Roku SoundBridge M1000/M1001 Network Music System
by Roku
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List Price: Category: Receiver or Amplifier See more product details |
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(Click here)
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Roku SoundBridge M1000/M1001 Network Music System
Customer Review: With a little effort, spectacular results
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought a Roku SoundBridge M1000 last month with two objectives: Firstly, I wanted to listen to the MP3s on the stereo in the living room (without resorting to CD-R), and secondly, I wanted a to turn my PC into a "media center" and get out of the business of trying to find a CD in a cupboard of hundreds of non-alphabetized CDs. The Roku SoundBridge achieved both goals, though not without difficulty.
The SoundBridge appears to be solidly built and looks stylish on the sideboard. No need to hide this one away!
Initial set up was straight forward. It worked with both Netgear and Linksys wireless routers with WEP, and within about 30 minutes I had achieved objective #1.
Sound quality is very good, and herein lies the problem - MP3s that are great through PC speakers, sound lack-luster through a good stereo. The problem is inherent with MP3. I needed loss-less compression. SoundBridge, in conjunction with the excellent and free FireFly media server, can play FLAC format and sounds absolutely spectacular when it does - every bit as good as the original CD. Unfortunately, the configuration is not straight forward. It took me several days to figure it out and maybe beyond someone less technically savvy. Roku should add native support for FLAC and remove this burden from their customers.
Another gripe - the WiFi is "b" and not "g", was not robust enough to run from one side of the house to the other, especially with high bandwidth material e.g., loss-less WAV and would "rebuffer". I gave up on wireless and ran a wire and plugged it in. With CD's ripped as FLAC and a wired connection - I achieved objective #2.
Customer Review: Love This! Great Features! Easy to Install!
Summary: 5 Stars
Amazon has two listings for this product. Don't think there is any difference between them for the M1001. But I'm duplicating my review here.
There have been changes since the previous model. I just bought mine 11/07 and it can handle 802.11g and WPA as the encryption system.
After reading a lot of negative reviews for soundbridges produced by some of the wireless router manufacturers, I was very discouraged. Fortunately someone mentioned Roku as an alternative and I found my way to this unit. It costs a bit more, but it looks great, has great features and I found it to be very easy to install. No problem working with my Linksys WRT54G wireless router. No problem working with Windows Vista.
Probably the most difficult set up was having to input the encryption code with a remote! Other than that, piece of cake. Within an hour I was standing in the livingroom, remote in hand, scrolling through my iTunes library. You can search by artist, album, or choose your playlists. I haven't even gotten into the Internet radio capabilities. Do check out radioroku for listings and reviews of stations. There is also free software that allows you to preview stations on the Internet and add them to your list. Normally the unit is controlled by a remote, but there is also free software called iBridge which will allow you to control it from your computer. Frankly, this might be a little easier if you want to do more than play your presets.
Works great and looks a lot nicer than some router-looking thing.
Customer Review: Just What I've Been Looking For!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been looking for a product like this for a long time. We live on the fringe area of Chicago, and many of the stations I love, we could only get occasionally, if we were lucky. But with the Soundbridge receiver, it pulls in all the stations with no interference (like we had with FM radio) as well as those from around the world, with no additional monthly fee. As long as you have a wireless network set up, this unit receives the signal from your router, and the computer doesn't even have to be on to hear the radio stations. The unit arrived in about 1 week with regular shipping, and it was easy to setup. All we had to do was connect it to our speakers thru our stereo system, it recognized our router, we entered our password, and it was ready to use. The insruction manual is easy to understand. We had it all set up in about 25-30 minutes.
The RadioRoku.com website is a great advantage, because there you can set up a free account, and then choose your Favorites and Presets from a vast array of stations. After you set up those, you can use your remote to scroll down to your choices, and select the station you want. You can also right click the station on the website, and choose to play it on your PC, or you can change the station playing on the Soundbridge from your PC. I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves to listen to static-free radio. Next, I'll probably get one for the bedroom.
Customer Review: Amazing!
Summary: 5 Stars
This was my first Wi-Fi radio, and I didn't know quite what to expect. All I did was enter my WEP code (security code for my wi-fi network that you get off the router setup page) it connected right away and started streaming internet radio! I hadn't even powered up the PC on the network yet! It has a huge assortment of internet radio stations available by searching or even browsing by genre from the remote that stream in very good quality (128Kbps MP3 or WMA). I never would have believed internet radio was this easy. Just for the radio part this thing is worth it. My FM radio is useless now. The quality is better and the selection is out of this world (or at least out of this country ;-).
I can play African bongo music or rock from Russia without even firing up the PC! I think even my mom could use this once it's setup (and while I love her dearly, programming a VCR would be a stretch for her).
As a soundbridge I simply installed and fired up iTunes on my PC on the network and after setting a few windows settings as the manual suggests, the soundbridge played all the songs without any problems.
The software in this thing rocks. Obviously their goal was to get it to work as seemlessly and easily as possible and I have to say it doesn't get any easier than this.
Amazing.
Customer Review: An MP3 Player With Wired and Wireless Network Interfaces
Summary: 5 Stars
Note that there is no functional difference between M1000 and M1001. Also, both devices are equipped with 802.11b which is perfectly adequate, so not having 802.11g is probably irrelevant. The following are some observations:
Pros:
1. Intuitive UI design for browsing.
2. Attractive industrial design.
3. Able to play internet radio without the computer on.
4. Natively supported by Media Player 11. No additional software needs to be installed.
5. Good sound quality. Optical port is a plus.
6. Painless firmware upgrade. It is done directly over the network. No need to disconnect or reconnect anything.
7. Reasonably priced.
Cons:
1. Does not support double byte languages.
2. Could have given better diagnostic messages when media server is not found.
3. LED of the optical port is always on, even in standby mode. I wonder if it will wear out.
4. Standby mode still draw 3 watts of power. Most of my other gadgets draw only 1 watt of power at standby.
You need some knowledge of wireless network setup and firewalls to get this device working.
Yeah, it is still a 5 stars product. Despite imperfections, it is still more fun than chore. That is a lot more than I can say about a lot of other hi-tech toys I own.