Roku SoundBridge R1000 Radio Network Music System

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Product Details

• Item Weight: 9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000BIFY6Q
• Item model number: R1000
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 24, 2006

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Amazon.com Review Like its smaller cousins, the Roku M1000 and M500 network music players, Roku's SoundBridge Radio is designed liberate your digital music from your computer and let you crank up Internet radio stations and your unprotected digital music files in the room of your choice. But unlike those products, the SoundBridge Radio doesn't require a hi-fi system because the SoundBridge Radio is the hi-fi system. And not a bad one at that.

A clean design and several easy-access-ports give the SoundBridge added versatility. View larger.

Most of the radio's ground-breaking Wi-Fi features can be accessed via the convenient remote. View larger.

Featuring two linear magnetic drive full-range speakers and a linear magnetic drive subwoofer -- each powered by built-in amplifiers -- the SoundBridge puts most table-top radios to shame. If you have a lot of space to fill with your music, you'll want to think twice before replacing your stereo system with it. But for a unit this size, the SoundBridge offers excellent sound performance, and its many ground-breaking Wi-Fi features make it worth the price.

As a complete Wi-Fi music system that can stream your MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV, and AIFF music files in high-performance sound; play AM, FM and Internet radio; automatically update the time via atomic transmission; and wake you up to a variety of ascending alarm sounds or your favorite Internet station or digital music, the SoundBridge has clear aspirations to be your bedside radio of choice.

Without needing any special software for your computer (PC or Mac), within a few minutes of breaking this five-pound radio out of its packaging you can be browsing through the music you have stored in your Apple's iTunes, Real Networks' Rhapsody, Windows Media Connect or Windows Media 10 music players. All you need is a wireless network with a broadband connection, and your digital music is yours for the asking. (However, because Apple doesn't license its digital rights management code, SoundBridge -- like most other non-Apple network media players -- can't play protected songs from the iTunes Music Store.)

In our test we set up an iMac G5 on our network running Apple's iTunes. The radio, which is configured with Wi-Fi 802.11b but is 802.11g compatible, immediately recognized the network but took several tries before it successfully connected. (If your network is locked, the SoundBridge will ask for a password. And if you have access to more than one wireless network, the SoundBridge will give you the option of choosing which network to connect to.) Once online, the radio automatically updated the Roku software and was officially ready to perform. And for the remainder of our test over several days, we never once had another connection problem.

Diving straight into our iTunes folders, it didn't take long for us to recognize the several play features that put the SoundBridge head and shoulders above many of its competitors. For starters, unlike other network players we've tested, the radio recognized our iTunes playlists, and a neat "song queue" feature let us easily create our own playlists with the radio's remote. And as a huge brownie point, the SoundBridge not only categorized our songs by genre, title, artist and album (as most networks players do), it also queued up each song in the same order as they were originally placed their respective albums. Astoundingly, not all Wi-Fi players can make that claim.

Large, easy-to-access buttons -- including a huge snooze bar -- on the top of the radio make the SoundBridge an excellent clock radio option. View larger.

On the Internet radio front, SoundBridge doesn't come out quite so well. While Roku's marketing material claims "10,000 stations -- No strings attached," that wasn't exactly our experience. The radio is pre-configured with dozens of Internet stations -- all of which can be accessed without the computer powered on -- and the radio has 18 pre-sets that offer quick access to the station of your choice. But to access the rest of the world's Internet radio stations, you have to go through several somewhat tedious steps with Roku's Web interface to configure them.

The strongest criticism of SoundBridge concerns its remote capabilities and navigation. The features of the SoundBridge are designed to be accessed both through the large, easy-to-access buttons on the radio itself, and via its basic 5.5 x 2-inch remote. Unfortunately, the remote works for some features, but not for others, and less-than-intuitive navigation makes things unnecessarily complicated.

The most glaring example of this problem is with the SoundBridge's highly convenient "source" button located behind the radio's conveniently huge snooze button. You hit the source button until you reach -- you guessed it! -- the music source of your choice. If you want AM radio, you tap the button until "AM Radio" appears on the radio's display. Pretty simple, and just how it should be. However, if you are using the remote you must hit the "home" button, which then leads you to a navigation level that's dependent upon the level you're starting at. If you're listening to AM radio, for example, and you want Internet Radio, the remote requires that you click several times through two additional navigation levels to make the switch. And there are other similar problems with the remote configuration and navigation.

Call us spoiled, but this can be a drag. Is it a deal breaker? Not by a long shot. The SoundBridge Radio is the first dedicated Wi-Fi radio that has the ability to serve your digital music collection, and it does it with a performance and convenience that should please most listeners. But at this price, and with thousands of examples of well-designed remote appliances to draw from, we would have liked these issues not to have been issues.

Pros:

• Wirelessly delivers digital music and Internet radio from your PC or Mac
• Linear magnetic speakers and woofers offer excellent sound performance
• Alarm clock functions feature large, easy-to-access buttons and several alarm options, including Internet radio and digital music wake-up

Cons:

• Poorly integrated remote control and difficult navigation
• Internet radio stations somewhat difficult to configure

Product Description

SoundBridge Radio is a complete Wi-Fi Music System that brings the world of Internet radio to every room of the house in rich, clear, stereo sound. Combining all of SoundBridge's advanced digital music streaming functionality with incredible-sounding stereo speakers, subwoofer, AM/FM radio and alarm clock, SoundBridge Radio takes today's tabletop radio to the next level in audio power and ease of use. Access all your music using simple and familiar radio controls. A few buttons for presets, scan, and source select make digital music easily accessible.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

90 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you love radio, you will find it hard not to love the SoundBridge Radio, July 26, 2006

By	dissimulo - See all my reviews

Update: After two years, my SoundBridge radio began to die with a constant crackling of static, regardless of volume setting. Apparently, I am not the only customer to experience this problem, but the warranty coverage is one year, regardless. That is a disappointment, because this product is not cheap. I know that things break, but when a problem is common, it is a design flaw and I hope for manufacturers to take better care of their customers. So, I am not changing my rating - it was a great product while it lasted - but two years of life from a $300 product is not good enough for me to buy another, even at the low, low RMA price of $200.

Original review:

I have wished for a radio that could play Internet radio stations ever since stations began to stream on-line. Sure, I can use my computer, but I hate to leave the noisy, power-sucking thing on 24 hours a day. Over the last couple years, a few devices have popped up that could play Internet radio, but that lacked the ability to tune in regular AM and FM radio. At long last, the SoundBridge Radio has arrived with the ability to play both Internet and regular radio.

The SoundBridge is great. It is the best thing of any kind that I have purchased in several years. That said, it is not perfect.

Internet Radio

The SoundBridge delivers Internet radio every bit as well as a computer. Once you have your favorite stations programmed in, it is easy to switch between them - just press the preset button and you're streaming.

The downside is that it is a bit laborious to enter those stations. To add new stations to the presets, you need to log in to the web interface of the radio, using your web browser. No big deal if you are computer savvy, but it would be nice if there were a way to program the presets from the radio itself.

AM/FM Radio

The SoundBridge closed the deal with me just by offering regular AM and FM radio in addition to Internet radio. This was a feature I required and SoundBridge Radio delivers.

However, that is as much praise as I will give it for the standard radio features. There are several annoyances. You cannot scan stations manually. To select a station, you must select it from a list. A tuning dial would be much, much more useful. The reception is poor. This is probably due to the internal AC power supply. Don't expect to pick up weak, remote stations with the SoundBridge.

The radio does provide AM and FM antenna ports, so you can improve on the poor reception by adding a quality antenna.

Radio Controls

There are four ways to control the radio - the physical controls, the remote control, the web interface, and the command line interface. This provides a great degree of flexibility if you are willing to learn them all. It could also be confusing.

The biggest problem with the SoundBridge Radio is that each of these four control sets works differently and does not allow you to control the full set of features. If I had designed the SoundBridge Radio, I would have made sure you could manipulate every feature from every interface. Sadly, this is not the case.

The physical radio controls allow you to do almost everything you will need to do once the wireless network is set up and your presets are programmed. However, you need to use the remote control for setup.

The web interface allows only very basic control of the radio, but is necessary for manipulating presets. You can program the presets for Internet radio stations simply by pasting in the URL.

The command line interface can be accessed by Telnet. I have only done basic tinkering, but it appears you can control most of the radio functions from the command line. You can also do interesting things, such as rewriting the radio display.

Sound

The sound is fine. You're listening to the radio - how good do you expect it to be? Voices are clear and well balanced. Music sounds fine, though a bit heavy on the bass for my tastes. If you crank the volume while playing music, you will overload the speakers - they aren't very big. This is a table-top radio. You probably won't be blowing the windows out with your clock radio and you won't be with the SoundBridge either. I have no complaints. If you want better sound, there is a port for headphones.

Security?

The SoundBridge Radio is a computer, running Linux - it just looks like a Radio. It checks in regularly with Roku for software updates, but you should think of this little box as a computer before you plug it in to your network. I haven't tried to hack it, but just about any computer can be hacked if you try hard enough. You wouldn't connect your PC to the Internet without some kind of firewall and I wouldn't recommend that you connect the SoundBridge Radio to the Internet without some protection of its own.

Overall

I have been using the SoundBridge Radio for a week. I love it. Sure, there are a number of annoyances in the design, but they are far outweighed by the positives.

Most of the irritations come during setup. Once you have the radio set up, you just punch your presets and listen to the radio.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All I can say is WOW!, August 13, 2007

By	Just the Facts (New England USA) - See all my reviews

Expect to be amazed. I'm now a born again radio listener with Internet radio. No commercials, it's free, and a ton of choices - what else do you want?

I bought this (from Fry's $249) after I read a New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/business/09pogue.html). Arrived in 2 days. Opened the box. Popped the batteries into the remote. Plugged the radio to the AC outlet.The display in the front panel asked a few questions so that the radio can get connected to your wifi network. Fairly easy even if you are using WEP security and you know how to hook up a wireless device. But if you are using WPA security, you may have to start up with WEP, upgrade the firmware, then move to WPA. The unit I got had version 2.5 and the current version is 3.0. WPA is supported starting from version 2.7.

Once you have the radio hooked up to wifi, there's really nothing else much to do but start selecting your stations. I suggest that you go directly to Radioroku.com. This site helps you find internet radio stations and listen to them on your PC or on your Soundbridge with a click of a button. Believe me radioroku will make things a lot easier for you.

If you want to control and monitor the radio remotely from your PC, you can also download Roku Radio Snooper (http://www.rokulabs.com/support_sb_dwnld_radiosnoop.php). You can easily command the radio to play audio files on your PC or store URLs of radio stations using the snooper.

The real value from this (and any) Internet Radio is the amount of content you can get for FREE and at your own leisure without annoying commercials. Remember this radio does NOT need a PC (or MAC) to download music or to run. All it needs is a wireless broadband internet connection.

Finally, the sound coming out of this small radio is truly phenomenal (within reasonable expectations). I'm buying another one soon.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If only it had outputs..., February 4, 2007

By	Clifford Dacso (Bellaire, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a great appliance, easy to install, and does everything they say it does. BUT...there are no outputs so it can not be connected to external speakers or to a music system. If it had just two RCA jacks, it would be a fiver for sure. There are less expensive devices on the market that will do the same thing however, the R1000 acoustics is excellent.