Logitech - Squeezebox Boom Wireless Digital Audio Player with Integrated Speakers

When it comes to accessing online music sources, pretty much 90% of what the Squeezebox does is something you can do with a netbook ot laptop. But once you use the Squeezebox, you won't want to use the netbook. The Squeezebox is the interface that makes listening to music online a real pleasure. Internet radio alone is worthwhile, but adding Pandora (free) and Rhapsody (subscription) is a bonus. You can take advantage of a 30 day Rhapsody subscription - try it, it's like being a kid in a candy store. Other things I like about the Squeezebox is the remote control using a web browser and the alarm clock functions. You can set multiple alarms by day of the week and have a different music source awaken you each day. There are two sources of music- either music stored on your local PC, or music streamed from the internet (your computer can be off, all you need is a connection to the net to stream). It's an open source application, so it should work with a variety of operating systems. And it has useful unadvertised functions - the Squeezebox can function as a wireless bridge if you need one - I ran my DVR to the internet using the squeezebox as a bridge. I have the Boom (3 of them) and while they sound great as a standalone, adding a subwoofer is nice - the squeezebox has a crossover built in for subwoofer use - a $99 Polk powered sub works great. The squeezebox doesn't do much that your PC can't do - but it just does it so much better. I was hung up on this detail at first, after all the squeezebox was pricey. But once I plugged it in and had it going, the value was apparent. No regrets.

I finally found something I treasure more than my iPod... Instead of mixing my own playlists or listening to individual artists the Squeezebox Boom completely blew me away. I researched the heck out of it and I'm still amazed of its versatility. Set up was easy, from unopened box to music in 5 minutes tops. The sound quality is excellent. I have it in my kitchen and it fills up the next two rooms (vaulted ceilings help a bit). The controls are not that hard to get used to per previous reviews I've read. As far as the black finish showing finger prints I've only touched the Box two or three times to move it to my deck. The remote grants you full access and having it be magnetic may be a small add-on nicety but it's really stinking useful (it stays on my fridge). I use Pandora mainly but I'm still trying out new online stations from across the globe. I don't have the fastest wireless network in the world but still only have to wait three to four seconds between station changes. Moving the Box is a breeze as well. It picks up the network within a few seconds. Controlling the Box via PC is also useful and just plain fun. A battery would be a nice option but I rarely need to be far from an outlet. I had an older iPod player that had batteries but I only used it two or three times in two years. There's almost always an outlet nearby. The price did worry me a bit at first but the amount of music the little Box can play and its sound quality more than makes up for it.

I was intrigued by the idea of a network media player that had built in speakers etc, but I was completely put off by the size of the player. For those of you that don't know, the Boom is heavily marketed to be a bedside type unit (also kitchen wall/cabinet mounted). While shopping I thought I would prefer something with a little more heft at the cost of better sound, so I pretty well discounted the Boom and was looking at Audioengine and other options for powered speakers. During my research I ended up coming across the Squeezebox Boom Whitepaper and read through that. It went into a lot of detail regarding the amount of time that Logitech/Slim put into the audio output portion of the box. I also found reviews that in double blind testing the Boom was besting a lot of similar sized boxes that more expensive and lacked network connectivity. I decided it was worth a shot. On my way home from work Tuesday I swung into Best Buy and picked up the last Boom that they had. Once I got home I plugged it in and was up and running in 2-3 minutes (I already have a wifi network setup with a Duet and receivers, so software etc.... had been preinstalled). I started with the Boom in our master bathroom. It was EXCEPTIONAL at filling a pretty large room. I then played with it in spare bedrooms and the master bedroom. All sounded great. Even though I usually don't need it I decided to set up some alarms to wake to. I don't leave my squeezecenter on, so I set the boom to wake up to Pandora over squeezenetwork. This took a little bit of fiddling, but once I figured out that you need to add a channel as a favorite it worked perfectly. That night I was a little bothered by the brightness of the screen, so I turned it away from the bed. However, the next morning I awoke to a sweet crescendo of Nelly About the bright screen - There is already a bug report/feature request to change the behavior of the auto-dimming. Apparently people complained that it was auto-dimming too dark during beta, so when they changed it they went a little too high, and now it isn't dimming enough in certain situations. The fix is likely to be an adjustable low level that the screen dims to. In the meantime I simply overrode the brightness to a level that is acceptable at night. Overall I must say I am more than impressed with the Boom, especially for the price. I am already thinking about adding one to the baby's room so that I have a stereo in there I can remotely control from my Duet/PC to play soothing music while still being able to listen to my tunes when I have to wake up with her. If you are looking for a small network music player that you can move to the various rooms of the house then the Boom is definitely worth looking into...Now, don't expect room filling sound in a 50x50 banquet hall, but for bedrooms etc... it is pretty awesome.

This is one of the BEST home audio devices that I've ever purchased! Bar none! Along with its brother the "Classic" version, it's hard to beat! I have this unit in my master bedroom and the wireless feature is being used, it works flawlessly by the way. I like to stream internet radio stations and there are thousands, no kiddin, thousands. It can get a little overwhelming at first but when you find a station you like make sure you save it to your "Favorites". One of my favorites is a station out of the Netherlands, called "AVRO Klassiek", nothing but soundtracks! I've read a lot of reviews that state you have to have your computer running at all times. This isn't totally correct, if you're running a NAS drive with your slim server installed your computer doesn't have to be turned on. I purchased the NetGear ReadyNas Duo from Best Buy, it works perfectly with all versions of Logitech's Squeezebox units. However if you have all of your music on the computer then yes, it will have to remain "on". It's absolutely awesome to have my entire audio collection at my fingertips ready to play in no time! Over 6000 mp3s and iTunes installed and it will access any of them within seconds. One note for the iTunes fans, this unit and any other mp3 player will not play iTunes with the DRM encoding, it only plays the "iTunes Plus" files, so keep that in mind. The sound quality is very good for such a small device, very happy with it!

Whole-house audio is great. With some effort, I was able to wire my last home and really enjoyed being able to hear the same sound throughout the house. Unfortunately, doing a similar install in my current 1950's multi-story home would be very difficult. Enter the Logitech Squeezebox. I now have three Booms and one Radio, and though it doesn't quite match the quality of the previous in-wall touch pads and in-ceiling speakers, it is a great substitute and I'm again enjoying a seamless sound stage as I walk around the house for a fraction of the price. In addition to the numerous advantages of internet radio and being able to stream off a Windows Home Server, I love the ability to control the system using my iPod Touch and the $10 iPeng program. I'm sure many enjoy iPeng with one radio; however, it really shines in its ability to sync up the four systems I have.

I had this out of the box and playing in less than 5 mins. and that included manually entering a long WEP key. A few mins. later I had mysqueezebox setup with my Slaker account and now that played. Worked perfectly with my windows XP server and all my media was quickly imported into the library. It also imported playlists properly which actually surprised me since the paths had changed. Server control is easy to use from any connected PC in the house using the WEB interface on the home server.

Easy to setup and find stations all over the world. Use and setup of MyApps for Pandora, Last.fm and RadioTime, plus i can fall asleep to the sound of a Babbling Brook. Listen to your music collection on your computer or hook up your ipod and it's Stereo. One problem is I can not get KFI in Los Angeles any more, because the station went to Clear Channel and blocked access to their internet broadcast thru these units (a bummer since this was one of the main reasons I bought this unit). If your going to listen to just Talk radio get the one speaker unit instead of this.

This was so easy to set up. I have not stopped exploring its features since we got it. Great sound fills our bedroom and the office next door at half volume. Easy access to music stored on our three computers, not to mention all the new music I'm listening to on Pandora and the many, many Internet radio stations. Woke up with the alarm feature to my favorite station this morning (regular radio reception in my bedroom is terrible). Want to get another for the kitchen!