Network music players - what's the latest?

What's the latest in network music players, for streaming iTunes, MP3 files, and Internet radio throughout the house?

I learned a lot from this BBS back in 2003 about the Roku Soundbridge, Slingbox, etc. Moving forward to 2010, what are the latest devices and software for this task?

My goal is to use many little network music players with speakers attached (amp built in to the player) to replace analog radios in my house. Then, tune them to an iTunes library, web stream of a traditional radio station, iTunes audio stream, or folders of MP3 files.

In addition, I'm considering getting an iMac 27" to replace my 35 year old TV, using it as a media center for the house. Would network music players work with that?

Thanks!!

If you are fine with having just remote speakers (ie, no playback controls at the audio location), the Airport Express units are very handy companions to iTunes. If you don't need 802.11 N based ones for some reason, the older G units should be pretty reasonable secondhand. If you also pick up an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you could control playback without being near the computer.

I'm using Squeezebox Booms around the house but am considering getting a Squeezebox Radio or two. Be warned that there is an obnoxious virtual guide feature on the Logitech page which will talk to you unless you turn it off.

The Squeezebox Server application needs to be run on a machine somewhere in your house. It supports iTunes libraries but it won't do anything with DRM. You can also synchronise all the players so they're all playing the same content.

Anything but a Squeezebox product is essentially throwing money away in one of two ways.

1. Cheaper/inferior, less functional or lesser known fly-by-night products will leave you high and dry for features you'll notice you're missing or support, updates or without a future for updates. You're going to need to buy something else eventually. The Apple AIrport Express and even an Apple TV fit into this category even though they come from an otherwise reputable company. This is also where the Roku stuff fit in. They never had their own server software and those products are now essentially obsolete (I wouldn't touch anything from Roku).

2. More expensive products aren't likely to buy you much more convenience and certainly not likely features nor quality. You'd just be overpaying really.

The only products worth mentioning here to compare against the Squeezebox products are Sonos, Olive and Sooloos, IMO.

BTW, with the new Squeezebox Touch (not yet available) you don't need a separate machine as a dedicated server to play local music - you can connect a drive directly to the unit if you'd like/prefer. However, it doesn't have a built-in amp nor speakers.

The Squeezebox Radio has a single speaker and a small colour LCD, while the Boom has multiple including a subwoofer and a VFD like the Classic Squeezebox (SB3). Logitech seem to be in this for the long haul with their acquisition of Slim Devices, so you can expect software updates and product releases for years. They're building the business a lot slower than they did with their Harmony remote line, but it's the most long-term and solid looking solution on the market at this time.

Thanks for the recommendation of Squeezebox. I was nervous to see that Logitech bought them, thinking they'd be relegated to dumbed-down consumer level. Instead, I'll make them the start of my search.

Good idea of using the iPhone as a Wifi remote. Unfortunately, I'll be looking for that feature for the Droid. I imagine it will be weird paring an iMac media center with a Droid remote, considering Apple and Google don't get along so well.

Playing web radio is an important requirement. A goal is to replace terrestrial radio with web streams of terrestrial radio, but I imagine it will be tough to use a network music player to navigate to that content. Perhaps there's "wireless audio", where a main computer could receive the stream and broadcast it to household receivers. FM Transmitter hasn't worked, A2DP Bluetooth might not have the range, so I'm left wondering.

Thanks for the input.

I think you are wise to start your search with the squeezebox line then, it's not something I use on mine but when I tried it I found it really easy.

Another advantage of the SB range is that the server runs on ReadyNAS (and others) so it's easy to have a solution where the iMac can be off and you still get 100% function. I am sure you can do this with other solutions, but SB really make it easy. Even the reasonably priced RadyNAS Duo has Squeezecenter installed right out of the box.

I wouldn't discount the Apple solutions either, I've had both Apple TV and Airport Express units in the past and both do what it says on the tin very well.

Cheers


Cris.

I am just in the middle of the same exercise, and have been trialling S/box, Airport, Linn, and Sonos. In my view it is down to your intended end users as the philosophies behind the systems are noticeably different.

Functionally they can all be similar - play most formats, from a drive or a NAS, include internet radio and local line-in sources, etc. It's clear to me that Sbox and Linn were designed by hardware engineers who added some control software, Sonos was designed by software and UI guys, and Apple is, well, Appley.

My end users are my family, not me, and they have a very low tech-gadget-config-pain threshold. So ease of use was paramount for my decision.

One major box difference is in the amps. I have in wall speakers so I need an amp in each room. That's included in Sonos and Linn but needs an extra thing for Sbox and Apple. Might not be an issue for you but for my kids it's one more thing to turn on / off / check.

The other differences are in the usage. Apple is designed to be best in an all Apple environment of course - I have a mixed set up so that wasn't the best for me. The SBox and Linn software is clearly engineering driven, with all sorts of 'click here to add in this module then reboot and alter parameters' stuff (the Linn is worse). I'm running off a NAS and at one point I got a "select which tarball to install" screen. Again, fine if you want to tinker and have complete flexibility, but not something I want to troubleshoot with my wife over the phone.

The Sonos unit is all about the control software design. You can't tinker with the boxes or setup - you only get what they decide to give you, but it has been by far the simplest to use and set up, and tech support so far has been "turn off, count to five, turn on"

So I have gone with Sonos. Hope that's useful.

Regards

Mark

Dedicated internet radio devices exist, and manage the navigation rather smoothly.

The Sanyo unit we got for SWMBO's mom this year, was cheap-ish (C$170), has 802.11g and wired ethernet, sound in/out jacks, built-in speakers, no wall wart, lousy monchrome display, and a horrid UI.

But even with that (incredibly) horrid UI, it's still easy to navigate and "tune in" the planet. We left her with a bunch of classical stations pre-tuned on the preset buttons.

This device became a necessity because a local Hamilton pop radio station, 0.2 on the dial away from her favourite WNED-FM, recently doubled power and now overwhelms it's more sedate band neighbour. Internet radio seems the only way to get it now, other than via expensive digital cableTV.

Cheers

If you find something, please let me know. I just finished wiring up the speaker system in my mom's new house, and it's all set up primarily to play content off the AppleTV. The last time I was there, I used my wife's iPhone with the "Remote" app, and was able to completely control the AppleTV from two floors up. Very cool. Sadly, there isn't any such product for Android.

Actually, come to think of it I believe there are one or two apps for controlling iTunes. Sorry to mislead. Nothing for AppleTV yet, though.

The iPhone/iPod touch has a nice Squeezecenter app as well which lets you control everything. No idea about Android however since I don't have any Android devices.

I assume you've already bumped into the Android DACP client. It's open-source and all that, and appears roughly equivalent to Apple's Remote app. I've been pondering a jump from my iPhone to Android, given the potential coolness of the new Googlephone, and this was one of the required features for me.

So far as I can tell, about the only things I'd find missing about moving from an iPhone to an Android are:

- no "mobi" pocket book reader (versus the Kindle app on my iPhone, which keeps everything in sync with my Kindle, although there's no way to load a mobi file outside of something you buy, or get free, from Amazon.com)

- no support, yet, for Apple Lossless (or, what I'd really prefer, real-time transcoding to MP3 when loading onto the phone)

- no support for Apple DRM (although I've only got a small handful of DRMed audio files, any video you buy from the iTunes Store is going to be DRMed, which I mostly use for TV shows that I missed for whatever reason)

If the ultimate Googlephone is sufficiently "open" that you can build a complete system image and reflash your phone, than a lot of this could be easily fixed.

IMO, It's worth buying one (or more) iPod Touch simply to use as a dedicated controller for your music collection. The iPod touch is cheaper than most phones out there, including the Android models, not to mention it's not clunky either, (like all Android phones).

There are no fewer than 3 applications designed specifically to control Squeezeboxes for the iPhone/iPod platform. All are third party and the best is probably iPeng.

Sonos also has an iPhone app which might make more sense than buying its dedicated controller if you're on that platform.

The Sonos players don't have displays. They also use a proprietary wireless network, not your existing WiFi setup. This is good for people who don't already have a wireless router. But I think the premium you're paying for the system is very high. Their UI on their controller and PC-based programs is decent, but not as good (visual navigation and control) as the default web UI for Squeezebox Server nor iPeng.

The other products, Sooloos and Olive, really push their dedicated servers. Nice-looking enclosures, but apart from the auto-ripping of CDs on the Olive boxes, nothing you can't get with any PC, Mac or NAS running Squeezebox Server (even one in a rack mount case with a nice RAID setup). I wouldn't recommend putting a server in your listening environment (Olive-style) anyway.

There's much less tweaking (than there used to be) and definitely no requirement to install modules or plugins with the Squeezebox platform. This situation is getting better all the time, but it's already at the stage where you can install, scan your collection and simply start playing your music without much fuss.

The most technical aspect with regards to managing your own local music library is making sure that your track tags are all set properly and as completely as possible. This affects every streaming platform out there though. Bad tags means bad music organization and navigation experience. Squeezebox does allow you to navigate a folder structure however if you need to get around this or quickly play back music which hasn't actually been indexed into its database yet.

I've got over 37k tracks indexed right now and the whole thing is as responsive and navigable as if I had 10 or 20. There's no degradation in performance nor usage even with a decent sized library.

As far as online radio play, you can tune directly to URLs, save them as favorites (which I think is a little weak in current software versions) or go through the built-in index of stations (which is very robust). You can also go through what they now call MySqueezebox.com (formerly SqueezeNetwork) which is their free online portal/service which allows you to listen/connect without running any type of local server yourself. Primarily for online/radio-type music content, not your own music of course. Though apparently there's also a service where you can upload your own tracks I believe. The Squeezebox platform has arguably the best support for online radio play.

If you want to test out the Web UI for the Squeezebox platform, simply install SqueezeBox server and then install SqueezeSlave - on a different or even the same computer. Squeezeslave can run as a daemon and acts as if it's a Squeezebox player. Doing this you can essentially turn any "server" into a player as well if you wanted to mimic the Olive server platform.

You can then control any virtual player through the web UI and the audio will play on the computer which has it (Squeezeslave) installed. I use this to play back audio on my MacBook which acts as my third (and mobile) Squeezebox. The server software is installed on my PVR system in the basement and music is pulled from a ReadyNAS Pro. I could install the server software directly on the NAS, but since the PVR is on 24/7 I didn't bother.

You can also test out the iPhone programs by controlling this virtual Squeezebox, however note that those programs are all commercial and there aren't any trial versions that I'm aware of.

I agree with MarkH. I've bought a Sonos system a couple of years ago and I love it. Indeed, it's a pretty closed system, but it works. There are ways even to get around it being closed, if you want to make the effort. Yes, it comes at a price premium, but it does everything I want it to and lives up to its promises and then some. The remote's nice to look at to boot.

Definitely Sonos for me.

I believe I tried out a very early-on version of that app (like, a little over a year ago when I first got my G1). It didn't work too well then, but I'm sure it's better by now. I can test it out if you like.

Unfortunately it doesn't do what I need. I don't need to control an iTunes installation, I need to control an AppleTV, which none of the Android remote apps seem to do.

I'm paying very close attention to the Nexus One as this may be the stop gap for me until the next iPhone comes out in the summer. I've held off owning a iPhone up to now because of it only being available on o2, but now it's available without hacking on Orange I'm finally willing to take the plunge....

I presume the name for the Googlephone comes from some clumsy reference to Blade Runner, in which case I might wait until the Nexus Six arrives and I can get a Roy Batty. Unlike other phones, it'll have a cool speech prepared before it breaks.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/google-phone-in-blade-runner-name-row-20091217-kypu.html

Sigh... Am I the only one that feels this is going a bit overboard? No trademark or anything (and even then it's for a different product which AFAIK is enough). It's not as if Nexus was even a new word created by Philip K Dick.

It's not as ridiculous as this. Or, assuming it's an internal codename, it's just as ridiculous.

Okay, that's awesome. I hadn't known all of the correct details of that one (assuming that the linked Wikipedia page itself is correct). The version of the story I'd heard (many years ago) is that the other products code-named at the same time were other astronomers, such as Copernicus and Galileo. The details listed in the Wikipedia page significantly change my opinion of the story. Before, I thought Carl really would have been a butthead for suing them. But now I see that he was actually insulted by the pseudoscience insinuation. Having read his treatises on his personal dislike of pseudoscience, it makes perfect sense that he'd want them to stop using his name in that context, and now I'm sad that he lost the suit.

Hey, Philip. There's a hotel near my house named "The Hotel Nexus". Gonna sue them, too?

Philip has been dead for 28 years, it was his daughter objecting to the use of the word Nexus.

Right which makes it stranger in my mind. But then she has also chosen to keep her maiden name it would appear. It's not as if it's a recognisible (or particularly good) surname to keep.

Just sounds too much like a "oooh, a chance to sue" to me.

According to the article, her name is Isa Dick Hackett. IME, most women use their maiden name as their new middle name after marriage. And the article may only be using her middle name to point out the connection.

Also according to the article, she manages licensing rights for the PKD estate. I'd agree that if this goes the long haul, it's probably jerky, but an initial filing for injunction may just be to protect their IP rights. It's not as if no one thought of Blade Runner/DADoES when they heard about the phone's name. I would doubt that it wasn't in the mind of whoever named it.

I don't think this (naming issue) is going to go anywhere unless Google simply do something out of their own respect for the estate. Even if the product had been called the "Nexus-Six" I don't believe the estate has a leg to stand on because no trademarks have been violated at all. Copyright (what covers the book's content), IME, doesn't protect against stuff like this.

Never mind that the book doesn't reference a "Nexus-One" AFAIK and that "nexus" is a generic word.

Cisco have had a Nexus range of switches for ages now. Nexus 1000V, 5000 and 7000. They're at least 994x better than Roy Batty and 999x better than the Google phone.

Is that a regional custom? I've never heard of women doing that. None of the women I know (well enough to know their middle name) do it, anyway.

My wife has her maiden name as a middle name now. I don't think it's terribly common. I don't know anyone else who's done it here where I live. Though in Portugal it's very common. The children would then also take that name as a middle name. We did that for our daughter in fact: Olivia Margaret Hawkins Fernandes. Only "Fernandes" is the surname.

Anyway, back on topic for the off topic...

I think I could have summarized everything I've written about the various music streamers by simply stating that the reason the Squeezebox product line is better than everything else is because of Squeezebox Server (formerly Squeeze Center, formerly Slim Server). None of the other companies have anything even remotely as good or capable. The actual Squeezebox hardware is quite good, but it's the server software that creates the greatness.

I dunno. Perhaps. What did the women you know do? Just drop their original family name altogether?

Yup. My mom, my wife, my wife's mom, my mom's mom, my brother's wife, both of my aunts, both of my female cousins, the one high school friend I keep in touch with.

I think that's why so many "security" systems consider knowing your mother's maiden name a piece of the evidence to "prove" your identity. If changing the middle name to be the former surname was more common, that would be even less secure than it is now. :-)

I only know one woman who kept any her maiden name at all, and she worked out a deal with her husband so they both changed surnames to a double barreled one containing both.

On a similar note, I was particularly disappointed in Boxee's iPhone app. Rather than, say, giving you some sort of search interface, it just gives you the same buttons that you get from the stock Apple IR remote control.

Even Apple's Remote app doesn't really do half of what you can do on an AppleTV.

Thanks for all the insight about network music players. I'll have to read this thread a few times to get it all.

Ok, back to talking about remotes, Nexi and maiden names.

Not exactly "networked," but have you guys seen the latest from Klipsch?

IMO, it's absurdly priced but a very neat idea. The main problem I have is that I don't know how much I'd like that LED light. Oh, and did I mention they're expensive?

Its a neat idea but should have stayed as some designers concept fantasy. It'll sound terrible and not give you very good illumination. Also as you said, it is ludicrously expensive for just 1 bulb which still requires the base station.

I don't expect it to last long before breaking either from the heat given off by the electronics and LED together with the enclosure that these bulbs are generally fitted in.

Relevant quotes for this are "eventually pays for itself" as you save money on bulb changes, energy, and installation costs." and "LightSpeakers are for background music and not intended to replace home theater speakers,".

DUDE. That could totally solve my current Surround Speaker problem.

(I'm in a new rental house and I can't run wires for the surrounds the way I'd really like to. However, there are recessed light fixtures exactly where I'd want my surround speakers to be.)

Pricey, though.

DUDE! I finally came across a solution for my similar problem. Have you seen the RocketFish?

My current setup has my home theater set up against the bottom of a staircase. So to the left is the bottom of the stairs, our front entry/doorway, and a set of door-height windows. To the right is an open pathway to our kitchen. The room is very long. The flooring is wood laminate on top of a concrete slab. The only option is to go overhead, and I just didn't have the money to spend on that.

The RocketFish has some drawbacks (can't control volume from the receiver, occasional buzzing can be heard when very close, and it's more always-on electronics), but from the very first surround sound content my wife and I watched on it, I knew it was worth these minor issues. It was so painful losing those rear speakers. I'll never go back!

Oh, and naturally, I ordered the used ones for $69 instead of the $110+.

Rocketfish thing is nifty, and would definitely work for certain layouts, but it still requires wires from the receiver to the speakers, and power to the receiver. And a place to mount the speakers. The Klipsch system would solve all of those things in one fell swoop for me, without any mounting or wires at all. Still... Pricey...

True, though it also requires a specific setup where the lights have to be in satisfactory locations for rear speakers. But you're correct, it all depends on your setup. I just put the receiver under my couch and plugged it into the outlet behind it. The wires just run from behind the couch, behind furniture to the speakers which sit on shelves. All in all it works really well.

We installed rear ceiling speakers as part of a series of general upgrades we were making to our house. I got pretty good ones (BG Radia PD-6Ci's), and frankly, they don't add very much. Every once in a while, I'll notice the surround sound (good example: there's a trippy scene in the Doors movie, where the camera is circling around and the sound is as well), but otherwise, the front three are carrying most of the load. Also, there's a real directionality problem. You really notice when the sound is suddenly "up" instead of forward.

If I was going to do it over, I'd look at getting dipolar speakers, a few of which are available as in-ceiling versions. Allegedly these diffuse the sound better so you have less of the directionality issue. Unclear whether this really works.

Hmm, sorry to hear it didn't add anything for you. I'll agree that it's infrequent that real directional sound effects are heard, but it's really great for music and general noise (like the crowd during sporting events).

My rear speakers are bookshelf speakers. One sits atop a 6' tall DVD case, and the other on a 2.5' cabinet. This could create some problems, particularly with the shorter one being heard more, but it actually works very well.

Maybe you need to turn up the volume on yours? Try a different surround mode?

Oh, the speakers do work. I let my amp's auto-room-correction contraption set the volume levels and such, so it's "correct".

In my old place, I had full-sized rear speakers on stands, at ear level, and that worked much better (or, more transparently). It's just odd to suddenly have sound coming from above.