Creative Labs Sound Blaster Wireless Music Review

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(More customer reviews)You saw the pictures, you read the Creative's marketing spiel, your read "reviews" in ad-soaked magazines, so now here are an actual user's impressions (mine): the product does have a few shortcomings, but none of them are lethal, and all are outweighted by a really neat implementation of core features. The sound is great, the interface is nice, and the value is terrific.
The visual centerpiece of the package is the remote. It's big, substantially looking, and sports a large blue-backlit LCD screen which alleviates the need to use a TV for visual navigation. The menu structure is laid out well, the navigation buttons are laid out conveniently, and the fonts are crisp and easy-to-read Tahoma-like type. You can either navigate your collection by Artist/Album/Genre/etc, or use playlists created on your PC, or use "smart playlist" such as "newest added tracks" or "most often listened" and such. There are loop/shuffle controls, but no timed auto-shutoff, which would be handy in a bedroom. The remote's LCD is apparently capable of displaying different fonts and graphics, but alas doesn't use them for anything except the boot-up splash screen and volume control bars. Perhaps Creative could implement a spectrum alanyzer or use larger type for Now Playing track info. Also, I am puzzled why Creative didn't make the buttons backlit as well, having all the componentry for that already in design.
The receiver is a small and clean-looking black/silver brick in a slim paper-back NY Times bestseller format. It can either be propper upright on an included stand, or layed flat. It has green/red/amber leds that indicate whether the unit is powered up, searching for the network, and connected to your its server software running on your PC. Since the remote communicates to it using two-way radio, the most logical choice to position the receiver once its configured is simply to hide it somewhere out of sight altogether. The output options include RCA-style stereo jacks. Perhaps because of the size of the unit, there is no amplifier circuitry, hence you need to use powered speakers. Additionally, the unit has an optical ("Toslink") SPDIF output, for feeding sound to your audio receiver or straight to capable speakers such as those from Roland/Edirol. Optical cables can provide for a really stealth setup! Alas, even with SPDIF the output is stereo-only, meaning that you can't play multi-channel WMA files, or stream AC-3 sound or anything like that. But given scarcity of multi-channel tracks, that's not a big loss really. The sound that you do get is very clean, equally with 802.11b and 802.11g setup. Really nothing to complain about. Worth noting is that the unit works in Infrastructure mode only. No Ad-Hoc support. If you don't have a wireless router or access point, you'll need to buy one. I am successfully using NetGear 614. With that in place, the receiver will sniff out all available wireless networks, and on each will try a DHCP request, and to discover a Media Server to latch on to.
On the PC side, the package manifests itself in a number of applications. One, Media Server, runs in the background and serves up your MP3/WMA collection to the receiver. Another one, Media Organizer, is used for cataloguing of your collection based on ID3V tags, as well as creation of playlists. There's also a piece of software to rip the tracks from your CDs. A separate Sniffer app can sense addition of new files to your collection and will trigger a corresponding update of Wireless Music's internal catalogue. For the initial configuration of your receiver, there is a Network Setup wizard. You will only have to use it if you deploy more than one Wireless Music receiver in you house, and want to give each one a unique name, or if your network is WEP-protected and you need to supply a WEP key. It utilizes a USB connection (a cable is supplied). Finally, an upgrade utility is supplied for flashing of your unit (both receiver and remote) with new firmware, also over USB.
If you ever used any Creative Labs product at all, then perhaps you're aware of the notorious quality of their software and drivers. Previous reviewers highlighted the issue of slow loading of playlists and general sluggishness of the remote. However, new receiver and remote firmware downloads dated 11/18/2003 are available at us.creative.com. By all means, go ahead and install them. They greatly improve remote's response times, and also add some features. Some, however -- such as F.F. and Rewind skipping -- don't work as claimed. That's Creative Labs for you. Just be ready for it. Same thing with their product support. I recently emailed them with a bug report describing a loss of connection between the receiver and PC if the latter is rebooted, and their support responded with a canned battery of instructions asking me to upgrade my Windows XP to SP1, or reinstall the software, or to reformat the drive and to reinstall Windows XP altogether. Standard nonsense just to make you go away and stop bothering them.
So, in a nutshell, on to Pro's and Con's.
Pros:
Great sound quality
Great receiver auto-setup features; support for 802.11g.
Great backlit RF remote with large screen; no TV required
Clean, intuitive user interface
Upgradeable firmware
Unobstrusive design
Toslink SPDIF output available
Cons:
As usual, incompetent techical support from Creative
As usual, mediocre Creative software
Buttons on the remote are not backlit
No playlist manipulation using the remote

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CREATIVE Sound Blaster Wireless Entertainment gives you the freedom to enjoy all of the MP3 and other digital audio music on your PC in any room of your home or office, using your existing wireless network. The included RF remote control sports an LCD screen, which lets you scan your entire MP3 collection and choose the music you want hear -- even when the receiver is out of the line of view.OS Compatibility -Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP

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NETGEAR Wireless Digital Music Player Review

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(More customer reviews)Now that I have this set up it does exactly what I wanted it to very well -- that is, in a wired network environment, it streams all the mp3 files that I have on my PC's hard drive through my traditional two-channel audio setup. It has a number of limitations: it doesn't support Internet radio, except for a paid service, and it doesn't support various rights-protected data formats. But it does do the one thing I bought it for extremely well: allowing me to enjoy my entire music collection in an organized, well catalogued way, through my home audio system.
As this whole field of products is still pretty new, I also didn't want to spend more money on one of the more advanced systems -- it seems that the customer feedback on all of these media players remains pretty mixed. So I stuck with something relatively simple, and this little box does what I want for a reasonable price. (Previously I was using my iPod on a docking station, connected to my stereo...for the modest price of this Netgear player I've now liberated the iPod that previously was wired up to my stereo.)
A couple of cautions:
1. A lot of the customer problems cited here at Amazon seem to relate to problems with wireless transmission. I did not even try to set this up in a wireless network; I just hard-wired it into the network port I had installed in my living room. I have had a lot of frustration in my home w/wireless devices so finally just gave up and dropped in wiring for a home network while I was having other electrical work done in my house. I am glad I bit the bullet -- the wired network is saving me a lot of time and trouble. This Netgear product is just one example of the kinds of things that are very happy tethered to a wire that seem to be much more problematic when they are wireless.
2. Throw away the software disk that comes with the hardware -- don't install it!. Instead, download the new software and firmware that is on Netgear's site. I couldn't get this to work at all at first -- tech support advised me to uninstall the provided software, download the software update on their site, and start over. This got more complicated than it sounds because I'd already built a database of songs for the Netgear and I had to hunt down this database file and kill it, too...it got a little bit tricky...so it took me a couple of hours in all to get this fixed. Had I started with the new software posted on Netgear's site, I would have had the whole thing done in 20 minutes. In any case, just go right to netgear's site and download their new software, and don't use the junk they ship with the product.
I also found netgear's tech support to be very, very good -- they answered the phone quickly (on Christmas Eve!) and were extremely helpful and patient.

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NETGEAR's Wireless Digital Music Player lets you enjoy your digital music files stored on your computers and unlimited, worldwide Internet radio with your friends and family throughout your home. It connects your existing home stereo to your home computer network so you can listen to the digital music collection from any PC on your home stereo system. You can also listen to music directly from a 30,000 track digital jukebox using the RHPSODY service (only available in U.S.) or hear thousands of Internet radio stations even when your PCs are turned off. Easy-to-install software on one PC automatically finds all your music files on any networked PC and collects them into one complete database. The remote control and stylish user interface let you sit on the couch and wirelessly stream MP3s or Windows Media format files from any PC on your home network straight to your stereo! The MP101 supports many PC operating systems, not just Windows XP, and the LCD display means you don't need to turn on your TV when you want to listen to music.

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VTech IS9181 WiFi Internet Radio with Access to Online Content Review

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(More customer reviews)Imagine playing music directly from Japan while eating sushi in your dining room. Or playing Hawaiian music from Hawaii at your next luau. With this WiFi internet radio you can listen to music from all over the world and save your favorites with just a push of the "favorites" button. Then the next time you want to listen you can go directly the the "My Stations" list and choose one of your favorites. I have a classical station in Italy, an oldies station in France, a Celtic station in Ireland and some radio stations in the midwest that I grew up listening to in my favorites list. I also have a French news talk station to keep up on my French. In my video I'll show you how to make some of the internet radio selections and find your own favorite stations.
One of the other options is to listen to music from your computer on this device. The included manual gives simple instructions, with some photos, for setting up your computer so that you can connect via WiFi with this internet radio and play your favorite mp3's, WMA's, Real audio, MP4 and M4A files. There are instructions included for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS 10.4 and 10.5. I've listened to music from both my Windows and Mac computers without any problem. And the good news is that it's easy to set up, even for a non geeky person. The internet radio is also simple to set up. When you turn it on for the first time it asks you if you want to set the time, weather setting (your zip code) and wireless settings. It looks for your WiFi network and asks you to enter your password. I used both the little dial on the top of the radio and the remote to make entering it faster.
I mentioned in my video review that you can use the RCA connectors on the back of the unit to connect to other speakers, such as your stereo speakers. The RCA connector cord isn't included with the radio. There is an auxiliary audio cable included to connect another device such as an mp3 player to this radio (audio in). If you wanted to connect earphones, like the type from an mp3 player I think an adapter like this would work 2 x RCA Male / 1 x 3.5mm Stereo Female, Y-Cable, 6 inch
The sound on the video is limited not only by the camera, but by the compression into a video small enough to show here. It sounds so much better in person. But I hope the video gives you an idea of the different menus and features.

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WiFi Streaming Music Device with Access to Online Content

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Cisco-Linksys WMB54G Wireless-G Music Bridge Review

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(More customer reviews)First off, a little background... I consider myself fairly skilled at using computers.. I have been using them for 25+ years and have installed operating systems, configured routers, set up wireless networks, recovered systems from virus crashes, etc. Reading the below reviews I thought that while installing the music bridge might be a bit tricky, I could handle it.
WOW. I don't know where to begin. This product has the worst documentation I've ever seen, both in the box and online. I spent 10+ hours getting this to work on my system, plus another hour un-doing damage to my system registry after the Music Bridge driver conflicted with another driver in my system and caused a crash.
Having said that, I finally have it up and running and it is operating as promised, though using 100% of my CPU power and thus causing the computer to run very slowly.
Reading the support forum on the linksys site, the people that have the fewest problems installing this equipment are those that don't have routers. Ironically, though Linksys (and Cisco) are router companies, the instructions do not include the special steps that must be taken to re-configure your router so it will connect with the bridge.
Be warned - this is not plug and play and you may very well spend a lot of frustrating time trying to get it to work. Once it is working there are many idiosyncracies (eg having to close and open your music player to get it to play through the bridge) that you would not expect from a well-designed piece of hard/software.
This is a bargain for a reason - I'd suggest you spend a little more and find something better. Good luck!!

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You're having a party, but you don't have the time it will take to burn a disc of your favorite digital tunes. This is where the Linksys WMB54G Wireless-G Music Bridge comes in. By letting you wirelessly stream audio files from your PC to your stereo or other speaker system, no matter which music service you use, the Wireless-G Music Bridge gives you all the convenience of digital music with the sound of high-performance stereo.With the Wireless-G Music Bridge, you can send whatever music your PC is playing--whether it's from media players, games, Internet radio, orMP3 files--through your home network and to your stereo system. If you're running a wireless (802.11b and 802.11g) network, the Music Bridge will send your music to your stereo with no need for any additional cables. Simply connect the Wireless-G Music Bridge to your entertainment system via the included RCA cable, and you'll be ready to start cranking the tunes. Alternately, you can also use standard 10/100 Ethernet cabling to connect to your network.If you have a 5.1-channel surround sound system, the Wireless-G Music Bridge includes software that creates a virtual 5.1-channel sound in your PC, so that you can take full advantage of your stereo system. The Wireless-G Music Bridge also lets you choose what audio from your PC you want to play over your audio system. For example, you can choose to send music but not email alerts or other PC tones. Or you may want to keep the alert tones streaming. It's entirely up to you.An easy-to-use setup wizard will guide you through the configuration so that you can be up and running in no time. The Wireless-G Music Bridge supports 128-bit WEP encryption to ensure a secure connection and is compatible with wireless 802.11b and 802.11g standards.What's in the Box Wireless-G Music Bridge, Ethernet network cable, stereo RCA cable, power adapter, setup wizard CD-ROM, user guide on CD-ROM, and quick installation guide.

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Creative Labs Xmod Wireless Music System with X-Fi Technology Review

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(More customer reviews)The Xmod Wireless comes in 2 parts, a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter connects very simply to your PC via USB and it functions as a USB soundcard, applying X-Fi sound enhancement to any sound or music that is passed through it. Compressed audio like AAC, WMA and MP3 files are upscaled to 24 bit quality and surround sound effects can be added.
You have to experience this to appreciate it. It really does make your music sound better. Sometimes the improvement is more subtle than at other times, but the quality X-Fi provides really shines when you connect the receiver end of the Xmod Wireless to a good set of speakers that you might have in your theater or family room.
So, on to part 2 of the package. The wireless receiver. This enables you to control and listen to your music anywhere you place the receiver in your house. Your PC music collection is streamed around the house with top notch quality and fidelity. I have my receiver connected to my theater setup and the sound is fantastic. You can purchase additional receivers if you'd like to play your music in multiple rooms.
Cool things about the package overall. The range is great and there is no lag. Plus, it just works. You don't need to have your own network or anything running already. Just turn on the receiver and transmitter and away you go, nothing to fuss with. If you do have a network running, this won't interfere with it at all. I think both units are stylish as well. They fit right in with high end equipment and they are pretty small.
You also get a remote for each side and there are inputs so that you can connect an MP3 player. With the remotes, you can skip tracks, pause tracks, turn on and off the X-Fi features, etc.
I don't really have any negatives other than the price, but I still think it's worth it. Sonos has products with similar features that cost up to $1000. Xmod Wireless gives you what you need with better audio technology for a lot less. It would also be nice to have a small display on the receiver unit so you can see what you are browsing.
Overall, Xmod Wireless is highly recommended. The unique combination of a driverless and simple to use USB soundcard with a high quality streaming device is an excellent way to introduce your PC to your home theater setup or to any room of your house.


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Play music from your PC wirelessly in any room, Make your MP3s sound better than CDs, Connect in seconds - no configuration needed.

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