Philips NP2900/37 WiFi Internet Radio Network Music Player with Rhapsody (Black)

Other products by Philips

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 13.6 x 2.7 x 3.9 inches ; 6.8 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001L2MJO6
• Item model number: NP2900/37
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,457 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)

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  Electronics > Home Audio & Theater > Multiroom Digital Music Systems

• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 1, 2008

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

From the Manufacturer

Philips NP2900/37 Network Music Player - Enjoy Music from Your PC and the Internet--Wirelessly

Place the Philips Streamium network music player NP2900 anywhere in your house. With one cool and compact player, you will have immediate access to your PC music library, internet radio and Rhapsody online music service – wirelessly and effortlessly. The Streamium network music player is ready and easy to set up – right out of the box. Users just need to plug it into a power source and after simple set up, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g technology will take it online instantly. Once the Streamium network music player is connected to your home network, you can enjoy wireless music streaming.

Enjoy music wherever you are, whatever you are doing

Stream music wireless from your PC to anywhere in the home

The Streamium network music player supports MP3, WMA, DRM-free iTunes Plus, Ogg Vorbis, PCM and FLAC formats. And all music is delivered through powerful built-in speakers that deliver truly exceptional sound boosted by Philips’ patent-pending LivingSound and patented FullSound technologies.

Vivid User Interface on Color LCD Display and Intuitive IR Remote

The Streamium network music player features colorful LCD screen. You can view your favorite CD's album art in original, vivid color. While the music is being played, the album art will remain on the display enriching your listening experience. Plus, the Easy Logic UI screen utilizes smart icons to ensure intuitive, at-a-glance navigation and efficient control.

Now your music can go wherever you go - work or play

Music sooths the soul - especially when you can bring it with you

Alphanumerical search function on the remote control keypad lets you instantly find your favorite artist, track or album. Just press 'Search' on the remote control, and then type in the first few letters or numbers of the name of your desired track, artist or album. It will bring you to the entry that most closely matches your input. No need to waste time scrolling your entire collection or playlist line by line.

Wireless Music Playback from Any PC

Using a Wi-Fi network, you can access the music stored in your PC and enjoy your favorite songs as they continuously stream from your PC's music library to the Streamium network music player. There are no wires, no cables and no hassles. Enjoy the freedom of listening to all your audio anywhere you want in your home. One of the great things about your Streamium network music player NP2900 is that songs stored on your PC are really easy to find and play. By installing TwonkyMedia, you can start sharing media via a UPnP network. (included with the product in CD.), you can quickly and easily stream your music collection that is stored in your PC. With the remote control, you can have instant access to your PC music via the Streamium network music player and listen to your music with the precisely angled built-in speaker in superb sound, such as Philips patent LivingSound, without being present next to your computer.

Thousands of Free Internet radio stations--No PC required

Small but powerful, bring your music collection anywhere you

The NP2900 fits into every part of your life

The Internet radio feature keeps you abreast of news and entertainment updates from thousands of online radio stations worldwide. Connect your Streamium network music player NP2900 to the Internet and listen to your favorite online programs, without having to turn on your PC.

The [Favorite Stations] option allows you quick access to the stations bookmarked as the ones that you frequently listen to. The [My Media] option enables you to manually add online the stations that you cannot find on your Streamium network music player NP2900 so that you can find them easily the next time.

Rhapsody Music Online Services

Perfect for the home or office

Rock, pop, country, jazz--you name it--Rhapsody delivers a massive catalog of music through your Streamium network music player. Choose from millions of songs online and listen all you want. To try out Rhapsody, you’ve even got a Rhapsody® free trial for 30 days! With the Streamium network music player, you can instantly access millions of songs anytime through Rhapsody online music services. Stream the songs you like to your player and play them on your favorite audio system without even having to turn on your PC.

Patented Philips LivingSound and FullSound Technologies

Philips’ patent-pending LivingSound considerably expands the sweet spot so you can enjoy truly immersive music over a wider area. Combining various sound processes, it recovers the richness and spatial details of the soundstage often lost with a compact stereo system. Phase-shifting and driver angling re-creates a concert experience, equalization of various channels brings out the perfect balance and clarity of sound, while S-signal processing further enhances the ambient quality. The effect is sound that is larger than expected and that is extensively and evenly distributed around the room.

Philips' innovative FullSound technology faithfully restores sonic details to compressed MP3 music, dramatically enriching and enhancing it, so you can experience CD music without any distortion. Based on an audio post-processing algorithm, FullSound combines Philips' renowned expertise in music reproduction with the power of the latest generation Digital Signal Processor (DSP). The result is fuller bass with more depth and impact, boosted voice and instrument clarity, and rich detail. Rediscover your compressed MP3 music in true-to-life sound that will touch your soul and move your feet.

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Technical Specifications

• Equalizer settings : Classic, Jazz, Pop, Rock
• Music Power: 30 W
• Sound Enhancement: Equalizer, Dynamic Bass Boost
• Loudspeaker types: Non-detachable
• Built-in speakers: 4
• Compression format: non DRM AAC (m4A), MP3, WMA, eAAC+, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis
• ID3-tag support: Yes
• MP3 bit rates: 8-320 kbps and VBR
• PC Link playback mode: MP3 streaming via network, Wi-Fi wireless connection
• WMA bit rates: Up to 192kbps, CBR/VBR
• Internet Radio: Yes
• On-line music service: Rhapsody
• Headphone: 3.5 mm
• LAN wired: Ethernet (RJ 45) 1x
• Other connections: Digital coaxial out
• Power: 110-230V
• Wireless connections: Wireless LAN(802.11g), Wireless LAN(802.11b)
• Backlight: Yes
• Display Type: LCD
• On-Screen Display languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
• OSD Languages: Portuguese, Swedish
• AC/DC Adaptor: 110-240V
• Batteries: 2x AAA
• CD-ROM: CD-ROM with TwonkyMedia, Video Tutorial and manuals
• Product dimensions (WxDxH): 13.86 x 2.71 x 3.9 inches
• Weight: 1 lb

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Product Description

Wirelessly access 10,000+ Internet stations FREE, your music library, and Music On-Demand with a free trial from Rhapsody. Streamium is your Home Jukebox with 4 high-quality speakers. You can access Internet music from your home country or hometown, by musical genre (rock, pop, news, sports, 80's, etc.). Your digital music is easily accessed by Streamium so you are always connected to music you already own (in addition you can leverage music from multiple PCs/Macs). Finally, you can get music-on-demand with Rhapsody (free trial included). Search thousands of titles and artists for music of your choice or play "name-that-tune" with your friends and family (by preferred genre). This network music player allows you to "free your music" from MP3 players and your computer. The speakers feature FullSound, which is a great feature built-in that brings back high-quality CD sound from your digitally compressed MP3 files and LivingSound which brings a more complete stereo listening experience to the room. Enjoy album art from your favorite artists (from your PC/Mac, or from Rhapsody) and enjoy radio station logos and pictures that can be shown on your player. A remote allows easy music management from a distance.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Choice for easy-to-use Media Player, April 27, 2009

By	Charles Evans "Call me Kevin" (North Carolina) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Length:: 5:35 Mins

I will warn you that my review compares the Philips Network Music Player to the Logitech 930-000054 Squeezebox Boom All-In-One Network Music Player with Integrated Speakers (Black) and while the Squeezebox Boom offers a few more features my personal preference is for the Philips.

Things that I like about the Philips Network Media Player

- Very easy to use - my wife prefers the ease-of-use compared to the Squeezebox Boom
- Nice functionality in the remote control
- Excellent Sound
- Relatively small footprint - not much bigger than your typical alarm clock
- External Antenna to help extend the range of your wifi network

Cons-
- Only one music network - Rhapsody

Final Verdict -

I am very happy with the Philips Network Music Player - in fact, it has taken the coveted spot in our kitchen (replacing the Squeezebox Boom) . While it would be preferable to have more music services than just Rhapsody, but in all honesty I mainly just listen to the internet radio stations anyway. Finally, the Squeezebox has more features and for the techno savvy it may be the better choice, but for us we enjoy the Philips.

4 1/2 Stars

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Philips server failed, no radio, June 12, 2009

By	J. SPIEGEL "Joe" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Philips Streamium NP2900
"First things first. Since getting this Internet radio I have spent about 6 weeks trying to trouble shoot what is essentially a failed device. Initially I was very happy to deal with the tech support people as they were in the USA and I was happy about that. I once did tech support for a software company and all our jobs went off shore. That said, I became very frustrated with the lack of support I was actually getting. "

Above, was the first paragraph of my initial review of the NP2900 which I held back posting. I could not believe Philips actually wanted me to review such a faulty device. It was very frustrating making call after call all to no avail. Eventually a replacement was sent to me which exhibited the same problem as the first. It refused to play any radio station labeled "USA Only". Being in Los Angeles, I knew that had to be a mistake. Well FINALLY after all the calls and a letter I wrote to corporate in Georgia , about a week or so ago a firmware update was sent to the radio. Now it plays USA Only stations with all the rest that it should. It doesn't play UK Only stations, and it shouldn't, for me. I don't know why it took so long and no one in support ever actually helped me directly but maybe in some small way my nagging got an engineer assigned to fix it.

All that said what we have here is now, a pretty nice Internet Radio/Music streaming device. I personally also have the Logitech SqueezeBox Boom. It is one of the most direct competitors for the 2900. Both are fine examples of what such a player should be. They both capture Internet radio broadcasts via a WiFi signal and can also stream music from your computer via a home network connected to the WiFi router. Each comes with accompanying software to facilitate this. The Philips includes Twonky Media Server which installs and finds and sends your music (and cover art!) to the 2900. I found the software works fairly well, but having a Squeezebox it can interfere with that software. You can also (on a PC) use "Orb", a free media streamer if you have issues with Twonky.

An issue that I continued to have with the 2900 was slow scrolling through menus. Well, TODAY there was another firmware update. Boy, those engineers are getting their "busy" on! This one fixes that issue and adds some WiFi security features and graphics.

Graphics, that's where the 2900 shines. Its screen is quite nice and in full color. The Boom uses blue/green characters only. Color is nice and it can use graphics to identify radio stations or as wallpaper or album art for your music collection. This is very cool and well executed.

The remote control is a "typical" lots of little buttons, remote. I wound up adding the radio to my Harmony 880 remote and prefer to use it to control the functions, especially at night as the original remote is not backlit. There are only four basic controls on the player itself. On the unit's top are Power, Mute, Volume Up & Down. That's it. I wish it had more but that's a design choice. The result is a very sleek minimalist radio face. It is a very "pretty" radio and will add a touch of style to your room. It also sounds VERY GOOD. The speakers are more than decent and can fill a good size room with nice rich sound.

A couple of minor annoyances are that it only has Rhapsody as a supported music service. They do include a free trial month but you have to subscribe thereafter. The Boom has a very large assortment of music services that it supports both free and pay. The other main annoyance is how to "surf" the radio section. The 2900 is radio "station" centric. Meaning you can find stations by searching for their location or by call letters. The Boom let's you find out who's on now. As in I want to listen to Talk/Progressive and it will list who is on now and you can then tune to whatever station that person is on right now, wherever they are. I find that system far more useful. You can still search for an actual station from your home town, but overall, to me, the Boom wins on usefulness. I think this is a software issue and hope Philips sees fit to address it in a future update.

When you play music stored on your computer, first it needs to be DRM free. That said it does a fine job doing that and brings any stored album art along for display. This is a way cool feature.

In summation, this is a very nice streaming player. When you get it all set up check for those updates, it's in the settings menu. I was going to give it a low rating because of the earlier issues but, that's all fixed and is deserving of 4 stars. If Philips fixes/adds the browse by topic feature I would wholeheartedly give it 5 stars. It's a very good choice.

UPDATE:
This radio is tied to Philips servers. About four days ago (end of Aug. 2009) their server died. My radio died. Epic Fail. One Star, revised.
At first I was the only post on the Philips 2900 Forum, then others posted. No response from Philips. My 2900 is now in the closet in its box. Too bad.
Keep away!!!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars OMG! I love this thing!, April 24, 2009

By	PT Cruiser "PT Cruiser" (CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

I was listening to internet radio on this music player 5 minutes after I opened the box and the sound was crystal clear. This was super simple to set up. I just plugged it in, used the remote control to find my WiFi network, which it saw right away. I entered the password (My network is WPA2 protected) and voila! Music! There are literally thousands of radio stations that are sorted by country, type of music, or news radio. I listened to rock from Finland, talk radio from France (in French), country from Australia and classical music from Italy. Of course there are tons of stations in the U.S. to listen to as well if you want to keep it closer to home. You don't have to have the computer on to listen to the internet radio.

The other cool feature is that you can stream your DRM-free iTunes music to this player from your computer, using an application called TwonkyMedia Server which is included on a CD that comes with the music player. (Or you can just go to their website like I did and download it). There is a version for Windows, Mac and Linux. I have a PC running Windows XP and a Mac running Mac OS X so I downloaded Twonky for both. It took several minutes for the playlists and different songs to load from each computer to the server, but once loaded I was able to search by artist, album, playlists, folders, etc. with the remote and play them on this music player. I was able to see the album covers in beautiful color on about half of the music. That probably is due to something in the Twonky application. Oh, and another thing I was able to do is to go back and forth in the menus between the Mac and the PC (which have different playlists) as long as both were turned on. How cool is that?

The sound is completely amazing for this small player. The LivingSound and FullSound technologies make it sound like a much bigger player than you would expect. The internet radio stations are also crystal clear since it's broadcast over the internet, not with radio signals like an old fashioned radio. Listening to reggae music from the Caribbean on the N2900 is clearer than a station a city away on a traditional radio.

One thing I did notice is that all of the album artwork showed up on music that I purchased from Amazon, whereas some of it from iTunes didn't show up. And because I have a lot of DRM protected music from iTunes purchases I'll have to find a way to convert them so I can listen to them on this player. I'm able to play everything I purchased through Amazon.

I love the fact that this music player is a stand alone unit with it's own speakers. It's simple to move it from room to room. I've taken it outside on the patio which is very convenient when relaxing out there or having a meal. It makes my iTunes music portable like an iPod, (although you do need a power source to plug it in) but with speakers so I can listen with a group of people. It's also very nice looking with sleek lines and would fit in anywhere.

There are RCA jacks on the back of the unit so you could connect it to another sound system as well. You would just connect the AUX IN jacks of the sound system with the red and white LINE OUT jacks of the NP2900. Everything is simple and well marked. So if you wanted to listen to it on your surround sound system you could just connect it to your receiver.

If you like listening to the Rhapsody Music Service, you can do that with the NP2900, in fact you get a free 30 day trial to see if you like it. They have a huge music library that you can choose to listen to. It's $12.99 per month after the free trial.

The router I use to connect my network is the Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54G2 - Wireless router + 4-port switch - EN, Fast EN, 802.11b, 802.11g with a cable broadband network. I you're using a "N" router, be sure to set your connection speed to both N and G since this music player uses the Wi-Fi 802.11b/g technology.

My only problem with this player is trying to find it. Other family members keep carrying it off into other parts of the house. It's a big hit around here!