Sony VAIO VGF-WA1/W Wireless Digital Music Streamer (White)

by Sony

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 17.8 x 10 inches ; 9.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 10 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000P5BSUG
• Item model number: VGF-WA1/W
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #86,562 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 11, 2006

Product Description

From PCWeb Radio;802.11b/g ad hoc wirelessUSB ad.;AuxIN,AnalogOUT,S/PDIFOUT,HeadphoneOUT;ATRAC,ATRAC3plus,MP3,WMA,AAC(unprotected),WAVE,LinearPCM;Local Storage(128MB)Clock Radio,Touchpanel,built-in speakers heat sensor;Remote control,wireless USB ad.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do NOT buy before you read this!!!, April 5, 2008

By 

C. Colo - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Be forewarned-I was too excited about this gift until I realized its LIMITED functions:

1) Web Radio streaming capability ONLY if you are a SONY 365 subscriber and want to listen to 365 provided radio stations!!! That is correct; this radio will not access/play/stream ANY OTHER radio off the web, ie Sirius, XM, etc...Period. No Can Do.

2) PC Music Files-Ready for this one? It will ONLY access Windows Media Player versions 10.0 and 11.0..it WILL NOT play iTunes nor any other stored music files on your computer...Period. Nada.

After several hours of working with Sony reps to download software required for setup and installation, I came to the very disappointing realization that this is not the product for anyone unless they meet the above 2 specifications; additionally, as this product is brand new to the market, the Sony reps knew virtually nothing more about the product nor its limited functions than I could infer from reading the small fine print in the manual.

Back to the drawing board for the perfect wireless pc/web quality radio speakers...

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Streaming music where you want it., September 20, 2007

By 

GaryM (Ct,USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony VAIO VGF-WA1/W Wireless Digital Music Streamer (White) (Electronics)

I have the WA1 and find it a pleasure to use this unit daily. The setup is fairly straight forward but expect to spend 30- 60 min's to set up depending on your existing system. The WA1 comes in a nicely configured black or white package that has a backlit touch panel on the top of the unit which goes into a sleep mode after one minute but wakes up when you approach the WA1. This is to save power when it is operated in the battery mode. In the battery mode you will get somewhere around 4-5 hours although I have never run it to that point. It does not have a battery gauge per se but it does have a flashing LED that begines to flash faster as the battery runs close to depletion. At that point you can always plug it in to recharge the battery or continue listening to music as the battery charges.

The two big features are the WA1's abilty to stream your playlists or folders from any computer in your house to the WA1 which has two speakers with remarkable sound quality. The second feature allows you to listen to Live365 web radio which is also streamed from a supplied wireless USB adapter or thru an existing 802.11 WiFi.

With the web radio you have the option of 100 comercial free stations from Live365 at no charge for a limited trial period. But for as little as $5.95 a month you can join the VIP membership and have access to thousands of radio stations from around the world. This also gives you the option of setting up your own favorites list on their website that you then can access from the WA1. The stations are shown on a display allowing you to scroll to your favorites,artist or by genres using the touch panel or the supplied IR remote control to surf thru them.

One of the best features is that the WA1 has RCA and optical outputs allowing you to feed a stereo system when stationary or take it to go anywhere within an average sized house and yard area. The WA1 has many adjustments and modes for the sounds and functionality to suit your own taste as well as a clock and an alarm clock feature if you want use it in the bedroom. All in all, I really like the WA1 and listen to the web radio nonstop as there is so much content to explore such as 50 - 60 stations per genre (with the VIP membership).

The cons: The only web radio the WA1 can access is Live365. The capabilty of the streaming music is dependent on your ISP and you could experience interuptions in your streaming web radio music if you are on a dial-up connection. There is no USB inputs to listen to music on flash drives but you can input MP3 and Ipod players. There is a 128Mb internal memory which allows you to capture songs that are streamed from your library/playlists but not from the web radio. Unfortunately there is no way to expand the internal memory size. Tech support is nearly non-existent as this product is too new to have a knowledge base for the tech support people to search thru. This unit is considered part of Sony's VAIO computer product line and therefore you end up speaking to a computer technical person.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Update Firmware to 1.2, February 8, 2008

By 

PG (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony VAIO VGF-WA1/W Wireless Digital Music Streamer (White) (Electronics)

Good quality music streamer out of the box, but with limitations. Excellent device when updated to firmware version 1.2 that allows connection to networks with no SSID broadcast (with the original firmware I had to change my access point settings to SSID broadcast each time I wanted to use the WA1, even with the SSID entered manually in the device settings), and also allows to create your own list of web radios using the companion software WA1 Enhanced Settings tool(installed on a computer on the network and transmitting infos to the WA1 thru wifi). You're no longer limited to built-in services.

Strangely, Sony does not offer the firmware revision on the US site. You have to download it from the Japanese site. Look for a file named SOFOTH-01589600-UN.exe and follow instructions.