Customer Reviews

Cisco-Linksys Wireless-B Music System WMLS11B

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

MY BACKGROUND:
I have always been an ardent musicphile and have subsequently grown a respectable collection of music. With a little less than 1000 CDs, physically finding the music you feel like listening to was always a chore (although there is much to be said for spending some quality time rediscovering that CD that you forgot you had). SO, I jumped on the MP3 bandwagon a couple of years ago, ripping my entire collection (up yours RIAA) onto my server. Having them on my server has made it easy to listen to whatever I like pretty much anywhere in the house where there's a computer (both son's rooms, living room, my office). I converted to iTunes recently when it became available for the PC (much nicer to synch the iPod with than <spit> MusicMatch <spit>). BTW, I'm a software engineer and gadget freak, which explains why my house is wired with CAT6 cabling and why even my 3 year old son's computer is running at Gigabit speeds on our home network. :-)

Okay, enough babbling, onto the review:
WHY I BOUGHT IT-
I'd been toying with the idea of picking up one of the portable media players ever since they came out a year or so ago. I couldn't justify spending the cash on the designs that were out there until I found the Linksys WMLS11B. It is very aesthetically pleasing, but more importantly, it has a very nice (and large for the form factor) LCD screen and looks basically like a boombox that can play all your MP3s. Whenever I can (when the weather and family allow) I try to work from my deck or screened-in porch. I'm somewhat tired of having the iPod earbuds sticking in my ears and plugging a pair of powered computer speakers into the iPod is a hassle.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS-
For $180 ($250+ MSRP) I expected something a bit more substantial. It's not badly constructed, but seems too 'plasticky' and lightweight for the cost. Anyway, after about ten minutes, I had it configured and working on my wireless network (Linksys 802.11g). Incidentally, you need to set it up with an ethernet connection to set it up initially, but I could not get it to connect to any of my computers directly and had to finally just plug it into a router. The very first impression was that I had messed something up with the wiring because I had to have the volume all the way up to hear the music. After goofing around with everything, I decided that it was set up correctly, but just lacked the power to play adequately in anything else except an absolutely quiet room (with the sound level at MEDIUM, you can barely hear noise coming from the speakers).

PROS -
-Nice to look at
-Sound quality is pretty good once you hook up some nicer powered speakers
-Easy to set up
-Fairly compact
-Fair selection of internet radio stations

CONS -
-The included speakers leave a lot to be desired
-Must use MusicMatch (it sucks!!) or Rhapsody (a RealOne company, which if you didn't know, is run by Satan)
-For some reason, I can't get it to play more than ten songs from a playlist.
-The interface is HORRIBLE! Very non-intuitive and I spend more time scrolling through my collection than actually listenting to music. Most frustrating is that after you scroll down for a couple of MINUTES and find 'Modest Mouse', if you change your mind and decide you want to listen to 'Menomena' instead, the interface tosses you back to the top-most menu, meaning that you have to select 'BROWSE' then select 'ARTIST/ALBUM' then scroll down for several more minutes to get back to the M's...<ARGHHHHHHH!!!>. Even a submenu that allowed you to scroll through the alphabet and select, say, 'M' and then browse all the M's would be VERY nice. If the playlist function worked properly, then you could invest some time and set up your favorite songs and/or artists, but for spontaneously searching through your catalog... uhh, you won't.
-For some reason, I occasionally lose signal with my network and it can't find the server (even though I have my laptop receiving 54Mbps with excellent signal strength right next to it). Not a frequent occurence, just puzzling.
-Being 802.11b based, it only supports WEP and not WPA.:-(
-No carry handle
-The remote is pretty good, but doesn't work unless pointed directly at the unit and from within a very shallow angle from center.
-No headphone jack on the front
-Too many cables sticking out of the back. Cable management is so easy, yet apparently an alien concept to most manufacturers.

CONCLUSIONS:
It's just frustrating to have something soooo close to being good, but having some poor design muck it up. I really wish they'd assign it a more iPod-like interface (where you can use the back button to go to your previous menu level and selection). I also wish they'd find some way to tap into iTunes as a server or roll their own (okay, I can dream). I believe that if Linksys were to revamp the interface firmware and take care of some of the problems with the 'music server', it would be worthwhile. Unfortunately, I've dealt with Linksys for too long to even hope that they'd bother to update this version. They will instead release a newer, improved version which will make this model the MP3 Edsel.
I'm going to return this to the store today as I have a 10 day 'remorse period' that expires on Monday.
Nice try Linksys, better luck next time. :-(

I was very excited when I saw this in the store. What better way to play my thousands of MP3s in the living room? I really, really wanted to like this product. But, while the concept of this product is neat, the execution is terrible. I won't repeat what the other reviewers wrote about the difficulty of managing more than a few dozen MP3s with the awkward user interface; suffice to say I agree with them. But that annoyance would have been minor if playlists worked well. The 10 song limit of playlists is also quite annoying (especially since it's undocumented), but not a showstopper as far as I am concerned.

What really drives me crazy is the poor quality. When I got the unit a week ago playlists worked fine. Then, yesterday, the unit would only play the first song in any playlist and then stop. Finally, today, the unit stopped playing playlists altogether, instead just displaying "Connecting..." and doing nothing when I select a playlist. I haven't changed anything about the unit, my wireless network or my PC. While the unit still plays MP3s that I manually select from the list of all songs, who knows when that will stop working. I have had bad luck with Linksys products before, so I should have known better than to buy another one.

Radio reception is horrible in our condo. So, I've been searching for some sort of appliance that could play internet radio programs. Up until about a week ago, none apparently existed. A few days ago, I discovered the LinkSys Wireless Internet Radio at Amazon.

There is a unit that, for want of a better name is an Internet radio tuner and two detachable powered speakers. The tuner can be hooked up to a stereo using standard RCA plugs or an optical connection. The tuner connects wirelessly (11Mbps) to the Internet through a standard wireless Access Point. It uses the same Internet connection you normally use.

You can access Internet programs using the unit's front panel LCD and buttons or you can use the unit's remote control. There are 1200 stations and the list is updated regularly. You can set up a list of 20 favorite stations. I've got such stations as KPFA and WBAI (Pacifica San Francisco and New York), KUSC, KCSN and a bunch of college stations set up.

The tuner also uses a new technology called Universal Plug-and-Play Server. This makes it possible for on-line services to provide access to program material on the Internet and for you to play it on your Internet radio appliance. I am using the Rhapsody service. It's music oriented with 60 pre-set music stations (I'm listening to the Baroque station right now) and you can even create your own by setting up a list of artists. Tracks are served up randomly. The service claims to have hundreds of thousands of albums.

There are only two current drawbacks.

First, the unit currently natively plays only streaming MP3 Internet radio stations. That's still a lot, but it doesn't allow for stations that use proprietary formats like Real Player or Microsoft Media Player. Universal Plug-and-Play Server services can get around that by converting streams to MP3. Since Real Player operates Rhapsody, I hope they soon convert at least Real Player streams to MP3.

The second drawback is that the unit isn't portable. Even though you can wireless receive the Internet signals that carry input anywhere in your home, you have to plug the unit into a 120 volt receptable. This could be fixed easily on the tuner by turning off the always-on front panel LCD and running both the tuner and speakers off of batteries. Internally recharged batteries would be ideal.

With all my CDs ripped to a hard drive, I was thinking about buying or building a media PC. When I saw this little number, I immediately put those plans on hold. Does the product deliver on it's promises? I've been using it for several days and I can, with great confidence, say YES! But, I must say, if you're using the attached powered speakers, you're not going to be waking any neighbors. Even at full volume they are not that loud (though they don't sound too bad). Routing the receiver in to your stereo speakers is the way to go. Typical RCA output jacks are included as well as an optical jack. All cords (except an optical cord) are included.

If I could, I'd give this 4 3/4 stars. The only thing preventing a 5 star rating is the interface. I've got 500+ CDs and there's 1100 internet radio stations available. though you can scroll through your artists, albums, songs, generas a screen at a time, it's still tedious to make your way through the list.

I don't think most anyone will be disappointed with this thing. Go for it!

I too am surprised at the posts here - as they do not match my experience at all. I'm also a happy Turtle beach Audiotron owner so I had high expectations. I also own a Linksys media hub (that I'm not crazy about), but simply plugging in my WMLS11B had it was up and running connected to my old media server in minutes. While that worked, it only played one song at a time off lists or albums. However, installing the included Musicmatch server that came with the product fixed that immediately. Other than that, set up with DHCP, everything worked immediately out of the box.
Several folks reported not being able to play entire albums or genres. I found that you need to press PLAY - not SELECT to play an entire album or genre. Pressing SELECT gives me exactly what the other folks reported - a menu to the next level of detail down - or start playing the one song you were on. I didn't see this in the docs.
I have not encountered the 10-song playlist problem - but can't say for sure that I tested it. I did't install Rhapsody. And yes, my biggest gripe is that scrolling through many artists takes forever - which it also does on my Media Hub and on my Windows media center PC - I just figured that comes with the turf, but it is a pain. A jog shuttle (like the AudioTron and iPod) would be better of course, but a simple A-Z list would be a huge improvement. I found the volume was adequate, but not ear-blasting, and the sound quality reasonable. Since I'm using it in my kitchen it seems perfect. Also, I have it at ceiling level atop my kitchen cabinets and have no problems seeing the display - and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was able to use the remote from across the room with ease (tougher to see from there of course) but it worked.
Since Linksys went to the trouble of building a web server into the product to allow remote configuration, I'm amazed they don't allow remote control, station selection, playlist management, volume, etc like the Audiotron. Also it seems odd that the only thing you can add to favorites are Internet Radio stations. I'd like to add genres, artists, etc.
So it's not perfect, but things rarely are - and theres always hope in firmware upgrades. (...)I got a decent-looking, portable media hub with a usable remote control and powered speakers, plus the ability to play my mp3s and internet radio anywhere in my house, deck, or garage, I think it's a great deal.

I just got the Wirless-B Music System. I have just installed the Linksys wireless system- the WRT54GS router and the WPS54GU2 Print Server. Everything works great so far. The WMLS11B Music system set up easily and works. I have the Rhapsody music service - I just had to turn on UnPnP in both Windows XP Professional and in Rhapsody. The Music System sounds great, I have hooked it up to my stereo system downstairs and it sounds even better. I get good reception in my backyard and anywhere around my house. It will play and entire album if I select the album and play it, not individual songs. I can advance to the next song using the next button if I wish. My only beefs are the menus respond slowly (kind of like those first generation satellite boxes), you cannot get to an artist directly, you have to scroll. My way around this is to load a playlist with the artists I want and make sure it comes up immediately by callin it A A A Main Playlist (first in alphabetical order. A first of it's kind unit but it is fun and works well

My wife gave me this "Wireless-B Music System" for my birthday (a year ago now) on the recommendation of a friend. Unfortunately she bought it in Texas and took it home to Florida where we live. As a result, returning it to the store became a problem. So I was forced to keep it and doggedly tried to set it up despite of al the awkwardies that this unit has. I eventually gave up anyway because it seemed impossible to associate it with my wireless network, even when I had "downgraded" network encryption from WPA back to WEP (the WMLS11B can not handle anything above WEP encryption). The WMLS11B has been gathering dust ever since. A few days ago I decided to try again because new firmware (1.09) is available now. And indeed, the network setup problems are over, it links fine now wirelessly, albeit with WEP encryption only; as before. But the link is stable now. I was able to set it up with several Internet radio stations that I found on the web, which it can play (from the favorites list) directly from the router without the PC having to act as a server or the like. Really nice. However, the WMLS11B can only play MP3 live audio streams from the web, and not Windows format, or Real Audio format. It would have been easy for LinkSys to create firmware for the WMLS11B that can play all the 3 streaming-audio standards so this is a serious weakness I think.
The next step was to set up the WMLS11B as an MP3 player using the PC as an MP3 server. This apparently requires the Musicmatch Jukebox player to run on the PC. I agree with most of the reviews here that this player is horror. It aggressively tried to take over all file associations from Windows Media Player (my favorite player). It really would have been nice if LinkSys had given the option to choose between different media players, not just Musicmatch. A very poor move it seems, from LinkSys. I did manage to get it going though. But once it had been setup, I have all the problems that other reviewers pointed out: Really awkward menus on the WMLS11B, the "file format error" appears randomly for whatever reason (in fact a web search for that error brought me to these reviews which promted me to write one myself), and I can't get it to play multiple songs in a row, have no idea how to overcome that (if possible at all). To summarize: Works great as Internet radio albeit only with MP3 streams, but completely sucks as a remote MP3 player using the PC as a music server. I'm sure the hardware would be able to handle the task though, if only LinkSys would be writing better and updated firmware for this unit. But apparently they prefer to just leave it as it is, while selling a newer unit instead. You know, I hear so much complaining about Microsoft all the time, but where can you buy a product (WinXP in my case) and still be able to download updates from the manufacturer after more than 4 years? LinkSys should take an example from that Microsoft model!!

I thought wireless meant "without wires"! Not the case with this device; you will have plenty of wires to choose from! This player is going back to the store...you get what you pay for.

Wireless
The description claims that you can "Carry the Music System around the house and have access to your entire music collection". Well the only problem is that you will need a VERY long extension cord to do this, because this unit does not run on batteries...only an attached DC power converter.

Setup
I have 5 computers in my house sucessfully connected to my wireless network. However, I was unsucessful in creating a robust wireless connection to this device. I could get it working, but then the device seemed to reconfigure itself on occasion. It also often grabbed bogus IP Addresses when using DHCP.

Features
In concept, this device is nice. It includes a lot of useful features such as: Internet Radio, self-populating Playlists. However, I often could not get many of the features to work. Many of the songs would not play (media error) even though I can get them to play on my other 3 MP3 streaming devices.

Ergonomics
Wires Everywhere! The back of the device is a web of wires...one to power the device; one to power the speakers; one to connect the right speaker to the device; one to connect the left speaker to the right speaker. And...they are all jammed closely together, which makes it nearly impossible to coonnect them all.
The other problem is that you must use the remote control in order to access most of the features of the Jukebox. I think its reasonable to expect to be able to control/configure a device from the main unit.

MUSICMATCH Jukebox:
What was Cisco/Linksys thinking? This device requires MUSICMATCH Jukebox running on your media server in order to access your songs. Now, I realize that this area is still not standardized in the industry...each manufacturer seems to have their own server-side software package that is responsible for streaming your music. However, most manufacturers are using either Windows Media Player, or their own proprietary software. Linksys chose to use a shareware program that constantly bombardes you with advertisements, and ofers to "upgrade" to their not-free "professional" version.

I will return this today and continue to search/wait for a more robust stand-alone media streaming device.

I had no trouble setting it up on my wired network. Plays fine EXCEPT for @ 80% of my mp3 collection. For @ 80% of my collection I get 'media error' and they will not play. I tried a firmware upgrade, it was easy and was successful, but did not cure my problem. I was using the included MM software, I updated that as well, no help there either. I also have WMP 10 + the UPNP media add-on and tried that, no luck with that media player either. I also tried 4 systems as servers running XP home, XP Pro, and 2000 with AMD or Intel processors, plenty of RAM and hard drive space, no luck. I emailed Linksys and after 4 weeks I received their answer: "the bit rate that usualy work stable with the WMLS11B are the ones running on 128 bit" and "Try to also to use sound forge version 6.0 as the MP3 converter". Well, my mp3's are all ripped from my own CD's at 320 Kbps using a standard LAME engine. The unit will play my (few) mp3's ripped at 128Kbps and lower. I have had 2 other networked media players (Oritron and a Rio Receiver) that played my entire colelction without any problems. This is unacceptable. I will be returning this item. Too bad they dont mention this limitation in the technical specs, FAQ's, or even on the box (all of wich I read before buying).

I purchased this product even though I had read several reviews where people were having problems here on Amazon. My thoughts were "if these problems haven't been fixed, I'll take it back." I'm happy to say that I've experienced NONE of the problems that some of the users below have experienced. As one of the other reviewers below said "many of the problems are fixed with the 1.0.9 Firmware." I've not had any problems reported below such as 1) Can't play more than 10 songs on a playlist 2) skipping songs 3) Low wireless signal strength (the unit picks up in the back of my house where my laptop's wireless card won't!!!)

I've had NO skipping and I've now got over 50 CD's on my media server with varying numbers of songs on them and have NO problems selecting them from the panel interface. I basically, powered the unit on and it discovered my wireless network and I was playing Internet radio stations within 10 minutes of having it out of the box. Upgrade to the 1.0.9 before you do ANYTHING else.

Now, I am using mine in a slightly different way that I've read about others using theirs. My whole point in buying this was to use either Musicmatch's On-Demand or Rhapsody's unlimited streaming downloads for $9.99 a month. I don't have massive colletions of downloaded mp3's that I want to play. I simply want to use one of these services to store playlists and access those albums from across the house. Here is WHERE I HAD PROBLEMS BUT OVERCAME THEM. I started with Musicmatch 8.2 that came on the Linksys CD and is supposedly the only server that is compatible with the linksys unit. The Linksys immediately say the server I had the 8.2 software on and was able to access the Playlists I had created (again, not Playlists of songs that I had actually downloaded but Playlists that I could stream to my system). Unfortunately, this FLAT didn't work. I could see the songs on my Linksys but they just wouldn't play. I think its the format that MusicMatch streams them from their site in. On a whim, I decided to download Rhapsody and try their equivalent. Nothing in the Linksys manual implied that you could do anything with Rhapsody other than access their radio stations. However, when I got it installed (either 2.1 or 3.0 works) I noticed that it was acting as a UPnP server. Looking at my Linksys, I saw that it now saw another Media Player on the network. I created a few Playlists on Rhapsody and hit the button on the Linksys.....THEY PLAYED. Rhapsody works with this box but I COULD NOT make Musicmatch's On-Demand work. I bet it works great pushing songs you've purchased. Oh, one other trick, when you add songs to your Rhapsody Playlist, you need to stop and start your Rhapsody software and power cycle the Linksys for it to see those updates. It takes mere seconds.

As for the unit itself the speakers are only slightly better than what you would expect from an "under the counter kitchen radio". In my small bathroom and even in the kitchen, they put out a decent amount of sound but won't ROCK. Get your expectations right and you won't be dissapointed. The unit itself is pretty light and "plasticy" but still looks sharp in my opinion. I hooked it up to my stero speakers and it ROCKED. For under $100, this is an AWESOME unit that really works. I'm looking to buy another one. Its cool to have a box that can play Internet radio stations alone...no to mention I can access Rhapsody and have unlimited albums for $8.33 a month paid quarterly. Wow!