeezy plays a variety of file formats; FLAC, mp3, wav etc.
And for those of you who are more than 'casual' listeners, while the sound quality is very good, it can be hugely improved if you have an external dac, or a cd player with a digital input. I sold my single-disc cd player and bought a Cambridge Audio player which can be used as an external dac. The sound quality improvement was well worth the cost of a new player!
TIP: If you have a vast collection of music to navigate, you can either create several playlists through the Squeezecentre software, and/or set up multiple folders within your 'music' folder, so that you can narrow down the search further if you're looking for something specific.
I can't ever imagine listening to a cd again, not now that I have the equivalent of a 500-cd changer. It's really changed how and when I listen to music, and I think this way will become standard in the future.
I've 'evolved' from the era of turning LPs every 20 minutes... to changing cds every 45 minutes... to having 500 hours worth of continuous music with one click of the remote. Now that's technology! I LOVE it.
Now go and buy a Squeezy immediately. You won't regret it :)
Rating: - Just what I needed/was looking for.
This is a remarkable. It does what it says efficiently and well. I don't understand the "ins and outs" of networking, but you do not need to and it matters not that the manual is a little thin and seems to stop at XP. Set up via a BT Home Hub to an Acer Travelmate Laptop was easy. Works well with Vista except I can't work out how to set "WoL" from the box - may be a weakness of Vista or my laptop. The software is a little clunky but okay. Most importantly, the sound played through a Yamaha Hi Fi set up is good even at lower bit rates. I would recommend this bit of equipment.
- Good product, quite easy to use, good valueDear review readers,
I have struggled to get one of these. Other internet vendors are unable to get stock from Logitech. The suggestion is that Logitech are producing the Boom in order to promote it heavily and keep letting vendors and their customers down so I was surprised when Amazon/Pimxania had any. Pix call it a Wireless Network Player although everyone else calls it the Classic. Not sure why. Logitech need to realise that setting stock delivery dates that they repeatedly fail to meet is annoying people. Plus why put all your eggs in a product which will never be hifi when the success of the range thus far has been a decent DAC which only appeals to nerds (like me.)
Anyhoo, it has now arrived. Well packaged. I set it up in about 10 minutes, instructions still in bag up until the point where I had to determine the firewall settings. I am no IT genius but I got it connected to my hidden and encrypted wireless network after a few attempts and as I had already downloaded Squeezecentre and loaded up my entire 8 days worth of CD collection I was listening to music in a different part of my house within quater of an hour.
I had bought it for summer evenings on the back patio/conservatory. I suppose thats next year now. My main hifi is in the dining room where it gets most use. I didnt want an Ipod/docking station (for the garden/conservatory) as I have fat fingers and felt this was the best alternative/use of new PC. I secretly fancy a sonus system but I am not currently wealthy enough. I bought an aego 2.1 active monitor set to go with the squeezebox which sound good. It will work well, and the display looks like it will be very visible, through red wine induced summer evenings.
So far have struggled to get the range I need for the garden but I suspect with a little jiggling and moving of things that will be fine. Old house. Thick walls.
Whilst I am familiarising its currently hooked up to my hifi in the dining room. I compared the sound quality with CD direct. Its quite close. The CD player is a 4/5 year old £300 NAD player and matching NAD amp through some nice speakers on iron stands. Nothing too special but hifi none the less.
I can tell the difference but I have to say the squeezebox isnt bad on sound. Probably just a little thinner than the CD but barely noticable once youve adjusted the gain for what appears to be a slightly weaker line level from the Squeezebox. I suspect it has as much to do with my file format as the Squeezebox itself. For information I loaded my collection onto itunes (squeezecentre can be directed to the itunes directory easily) using the AAC encoder at 256kbs.
I am still getting use to the controls to find the music I want. However, the shuffle feature is re-opening some wonderful familiar memories of music I forgot I loved.
Wonderful little bit of kit. Really very special. Anybody on here who has down marked this due to finding it a bit difficult to set up shame on you. Dont buy things you dont understand unless you are prepared to have a fiddle, do a bit of research, or ask a youngster to help with. Find something less revealing about your technical inadequcies to moan about.
Next gadget will be a external hard drive so I can turn my PC off and still use the squeezebox. But that can wait.
Love it.
D
Rating:
- Brilliant, but maybe upgrade the power supplyI'll start by saying I think these things really are very good.
But...
When I got my first Squeezebox 3 I was slightly underwhelmed by the music quality. It was good, but it lacked a bit of sparkle when compared to the original CD (and that was with flac files). There was a lot of discussion on various Squeezebox forums about upgrading the power supply, so I gave that a try. All sorts of exotic and expensive solutions were recommended, but they didn't have any of that stuff down at Maplins. So I ended up buying a "Variable Voltage Switched Mode AC/CD Mains Adapter" for about £30.
Boy, did that make a difference. Now I can't tell the difference between the Squeezebox & CDs when I switch my amp between the 2 different sources.
Now I generally think that the hi-fi "business" of spending silly money on 6" lengths of wire is a bit "emperors new clothes", unless you have the hearing ability of a bat (or cat). So if I can hear a difference, there really is one. I guess it's because the new power supply can deliver 5 amps as opposed to the 2 amps of the original equipment.
I'll add a proviso here - it's a year or 2 since I bought me Squeezeboxes and they may have improved the power supply since then. Check its amperage rating I guess.
Apart from that, I endorse all the 5 star ratings here. It's great. It will make you realise how bad the tagging is on all your music files though. Get ready for a few evenings trying to get them all sorted!
Rating:
- The finest thing I have ever bought.Last.fm on this thing is amazing; personalised music radio station, it even crossfades the tracks.
six stars.
Rating:
- Start ripping your CDs!! You're going to love this!!This is without doubt, my most favourite gadget to date, and yet I'd never even heard of the Squeezebox until a few weeks ago. Whether you listen to a lot of music... or whether you have a lot of music that you never get around to listening to, the Squeezy will change your listening habits forever. I have around 700 cds and until last week, a single-disc cd player.
Half my listening time was spent wondering which cd to play :)
But since buying Squeezy, I've been listening to everything. It's fantastic. I now have around 500 hours of continuous music coming through at any time of the day or night and I don't have to change a single cd. It's like escaping from the zoo, it's really that liberating!
Once you've downloaded the Squeezecentre software (current version is 7.1), you're almost set. I connected to my wireless network expecting to be tearing my hair out at the end of it, but it went without a single hitch. I went through the setup instructions on the unit itself, entered my WEP key, and was ready to go within a few minutes. It was that quick and simple.
There are several options for searching, each one easy to use via the remote control. You can:
1. Browse by genre, years, artists.
2. Search album, artist and songs by "initial".
3. View "now playing" details, which tells you track number, artist, album, etc.
4. Change the settings, screensaver, brightness, track display format.
Honestly, it's packed with enough options to keep everyone happy. The unit itself is brightly lit (can be dimmed if wanted), and easily visible from 10 feet or so. You can even adjust the size of the font and make the display bigger. My cds were already ripped in wma lossless, but Squeezy plays a variety of file formats; FLAC, mp3, wav etc.
And for those of you who are more than 'casual' listeners, while the sound quality is very good, it can be hugely improved if you have an external dac, or a cd player with a digital input. I sold my single-disc cd player and bought a Cambridge Audio player which can be used as an external dac. The sound quality improvement was well worth the cost of a new player!
TIP: If you have a vast collection of music to navigate, you can either create several playlists through the Squeezecentre software, and/or set up multiple folders within your 'music' folder, so that you can narrow down the search further if you're looking for something specific.
I can't ever imagine listening to a cd again, not now that I have the equivalent of a 500-cd changer. It's really changed how and when I listen to music, and I think this way will become standard in the future.
I've 'evolved' from the era of turning LPs every 20 minutes... to changing cds every 45 minutes... to having 500 hours worth of continuous music with one click of the remote. Now that's technology! I LOVE it.
Now go and buy a Squeezy immediately. You won't regret it :)
Rating:
- Just what I needed/was looking for.This is a remarkable. It does what it says efficiently and well. I don't understand the "ins and outs" of networking, but you do not need to and it matters not that the manual is a little thin and seems to stop at XP. Set up via a BT Home Hub to an Acer Travelmate Laptop was easy. Works well with Vista except I can't work out how to set "WoL" from the box - may be a weakness of Vista or my laptop. The software is a little clunky but okay. Most importantly, the sound played through a Yamaha Hi Fi set up is good even at lower bit rates. I would recommend this bit of equipment.