Customer Reviews

Muzee USB Internet Player & Recorder Radio, over 20,000 Internet Radio Stations

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I am a low-tech girl. I don't have Sirius, or XM, or even an iPod. I have used Yahoo's Launchcast for a long time, but since they changed their formats and canned the "My Station" feature, I don't like it. I bought Muzee for myself on a whim to broaden my music listening options, and I just love it. It's simple to use and there are so many stations - you can hunt up stations by genre, region, or enter a specific search word.

If you're up on all the latest and greatest music tools and personal gadgets, maybe Muzee is not going to be a nifty thing for you. But for a simple living, technically stunted woman like me, it's really cool.

I cannot rave more about how awesome this product is and must be tried out to believe. There is so many music stations to choose from to listen to. Regardless of what music style you like or from whatever country it is sure to be here and the best part you can save to your hard drive in WMA (Windows Media) format and then transfer/convert however you like. Beats paying $15 a month for XM or Sirius and with more options and portability! There are no fees after you buy this product. That means no activation fees and no monthly fees. Virtually a plug and play product extremely easy to learn, within a few very simple steps you will be up and running. Take it wherever you go, laptop or desktop. It fits on a keychain!

Review - short version for the busy generation: Yes, having thousands of free internet radio stations is cool! But no, you do not need to pay a single penny for it!

And here is the long version:

Ok, I completely agree: 13,000 radio channels for free, everywhere, anywhere - and even a possibility to download radio contents to your computer - that cannot be bad, or? And no, it is not bad. BUT: What would you say if you could have all of that COMPLETELY FREE, not even paying the twenty bucks for this USB stick?

Well, the good news are: you can have exactly that! Just go to one of the websites like [...], download the software for free and listen to thousands of radio channels. And if you absolutely, inevitably need this internet radio on a stick to take it with you, you will still save many bucks by just buying a small USB flash drive and taking the software with you on that.

SO WHY ON EARTH SHOULD ANYBODY BUY THIS PRODUCT?
Let me tell you why: Somewhere out there somebody is making a fortune from people that have not been aware that internet radio is already free and can already be accessed centrally without any extra computer gadget. And if you still press the "Buy now" button in a second, you make those people that simply steal your money, even richer.

It's not indicated in the product description that the Muzee does not work with the Mac operating system. I bought it anyway and hoped. It took some troubleshooting, but I now have it running in a virtual machine on my Mac, and it is working beautifully. I'm posting this to share the solution.

I have iMac with an Intel processor, running Snow Leopard, and Windows 7 running in a virtual machine created by Parallels. Under Windows it was as simple as plug & play, but there was a problem. The sound broke up annoyingly. I emailed Muzee support and received a prompt, personal reply addressing my problem specifically. The suggestion offered did solve the problem. I reported that and received another prompt, personal email with another suggestion. That didn't work either.

When I bought the Muzee I also bought one for my son, who is an IT guy with far more knowledge of Windows than I have. He also has a Mac, and he had gotten his Muzee to work well in a virtual machine running Windows 7 created by the free Virtualbox program. Virtualbox does not install sound drivers, so he downloaded the free Realtek ac'97 audio drivers from the Realtek website [...], and installed them in the Windows 7 virtual machine. He solved my problem by installing the Realtek ac'97 audio drivers in my computer's virtual machine. I assume that the audio drivers installed by Parallels were the source of the problem.

One more thing: The product package says "Instant access through your PC to over 13,000 radio stations worldwide!" Thinking that the Muzee works as a portal to the stations that is maintained by Muzee, I asked about this and was told that regarding the number of stations "it was labeled when the product is delivered. As time goes by, the number of collected stations increases too. And you can always have the most up-to-date stations no matter when you bought it." The Muzee website [...] now says that 20,000 thousand stations can be accessed! I received this from Muzee product support: "Currently it's announced that we have 20,000 radio stations. Some of them could be duplicates, or a station could have many different bitrate channels."

I am delighted with the Muzee. Great selection and sound, and price. One reviewer questioned why anyone would want to buy this device when you can access the same streams from the stations' individual websites. To compile links for even a fraction of those available on the Muzee could be very time consuming, not to mention finding content you want and overcoming limitations with languages. Example, one of my favorites is a classical station from China. I've gone to their website and have no clue what link streams the station. As I write this the Muzee lists over 400 classical stations. It is so easy to explore and compile a favorites list.

UPDATE: I've installed two updates of Parallels and that program's Tools. Audio performance with the Muzee was still not up to par, so I simply reinstalled the Realtek ac'97 audio drivers.

Like my title says, Muzee is awesome. I'm one of the idiots that bought the worthless XM to go. The thing never worked. Who the heck was going to walk around with a 4" antenna thing clipped to them? Anyway, Muzee is much easier to use and has much more music. All I did was plug it into a vacant USB port, give it permission to access the net (because of my security settings), I downloaded the program when prompted, and BAM! it was playing a song by Taiwanese singing group S.H.E. I haven't quite figured everything out (it just arrived today), but I've already listened to several different stations from Taiwan, Japan (my favorite is anime music), France, Canada, and the USA. Right now I'm chair dancing to a funk/disco station from Switzerland. This joint is awesome! If I change my opinion I will edit or comment and say so, but for right now this might be the best gadget I've ever purchased and, honey, I've got a lot of sh..stuff.

It basically just catalogs all the radio stations available on the internet, which (with a little work) could be found anyway. In addition, I put mine down on my pillow and the force of the soft pillow caused it to bend a little. It still works, but it can't be great that it is so fragile. In addition, it is slow to change stations, and some of them just don't work. I got it for 14.99 and would say it was a bit of a rip off at the price, I definitely would not pay full price.

I've had the Muzee for a couple of weeks, and I am enjoying the convenience. I can select the genre I want, scroll down the list and pick whatever stations appeal to me. I can set up favorites to make it even easier. I use mine with my netbook, so I can have music everywhere I wander in the house. I either hook it up to my USB speakers or to the auxiliary jack of my stereo system. Either way, it sounds quite good for something so inexpensive. It makes it easy to explore a variety of music styles. It's wonderful when I'm working and need a little background music to keep me going.

Works extremely well. I believe I read it updates itself each time is plugged in - another great plus.
My only wish would be to have been able to sort lists: favorites by attribute such as genre, for example, instead of having them listed in the order they were created, only.

This is simply a piece of software on a memory stick.

It does nothing magical, but just plays Internet radio.

If you want to try something right now, without buying a single thing and without downloading anything, use your Windows Media Player or iTunes, which are already installed on your computer.

These both have lists of Internet radio stations of all types, which can be played instantly.

Save your money, save shipping time, just use what you already have.

I thought this product had scheduled recording but no. It is just just not worth the hassle of dealing with a poor user interface.