 Manufacturer : Roku Model : M500 ASIN : B000B5UJ5A Price : 149.99$ See Special Offers   Amazon.com Product DescriptionAmazon.com Product Description Winner of the CES 2004 Innovations Award, Roku's SoundBridge M500 digital music receiver employs WiFi technology to broadcast media files from your Mac or PC to just about anywhere in the house. You no longer have to be sitting at your computer to hear your music, nor do you need to burn your Internet-sourced audio to CDs to import it to the living room. Just plug the M500 into your integrated amplifier or surround receiver and you can listen to all your digital music on your stereo or multichannel speaker system. The M500 includes a built-in 802.11b WiFi card slot (with card) for wireless use and an RJ-45/Cat5 Ethernet port for hard-wired connections.
PC owners, meanwhile, will delight in the SoundBridge's built-in Windows Media Connect, Windows Media Player 10, and Rhapsody support. The device also works with any music service using Windows Media DRM 10, such as Napster, MusicMatch, and Walmart.com. All told, the M500 is the most compatible music player around.
The SoundBridge offers Internet radio access, too, bringing you a selection of free music and talk-radio stations (with up to 10 station presets). Roku's Fast Browse feature lets you browse huge music collections by album, artist, genre, or composer (providing your files are properly encoded with said details). You can also play your stored iTunes playlists or use the keyword search to find the title you seek. Beyond its WiFi and RJ-45 interfaces, the M500 offers straight-ahead audio connections: a gold-plated line-level RCA output and S/PDIF coaxial and optical Toslink digital outputs (one each) for those that want a pure digital connection with a surround receiver or a CD or minidisc recorder. In addition, Roku has outfitted the SoundBridge with a super-fast, 400 MHz Blackfin DSP and 16 MB of DRAM memory, giving it more than enough headroom to handle future software updates. Finally, the SoundBridge's sleek industrial design looks comfortable anywhere of the house, and even fits conveniently on the wall or under a shelf or cabinet using Roku's optional mounting accessory. The M500 measures 10 inches wide by 2.37 inches in diameter and is backed by a one-year warranty. What's in the Box  14 of 14 people found the following review helpful: Buyers better have their ducks in a row-compatability issues This review is from: Roku SoundBridge M500 Network Music System (Electronics) Roku's Soundbridge units don't work with all routers, so before you think wireless music is within your sites, do your homework. To Roku's credit, they offer a list of, and rate compatability factors for, most of the common routers consumers are using at home. CHECK THIS LIST CAREFULLY before you buy this product or you might end up with some expensive audio equipment that only works if you go WIRED. Also, Roku has a nice discussion board forum on their site, and you can get a realistic idea about issues concerning the pros and cons of their products. If you do buy something that doesn't work, they do offer a 30 day-no-questions-asked return policy. Bottom line is CHECK OUT THEIR SITE b4 u buy anywhere else. [...] 13 of 13 people found the following review helpful: Very Cool, works well, Works with napster service! This review is from: Roku SoundBridge M500 Network Music System (Electronics) Received this unit last night. Had it set up in minutes! Instructions were simple, configured to my wi-fi with encryption, no problem. Found my computer, no problem, didn't find my napster library - added the folder with my music to the shared folder, then worked no problem. Internet radio station no problem. It will drive headphones directly if you want, has volume control on remote. Would be great driving computer speakers. Even shows time and date when off. With napster it is really great. I can load up my computer with thousands of tunes and then put the M500 anywhere in the house and have access to all the tunes. One of the few devices that can do this with "rented" music. I highly recommend this device. The 500 has all the features of the bigger brothers but not the slicker display. However the LCD is plenty readable. The VU meters are a bit slow (not a big deal). It comes with the Wi-Fi card (which you install - used to be an option I guess) so it is really ready to go out of the box. If you have napster, rapsody, yahoo music or a lot of your CD's ripped to MP3, WMA or AAC than you should consider this. What you can't do (maybe true of all "streaming" devices) is fast forward or rewind inside a track. This can be problematic with long tracks if you want to hear a section again. Finally I have napster to go and an Iriver player. On the Iriver the gaps between tracks are long while the player loads the next track, this can be annoying on classical or spoken word works. The Soundbridge doesn't have this problem. I think because the computer can stream the next track faster than the portable Iriver could. (this is a DRM WMA issue, for the Iriver and not an issue with MP3's). 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful: Works flawlessly. Can't expect more. This review is from: Roku SoundBridge M500 Network Music System (Electronics) Within 20 seconds of plugging it in I was playing music from my iTunes music library on my Powerbook. Simply could not have been any easier. Excellent sound quality. Streams internet radio stations (including any in the iTunes Radio tuner and tons more) -- it more than replaces XM or Sirius anywhere you have internet access. Minor downsides: Remote could be designed better, and would be nice if it used 802.11g instead of b (since tests have shown that one "b" device slows down the whole "g" network), but these are minor complaints in relation to how well the SoundBridge works and how easy it is to use.  A Music Lover's Must Have Everything the other reviewers claim is true. It was easy to set up, was found instantly by my wireless router and is reliable and responsive. by Warren Mells Great device An excellent unit, sounds great, great design. I stream over wireless many hours a day, with almost never a drop. by Koeeaddi Just the best ... This Roku SoundBridge M500 is a great deal. It's easy to configure, very stylish and supports mostly all streaming formats. by Amy Shoe Love it except for a few exceptions Finally bought after several weeks on research. It works well; easy to connect to ITunes and Rhapsody (my two favorite music servers). by David L. Crouch |
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Roku SoundBridge M500 Network Music System
Logitech 930-000012 Transporter Network Music Player (Silver)
Manufacturer : Logitech Model : 930-000012 ASIN : B00175SW20 Price : 1999.99$ See Special Offers  Product DescriptionExperience pure audio delight. Designed to please the most discriminating audiophiles and music lovers, Logitech Transporter offers sound quality that surpasses even the most exotic CD players. 15 of 15 people found the following review helpful: Took a bit to setup, RTMD! There is some very knowledgable info about the Transformer at wikipedia.org, the Logitech site is useful for basic system software and a few FAQ's. Do yourself a favor and write down all ip settings for future reference. The use groups at wikipedia are where you'll find the fun stuff. Start a folder on your PC and save all links to it. Confused by what I've just written, than you'll need a trusted friend with a bit above average computer skills and a free afternoon, or be prepaired to pay someone to do your setup for you. If either of these is going to be the case than you might want to reconsider purchasing this unit. This system is not designed for the impatient. As with most all high-end gear, source is very important (GIGO). I've noticed nuances unheard before in a number of my chosen reference recordings, as well as previously unnoticed distortions. Audio listening being subjective makes one wonder if hearing such is due to the critical listening of the moment or the new gear. Or could it be that we desire to hear new subtleties after dropping a decent chunk of change on a new toy. Is it a combination of these things or none of them. From where I sit I'm going with the new box and a bit higher resolution included therein. It makes the fun, funner, the good, gooder and the hey! I never noticed Coltrane bumping the mic stand on that or was that a squeek from Charlie Byrd's chair. To me its akin to putting a new stylus on your favorite cartridge. The Transformer runs on an open source platform and some of the the tweaks written by use group members are nice additions to the unit. My wife really enjoys having the local weather data available at a glance. Before you get into the tweaks have the overall system operation down pretty well. I've found it best to backup the PC settings before doing any tweaking to be able to undo easily. The remote that comes with the Transformer does not have a display and is line of sight only. This can be annoying for general listening. After a few weeks I went ahead and bought a Squeezebox Duet system to gain a remote with display and non line of sight control. I put the Duet receiver out in my workshop. This really allows you to do some cool stuff, you can sync the music on the players or have them run independently. This also allows you to use the remote controller as a third unit via it's 1/8" headphone jack or with adapter cables to plug it into another system as well. It can also be in sync. with the other units or independent of them. The Transformer remote takes standard batteries, the Squeezebox remote is rechargable with station include. The Squeezebox remote is also very customizable in both function and appearance. Adding the Squeezebox unit did cost more money, however the ability to program and operate the Transformer was greatly increased with this upgrade to the system. It is also possible to program many system settings of the Transporter via your computer, your offered plenty of built in redundancy. You have your choice of using the front panel buttons, the remote control or the computer interface. It is possible to program and control music via computer, plus compatability with WinAmp. There is a Java based software emulator that some may like also. The unit auto updates it's own firmware, software seems to be updated on a regular basis too. I'm really not going to get into the web audio streaming functions. There are limitless choices here both free and pay to play. Your dealing with low bit-rate streams in most cases, there is quite a good world wide station search function to use. I've used the optical line in feature to do a bit of A/B testing between CD's and Lossless streams and really have heard no discernable difference in sound quality between them. There are also options that will connect you to web based music databases, Amazon.com, and also Bio and Discog search abilities plus plenty more bells and whistles to boot. It is very hard to not go on and on about the Transporter, as mentioned it is a piece of gear that demands patience. Being somewhat past the half-century mark I may not fully utilize some of the available functions offered herein. I do however thoroughly appreciate having those choices made available. To be able to either Set It and Forget It, or to be transported into an entirely new audio adventure. Steve S. Fort Worth, Tx 12 of 15 people found the following review helpful: Excellent, but a bit pricy This review is from: Logitech 930-000012 Transporter Network Music Player (Silver) (Electronics) This unit works very well to send music to a quality stereo system via a high speed home wireless network. I recommend buying and using a different software like Easy CD-DA extractor to convert your cds to hard drive files into formats like FLAC or m4a or mp3. Then the transporter can be linked to your music files on the hard drive and you can play them via your computer. This unit does come with a squeeze center software that allows you to link to iTunes if you already have that set up and also it allows different playlists. It can also take downloaded higher quality 24 bit/96khz files and play them in addition to the 16 bit/44 khz cd quality files or mp3's. Be sure to back up your files as it takes a long time to build up a hard drive with good music files and you do not want to lose them. The sound of the cds when converted to FLAC files are as good as from a very high end cd player. Of course with mp3's it is a little less quality, but that is no fault of this unit. There are some other more expensive units like from Naim, etc, and compared to them this is a good value. If you want something for less, and don't need the higher quality, the regular squeeze box is worth a look. Logitech Transporter I have had this for a few weeks and so far it is great and the sound quality is much better then I expected. by Ken Goldsberry Transporter Music Player This product is right on. It gets some great music off the Web to your stereo system in a quality way. You will like the results, it's worth the money. by P. Eversole Audiophile quality meets iPod convenience The Transporter isn't cheap, but its fairly priced for all it does. The server software it relies on integrates cleanly with iTunes if desired, but is perfectly capable of... by David Claussen Had it for over a year i still love it! I'm a bit of an audiophile tech geek and I love this thing. It's actually easy to set up and for the geeks of us out there, the DAC sounds great, easily the best DAC in the price... by Christopher Watson |
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