Omnifi / Rockford DMS1 Home Digital Audio Receiver with WiFi 802.11b

by Rockford

Product Details

• Item Weight: 6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00013MVTE
• Item model number: DMS1
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #52,038 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 26, 2003

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Omnifi DMS1 Digital Media Streamer plays digital media files from your home computer--including streaming Internet radio--through any existing home audio system. Listen to your latest downloads and custom music playlists while you cook, enjoy the view from your living room, or play with the kids. You can hook up multiple DMS1 units to play different music in different rooms, even from the same computer.

The system requires an existing 802.11b or WiFi wireless network for operation. A supplied wireless adapter connects to existing home-network gear. Omnifi supports UPnP (Universal Plug and Play), which means that your DMS1 is easy to set up and works with other UPnP products.

The receiver comes with SimpleCenter software, a media manager to transfer hours of music to your home stereo in just minutes. You can add digital audio files to you PC by using the software to "rip" your CDs to its database and organize the music into themed or preferential playlists. Use TagIt! to bookmark any song and retrieve information such as artist info, album reviews, preview tracks, and links to buy CDs.

The DMS1 works with the Rhapsody online digital music service, so Rhapsody users can access their playlists and import their catalog of more than 500,000 songs right into their stereo.

What's in the Box
Digital Media Streamer, a remote control, a remote battery, a USB-to-Ethernet adapter, a software CD-ROM, a stereo analog audio interconnect, and a user's manual.

Product Description

The Home Digital Media Streamer works with your existing home stereo system and plays CD-quality MP3/WMA files, internet radio and other digital content. Or, stream audio wirelessly from your PC to your home audio system with the optional Wi-Fi adapter (sold separately) and have access to it whenever you want. Home stereo requires AUX inputs. System requirements: Windows 98SE and up. Imported. 2Hx6-3/8Wx11L".

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Giving 5 stars only because it is not possible to give 6, June 3, 2004

By 

lew "lwndw123" (Connecticut, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Omnifi / Rockford DMS1 Home Digital Audio Receiver with WiFi 802.11b (Electronics)

GREAT, GREAT! Installs without essential problems, can work with Rhapsody and Musicmatch and can play files that you have on your hard drive. Comments: a) SimpleCenter installs without problems. The only catch: to downolad firmware upgrade it is necessary to create account and register. If not done, the "download firmware upgrade" button is disabled (firmware upgrade must be done to use Rhapsody). It seems that this is nowhere documented that account must be created first (if at all), b) when creating account, there is no pop-up saying that registration is complete. Otherwise, no complains. Rhapsody and Musicmatch must have Universal Plug and Play servers activated. When done, both services are displayed on Omnifi screen. Can play albums, playlists and single tracks.

Screen is pretty readable (my initial worry was that it will be not) similar in setting and size to XM radio. Pretty complete information available on screen. There are 10 presets and favotites that can be controlled from the remote.

Network setup prety easy. I am using spare Wi-Fi WAP11 bridge from Linksys. No problems. Just plug the cable.

Sound quality OK. Marginally worse than when using ProHIFI from Xitel. However, reasonable even for listening classical music on high quality stereo (if you can accept the quality of mp3...)

Highly recommended. I am going to buy 2 more units. I want to have this little gadget in each room where I have speakers.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Da bomb, December 16, 2006

By 

Lawrence Brown "Larry Brown" (HOUSTON, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Omnifi / Rockford DMS1 Home Digital Audio Receiver with WiFi 802.11b (Electronics)

Da Bomb!

Nutshell:
This technology is da bomb if you want to enjoy your CD collection at home on your stereo system. It's the next step in the evoloution of enjoying music. We had the phonograph, then the CD, and now this.

The only caveat: It's da bomb as long as it's working well. If you have trouble, then it's useless. I am currently living with the DMS1 for a short time. So far it works OK, but if I have trouble in the future I may have to report back.

Detailed review:
This is a fabulous system that will allow you to keep your entire CD collection online in your home entertainment system. It's easy enough for grandma to use, and that's important because other systems are so complicated that only a techno-geek will be able to work them.

What you do with this system is copy all of your CDs to the hard drive on your computer. Then you replace the CD player in your home entertainment center with this little Omnifi device. Then you turn the Omnifi on, and you instantly enjoy any CD in your collection. That's just getting started, but already that is worth the price of admission because you have access to all of your CDs. You don't need to search for your CDs anymore, and you don't need to find handy space to store them. You can file them away for safe keeping in your mini-storage warehouse. You just need a large hard drive and a computer that is turned on. Using this system gives you the many advantages of having your music off of the CDs and on the harddrive, yet your music is still available on an easy to use device in your home entertainment center without having to have a computer there, which is largely unworkable.

And then we go on from there to many more fab activities.

I am a musician and music lover that, as odd as it may seem to you, is just now in 2006 starting to explore the mp3 revolution. If you are like me and don't yet understand what mp3 can mean to you, I'll explain it. I never explored mp3 because I equated it with piracy, but mp3 can be used legally as well.

You use a program called a "ripper" to "rip" your CDs into files on your harddrive. The music on CD is just computer files anyway, so all "ripping" really is is "copying" the computer files from the CD to the harddrive. In the past this was for unfathomable reasons difficult for a program to do, but now we can get it done. The Simplecenter software that comes with the Omnifi can do it, as can iTunes and a host of other programs. There is a freeware program called "Exact Audio Copy" that reads the CD and gives you a 100% accurate file, and it gives you a report of any problems that it had so you can be sure, without having to listen to the file, that it made it to your harddrive without error.

At the same time you copy the CD, you encode the files to mp3. This shrinks the file by a large factor without sacrificing any meaningful sound quality and makes the files easier to manage. That way you can fit much more music onto your hard drive or your portable mp3 player, or even copy the files back to CD and get more than 74 minutes of music on a CD! Simplecenter, iTunes, and most other programs do this for you automatically.

When ripping CDs, mp3 is the way to go, you want to avoid any other format if possible. Simplecenter gives you a choice to rip to mp3 or to windows media format. iTunes and other programs give you a similar choice. Ripping to mp3 allows you to avoid having to deal with digital rights management (DRM) and allows your music to be played anywhere. iPod doesn't support Windows media, and generic mp3 players may not support Apple's AAC format, but everyone will play mp3. Ripping to any other format is helping Microsoft or whoever lock you in to their solutions, don't tolerate that! DRM gives you onerous restrictions like having to jump through hoops to transfer a license when you transfer your music from one computer to another or only allowing you to burn your music to CD a limited number of times, and other evil restrictions. mp3 avoids all of this and it's the way to go.

If you're worried about any legal restrictions on this type of activity, just think of all the mp3 players available for sale here on Amazon and that should tell you something. If you're still concerned, just punch up a few web searchs on the subject and I think you'll relax.

Don't worry about sound quality. Sound quality has never been an issue. Sound quality is an issue to people that want to sell you expensive equipment or magazine subscriptions. Your enjoyment of any music, classical or otherwise, will be the same as long as the sound quality is acceptable. That last 10% of full fidelity really doesn't matter. Do you have a $5,000 entertainment system or $3,000 speakers? If not, then it really doesn't matter. That said, this Omnifi and mp3 technology will deliver sound that is essentially equal to the CD, but it really doesn't matter. What matters is that you have your music available in ways that make it convenient to listen so that you will play your music more often. Don't listen to anyone that tells you that some proprietary format gives better fidelity than mp3. #1, it doesn't matter. #2: They are assuming the same bit rate, so if you really want to stick on this issue, just rip at a higher mp3 bit rate. The standard is to rip at 128 bits, so just rip at 160 and you're there. You can easily afford the extra space with today's prices.

This Omnifi is an alternative to a 400 disc CD changer jukebox. Those jukeboxes are not a great solution for various reasons: 1: They are huge, 2: They have a finite capacity, you may outgrow 400 slots, 3: They can damage your CDs, 4: They require hours of typing in order to set up the artist, album, and song names, 5: They can glitch and erase all those hours of typing, 6: They have limited functionality for skpping songs you don't like and random playing, 7: they are prone to mechanical failure, #8: they are slow, etc.

Using Omnifi and mp3 gives you these advantages:
+ You have your entire CD collection available in a small device

+ You can copy your music to a portable hard drive so you can take your entire collection to the office or elsewhere

+ You can easily copy your music to an mp3 player for enjoyment. iTunes is compatible with mp3, so Omnifi can even work with an iPod.

+ You can backup your music for safekeeping to DVD

+ You can use more than one Omnifi in the home so that you can enjoy your entire collection from various rooms.

+ You can delete songs you don't like so that you don't ever hear them. That's a big advantage because I usually only like a few songs, or just one, from any given CD.

+ You can shuffle play through artist or genre, which is also a big advantage. Otherwise you would have to create a custom mix CD, and that's a lot of trouble and it gets old after a few listens. This way it's always new.

+ You can buy songs from web sites like Amazon. That's a great way to pick up old favorite songs without having to buy the whole CD or music that's hard to find. Once you download them Omnifi can play them. However songs downloaded like this will often suffer from DRM.

1.0 out of 5 stars Impossible to integrate, November 13, 2011

By 

Juan Walker Chile - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Omnifi / Rockford DMS1 Home Digital Audio Receiver with WiFi 802.11b (Electronics)

The product hasn't been updated for new OS versions and is almost impossible to make it work. Amazon should not sell products like this. Please make sure products are able to run in Windows 7 or even XP