I got me one of these...

Finally after waiting since March I finally took delivery of a SoundBridge from Roku Labs . I nearly sent them an email to cancel the order and get a Squeezebox instead. I'm glad I didn't, this little network player is a gem. I bought the smaller M1000 version, I couldn't stretch to the larger model at the time.

I connected it up last night, needed to steal the shaver adaptor plug from the bathroom as it is shipped with a US plug-top power supply. Gonna order a UK replacement, as it's only rated at 9V, 1.3A, so nothing special.

I have connected it to my ML No.36 via the coax digital out.

Wireless network settingz were simple to setup and it found the Slimserver software that was already running on my PC from having used a SliMP3 previously.

I am yet to sit down and have a good play/listen to the unit, but first impressions are good.

I am going to install iTunes tonight and play with that as well.


Does anyone else have one of these? Would be interested to hear your opinions.

 

Looks nice Scott but a bit pricey in comparison to the Airport Express for iTunes.
Did you get nabbed for import tax ?

 

Congrats! I already have a Squeezebox, but was thinking of another one for another room. Do you think this one would run from Slimserver, or would it have to have its own software server? It's be nice to try out both, but not if its difficult or causes problems to run both simultaneously.

Maybe I should investigate, as it certainly looks more stylish then the Squeezebox. Did you notice any UK supplers?

Edit: OK I did my own legwork: there is a slimserver mode with an optional download. So that answers one question. But I have a third: which router are you using? I have a D-link 614+, which is not explicitly listed. Thanks

 

I know a few of us who are placing orders for the Roku - purely from an aestetic point of view it murders the Squeezebox.

The UK distributor is based in North London, but UK retail works out about £50 more than buying direct.

I was going for an Airport Express but the lack of a display would ultimately prove far too limiting for general use IMO.

 

Make sure you get the polarity right

 

I purchased mine so early that there was no distributor over there in the UK. I got mine straight from The States.

I bought the M1000 + WiFi Card + Wall bracket (the Wifi card was an optional extra when I placed the order) all for ~£195.00. That was the amount charged to my CC.

When Parcelforce Worldwide delivered they wanted a further £46.00 for import duty/VAT, etc. So in total I paid shy under £250.00 for it. £50 more than the Squeezebox but it does look better IMO, £50 better?, who knows....

I prefer these types of media adaptors as they have their own display, don't rely on you going near a PC to control it and don't require an external monitor/TV interface to programme it. That meant the AirTunes was out straightaway.

 

it would be interesting to know how much people use these devices. for example i had a naim cd5 / hicap and a squeezebox running in paralell for a few months and hardly used the cd5. i now no longer have a cd5
cheers


julian

 

I use a 3com 11g Wireless ADSL Firewall Router with 128bit WEP encryption and it works fine with all my WiFi kit. No probs with the Roku. I streamed a radio station last night for 3 hours with no drop-outs or stutters.

More info on the router is here

 

I use mine all the time. For when I'm working at home it can be running all day without a CD changeover. However, for serious listening I always pull out the CD and put it into the player.

 

i've been tempted by the Netgear MP101 has any one seen heard one of these and have any comments.

 

SoundBridge with iTunes

I got iTunes up and running last night. Changed the settings on the player and it found the library. The nice thing is when you switch it (SoundBridge) on you can select the available servers (Slimserver or iTunes) to stream music from.

I'm not sure I like the way iTunes works with the player. Searching for music which has been sorted on the hard disc as, for ex. D:\<artist>\<album> is not possible. You have to search either by artist or album, genre etc. You can't simply browse by music folder like you can in Slimserver. I know where everything is that way. Also with Slimserver when you've been browsing it remembers the position your were at so you can jump back there. With iTunes your albums start with the first entry, such as 1 or A, it's a pain when you want to play something beginning with T! There is also no alpha/numeric keys on the remote, you have to scan through an on screen list 0-9, A-Z etc, which is slow. Slimdevices has this on the remote. Unfortunately you can't use the Slimdevices remote with the SoundBridge when running the Slimserver app. Nice try!

I think Slimserver is the better server app but there are facilities that iTunes does have such as visualizer, which is smooth and can't be used under Slimserver it seems to be part of iTunes. Another thing iTunes seems to do is buffer the track before playing it so there can be a pause. Slimserver is instantaneous when skipping tracks. I have not tried mixed CD yet to hear if there is a marked gap. My old SliMP3 was pretty good at mixed discs, with only a slight slutter. No worse than Winamp with the gapless plug-in.

Another big annoying thing with iTunes is that the programme has to be running on the PC otherwise no streaming. Slimserver is a Windows service so yes the PC has to be on, but nobody has to be logged in to use it. If you close iTunes when logging off, the music stops. So it could be a pain in a multi-user family setup.

I am considering looking at a LaCie Ethernet Disc NAS, as apparently according to MultiTasking Computing it can run the Slimserver service with a slight modification, so there is no need to have your main home PC constantly running and not eating up resources when it scans the music library. It can slow things down with 5000+ MP3s.

Still a great player. I'm gonna sit down over the weekend and have a good listen. I'll report back with an update.

 

What the name of the distributor. I know there is a long wait for players, but would be interested in what they charge for the M2000- the larger of the two models.

 

scott


http://www.unlimited.com/

These guys appear to be the distributors, although I believe they sell to trade in the main. They did call me recently but I never got back to them.Will try later

 

Just had a look. £297 for the M2000 version. Bugger. But when are they gonna get stock. This player is in high demand. Don't go ordering for a Christmas present just yet! £25 for a bracket though, bit steep for a lump of metal.

 

Having just bought into Wireless (netgear dg834g and dg111) i'm very interested how these will work in my setup.

Presently i'm moving all my CD collection on to the computer using Apple LossLess.. Will there be a problem with the high bitrates being transfered fron the computer to the M1000?



Many thanks

chris.gally

 

Not 100% sure about this but AFAIK, the Roku decodes AAC internally. Therefore is it not decompressed then streamed to the player, so not to swamp your wireless bandwidth. I am still using good old 192kbs MP3 compression. I have over 300 discs and have already re-ripped from 128->192. I don't want to think about lossless compression at the moment. But I believe if you use the Slimserver for these newer formats it needs to transcode them to a format the player can handle which may be raw PCM, which can eat into network bandwidth if you have multiple players on the go at the same time.

HTH, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't want to give out misleading info.

 

Chris - I read somewhere that, even streaming uncompressed is but a fraction of what even the slower 802.11a can carry. IIRC such a network in the real world can stream ~4Mbps (of 11Mbps possible) without stuttering. So, if you are happy with ballpark and hearsay, and do not want to send several uncompressed streams simulataneously, and of course you have the faster network anyway, we can conclude there will be no problem whatsoever.

 

Julian I use mine all the time except for critical listening (i.e., that which takes an act of concentration) which is not that often. I often leave it streaming an ambient radio station. Even if it is lower quality than CD, I think this medium is particularly benign for electronica-type music.

I only manage to get mine to stream Shoutcast radio stations. Shoutcast has very few speech stations. The biggest weakness for me is that Squeezebox will not (easily) stream other things like BBC Radio 4 (I'm a sad expat ) For that I use a
low power USB>FM transmitter. This is much lower quality than digital out from a Squeezebox into Linn AV5103 and it has an annoying hum and whine (anyone have a better alternative?) but the one upside is that the signal is available to every radio tuner in the house (and a few neighbours too).

Squeezebox (along with a few other things like a new mountain bike and upgraded PC) has changed my whole outlook on the hi-fi so much that I unashamedly seek the music pleasure (which can often be very cheap to do) rather than the hi-fi perfection (which would have cost me £4500 for the next step from where my hi-fi is now).

That doesn't mean everyone should run a Squeezebox through a Bose - it means when some things have reached the flatter upper reaches of the curve of dimishing returns, then spend on diverse areas nearer ground level

 

steve,
aparently if you are using (or can use) a linux version of slimserver there is a plugin which will let you play alien streams (i.e. bbc radio streams) using the squeezebox.
cheers


julian

 

I have the netgear and have been very impressed with it.
Needs a good wireless signal but after that it keeps the connection fine.

The screen is easy enough to read as long as you don't get too far away, but you can choose tracks with it, unlike the Apple version. Its all very easy to use, you can choose by artist, track, genre or just shuffle.

No digital out though

Hope this helps

Andrew