Logitech Squeezebox Radio A year on from testing the Squeezebox Boom wireless music streamer, Logitech has released its little brother into the wild. Called the Squeezebox Radio, the new device is the transistor radio of the Squeezebox range to the Boom's ghetto blaster. Logitech Squeezebox Radio No DAB, no FM: Logitech's Squeezebox Radio Rocking …
When are they going to learn?
These things need to be around the £50 price point so sell them in great numbers. £150 for a WiFi radio is just too much.
I'm still running a Logik IR100 which I paid £40 for, which works well. I would buy a couple more if I could get them but all these companies want too much for them
Logitech = premium product, hence the relatively high price.
The Freecom Musicpal is still available, ethernet + wifi net radio plus streaming off a server, with external line outputs to plug into a conventional hifi:
www.freecom.com/objects/00011377.pdf
Shop around and you can still obtain one for less than £100. Last Christmas Eve, Pissy World sold theirs off for half price, so I got mine for £30. It works well, and is well made with a style not dissimilar to Logitech's products.
Toys are so much nicer when they're cheap!
Hello Logitech are you listening?
Everyone else has realised that UPnP has grown up. Even MS has realised that they need to support the standard rather than go their own way, and my Sony TV as well.
OK so Apple haven't, but after 5 seconds on the app store you can have a free UPnP player on the iPod touch too.
If I bought this it would almost be the only gadget I have that doesn't play media from my NAS. Sure I could plug my iPod into it, but then I might as well just use some powered speakers.
FAIL
Its only saving grace is that it is fitted with an Ethernet Port.
other than that, nice toy, but what if the ISP's start blocking Streaming music services as part of Mandy's totalitarian rule of digital Britain???
Terminator Metal-man, cos their the only ones who will no issue with living on a planet that glows with microwave radiation.
As an alternative - I bought a Philips Streamium WAS7500 from PC World of all places two weeks ago, at a knock down price of £80. The sound from this device is really quite impressive, it looks the part, has FM radio, internet radio, streaming from windows media player etc (with uPNP and DLNA support), colour display, wireless, ethernet, aux input, ipod input, and a USB port.
Not portable, granted, but it did come with a free remote ...
Would highly recommend it.
... but it's not a hen.
I loathe installing any application onto my PC to get hardware to work. Driver? Fine - as long as it's under half a meg and consists of a .sys, .inf and a couple of dll's.
On that point, my Windows Media Centre is fine for streaming thanks. I don't want another app taking up resources on my system when I'm streaming HD video's, music, live freeview and pics to my telly already.
Why should I need ANOTHER app?!
Knock £50 off and include a rechargeable battery and make it work with uPNP then we'll talk
If you want a cheap little UPnP music player then go get one -- there are enough of them out there. If you want a device that's customizable, programmable, supports every music format known to man, hooks up to online music services, does seamless multi-room audio, and has superb quality, then get a Squeezebox and accept the fact that the server lets it do things that UPnP-AV is totally incapable of.
By the way, a note to Reg editors: it's "Perl", not "Pearl". (It's also not "PERL".)
"...third party iPlayer plug-in that gives you access to all the BBC's Listen Again content. This feature does require that you have your PC or NAS box running,"
Seriously? My Reciva-based Logik IR100 can do that without a plug-in or (worse) the need to be using another device at the same time.
Surely the whole point of an internet radio is that you can use it independently of other devices. If you need to have your PC running in order to enable such a basic function, you may as well listen on the PC in the first place.
This looks a real disappointment, especially after the lukewarm reviews of the Pure Sensia.
Browsing idly in the John Lewis gadget department the other day, I noticed a couple of new models, namely the Revo Heritage and Roberts Stream 83i. Any chance of a review of these?
Also, do you intend to revisit the Pure Sensia if they ever get round to finishing it?
I have just purchased a Kogan(?? yeah, not sure either - http://www.kogan.com.au/shop/category/digital-radios/) in Aus., and it's brilliant! $169A (about £94??) and it does DAB+, FM, Network music (uPnP), Internet Radio (with craploads already setup), plays off USB, iPod dock and probably more that I've forgotten. Also has a headphones out, so can be connected to various other equipment, and sound is quite good.... Biggest drawback is there is no remote - Bugger!
I really like this radio, similar price to reviewed item:
http://revo.co.uk/digital-radio/revo-pico-radiostation.php
It's mains powered or portable with a built-in rechargeable battery.
It doesn't play back FLAC though which is a disappointment as this is my preferred format (highest lossless fidelity) for storing my music collection on my networked storage.
It also doesn't have an alarm clock and the display can't be dimmed for nighttime.
But apart from that it produces reliable internet radio, FM and DAB (well as reliable as the original signal) with DAB+ for future proofing.
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