Creative Labs Sound Blaster Wireless Music

by Creative

Product Details

Product Manual [1.58mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000E2RZN
• Item model number: 70PD039000000
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #115,720 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 12, 2003

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Early Adopters Pick: October 2003. Sound Blaster Wireless Music is the first wireless music adapter with a remote control that features a large LCD screen that lets you view and choose songs and playlists without needing a TV. The wireless receiver connects to any audio system, so you can listen to your music in any room, on your Home Entertainment system, or with any powered speakers. And Sound Blaster Wireless Music is designed to be easier to set up than other products, detecting your existing wireless network and either connecting automatically or with a simple USB setup.

Sound Blaster Wireless Music gives you the freedom to play all of the MP3 and WMA music on your PC in another room of your home over your existing 802.11b or 802.11g wireless network. The remote control features a large LCD screen that lets you view and choose songs and playlists without needing a TV like other systems. The wireless receiver connects to any audio system, so you can listen to your music in any room, on your Home Entertainment system or with any powered speakers. And Sound Blaster Wireless Music is designed to be easier to set up than other solutions, detecting your existing wireless network and either connecting automatically or with a simple USB setup.

Sound Blaster Wireless Music makes it easy to listen to your PC music collection in the living room, bedroom, or any other room where you want to enjoy music.

Wireless Music Anywhere
Listen to the MP3's on your PC in another room of your home over your 802.11b or 802.11g wireless network, up to 4 wireless receivers can be connected at once.

Your Music, Your Choice--no TV needed
View and choose songs and playlists from your entire MP3 collection on the remote control's built in LCD screen.

Music that's heard, not seen
Place the music receiver anywhere since the remote uses RF transmission it doesn't require line of sight.

Connects to any speakers
Works with home stereo and standalone speakers featuring digital optical (SPDIF)and standard RCA connectors.

Simple Setup
Detects your network, connecting automatically or with a easy USB setup

Retail Box Contents

• Wireless RF Remote
• Receiver (with removable stand)
• 3 x AA Batteries
• USB Cable
• AC Power Adaptor
• Installation CD
• Quick Start Leaflet
• Stereo Audio Cable (2 x RCA to 1 x 3.5mm)

Minimum System Requirements

• Microsoft Windows 98 SE, Me, 2000, XP (Windows 2000/XP required for multi-client streaming)
• Intel Pentium II 350 MHz or equivalent
• 128 MB RAM
• 100 MB free hard drive space (for installation and running software)
• 800 by 600, 256 colors display
• 802.11b, 802.11g (or compatible) wireless network with access point
• USB1.1 port (for advanced network setup)
• CD-ROM drive (for software installation).

Product Description

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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

91 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Creative's entry into DAR market is mostly successful, December 5, 2003

By 

Gorilla800lbs (Fair Lawn, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Wireless Music (Personal Computers)

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

68 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing. Great remote, unbelievably slow interface., November 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Wireless Music (Personal Computers)

I have a Turtle Beach AudioTron, but wanted a device where I had more flexibility with the remote and the display. In that regard, the Wireless Music delivers; the remote is far easier to read than the AudioTron's display, and it's nice to be able to use the Wireless Music's RF remote places that are outside of line-of-sight but still within listening distance.

Problem is, the unit is unusably slow with a large MP3 collection. I'm not talking laggy, or a few-second wait for certain actions -- loading a large playlist (1000+ MP3s) or selecting a genre with a large number of MP3s to play randomly can easily take *5 minutes* to queue up. While the device would seem to work fine for people who only have a collection of a few hundred MP3s or only use small playlists, it's maddening with a large one. I spoke to Creative technical support, and they indicated that my experience was due to limitations of the device.

Close, but no cigar. Hopefully, the next generation will be more capable; I like the interface a lot.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Box Rocks, May 4, 2004

By 

Jeremy Williams "Jeremy" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Wireless Music (Personal Computers)

I felt a responsibility to share my experience with this unit since it differs considerably from other reviews. Many have complained of lag when calling up long play lists or when dealing with a large number of MP3 files. Apparently Creative Labs has been listening.

I got one today, and I couldn't be happier. No doubt this is due to the new firmware I downloaded from the product site. I have over 6000 MP3s, and I can browse and call them up without a hitch. There is a 2-3 second gap of silence after pressing play while the first file buffers, but it's no big deal.

I am a computer geek, and some network savvy is required to configure the unit if you're using WEP encryption. If your network is not encrypted, it's fairly plug-and-play, save for the firmware download which is straight forward.

Regarding the range of the unit, my 802.11b router is 3 floors above the Wireless Music receiver and I haven't heard a single dropped bit all night. I am also controlling the unit 1 floor above the receiver, so the RF remote is pulling its weight.

If you've been on the fence about this due to the lag issues, fear not. Download the firmware, and you'll be in heaven. This is truly great technology, and the sound quality is superb. For me, it was a crucial link in my home audio chain that I didn't even know was missing.