Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
227 of 230 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Streaming/Internet Radio, September 12, 2008
This review is from: Logitech Squeezebox Boom All-in-One Network Music Player / Wi-Fi Internet Radio (Electronics)
I am a radio nut (going back to the tube days)and the Squeezebox Boom is my third internet radio. I have a Roku Soundbridge R1000 and Sangean WFR-20 as well. All have their strengths, but the Squeezebox Boom is without a doubt a significant step up; it sets a new high standard in performance, capabilities, and ease of operation.
For wireless streaming of your music collection from a PC or Mac, the Boom is best. It can handle more formats (nearly anything except DRM protected iTunes files) and works well without crashes or delays. In this the Roku is #2, and the Sangean ranks 3rd(crashes and stutters a lot).
For internet radio, they all work well. The Sangean is the only one that natively handles RealAudio Streams (like BBC) but has problems with clear channel stations. All of them pick up the stations I want without problems, so I rate this a tie.
If you want to interface with online music services like Rhapsody/Pandora/ MP3Locker etc, the Boom works great, with far more capacity than the other two. The Slimdevices/Squeezebox folks also update and improve their software far more frequently than the other two, so I expect it to remain in the lead in features and available services.
In sound quality, the Roku and Boom are both outstanding, with the Sangean good, but clearly a step lower. The Roku's subwoofer seems to go a bit deeper in my room, but the Boom is perhaps a bit more smooth and musical. The Boom uses the same woofers and tweeters as the highly rated Logitech Z-10, but with better bass (because of a larger cabinet and new amp/equalizer circuitry). They both sound absolutely great and play quite loud.
Ease of initial setup: If you are starting from scratch, I think the Sangean is the easiest to set up, if you do NOT want to stream audio from your PC...that is a real hassle. Both the Boom and Roku require a bit more work.
Ease of Use AFTER set up: Boom is best BY FAR. Not only do the menus make real sense, but the illuminated controls make it the only radio you can use easily without turning on the lights. The big control knob and back lit function buttons get you through all of the functions fast.
As a Clock Radio, the Boom has more options than the others, and the display has a huge adjustment range so it will not disturb light sleepers.
All of these radios are a lot of fun. The Boom does most, and does it best.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
 
|
|
|
|
|
|
74 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing sound from such a small box, September 12, 2008
This review is from: Logitech Squeezebox Boom All-in-One Network Music Player / Wi-Fi Internet Radio (Electronics)
I was intrigued by the idea of a network media player that had built in speakers etc, but I was completely put off by the size of the player. For those of you that don't know, the Boom is heavily marketed to be a bedside type unit (also kitchen wall/cabinet mounted). While shopping I thought I would prefer something with a little more heft at the cost of better sound, so I pretty well discounted the Boom and was looking at Audioengine and other options for powered speakers.
During my research I ended up coming across the Squeezebox Boom Whitepaper (http://wiki.slimdevices.com/uploads/a/ad/Logitech_Squeezebox_Boom_Audio_Design.pdf) and read through that. It went into a lot of detail regarding the amount of time that Logitech/Slim put into the audio output portion of the box. I also found reviews that in double blind testing the Boom was besting a lot of similar sized boxes that are more expensive and lacked network connectivity. I decided it was worth a shot.
Once I got home and go my Boom all opened up I plugged it in and was up and running in 2-3 minutes (I already have a wifi network setup with a Duet and receivers, so software etc.... had been pre-installed). I started with the Boom in our master bathroom. It was EXCEPTIONAL at filling a pretty large room (about 20x9 with 15' vaulted ceilings) I then played with it in spare bedrooms and the master bedroom. All sounded great.
Even though I usually don't need it I decided to set up some alarms to wake to. I don't leave my squeezecenter on, so I set the boom to wake up to Pandora over squeezenetwork. This took a little bit of fiddling, but once I figured out that you need to add a channel as a favorite it worked perfectly. That night I was a little bothered by the brightness of the screen, so I turned it away from the bed. However, the next morning I awoke to a sweet crescendo of Nelly :)
About the bright screen - There is already a bug report/feature request to change the behavior of the auto-dimming. Apparently people complained that it was auto-dimming too dark during beta, so when they changed it they went a little too high, and now it isn't dimming enough in certain situations. The fix is likely to be an adjustable low level that the screen dims to. In the meantime I simply overrode the brightness to a level that is acceptable at night.
Overall I must say I am more than impressed with the Boom, especially for the price. I am already thinking about adding one to the baby's room so that I have a stereo in there I can remotely control from my Duet/PC to play soothing music while still being able to listen to my tunes when I have to wake up with her.
If you are looking for a small network music player that you can move to the various rooms of the house then the Boom is definitely worth looking into...Now, don't expect room filling sound in a 50x50 banquet hall, but for bedrooms etc... it is pretty awesome.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
289 of 310 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pros and Cons are many, December 27, 2008
This review is from: Logitech Squeezebox Boom All-in-One Network Music Player / Wi-Fi Internet Radio (Electronics)
Was looking for a device that I could stream music to my back yard for parties and what not. I found the Boom shortly after it came out and figured it might be what I was looking for. I admit I was waiting for a bit of a price drop however. I managed to get one from AmEx Wishlist at a huge discount (about 50% off internet price) so I bit.
After playing with it a bit I have some pros and cons to share:
Pros:
1) It plays just about anything you can throw at it including almost all audio file formats, streams, and even RSS feeds. Fairly effortlessly I might add.
2) Small and quite portable, even at nearly 8lb. Yet it feels solid and quality built.
3) Can stream internet radio without attaching to a PC, but there is a con to this too, see below.
4) Open Source development. I found a decent community of support for this device and its stable mates. I was hoping for Squeeze Player on XBMC and Squeeze Center on DD-WRT, but apparently people who buy these prefer to run it on QNAP or other NAS devices which are considerably more expensive and challenging to configure. But being open source it just takes one dev to make dreams into reality.
5) Built in support for some of the most widely used internet audio sources including iTunes, Rhapsody, Pandora, Last.FM, Live365, Sirius, etc. Unfortunately the vast majority of these are NOT free services, but they do provide 30 day trials.
6) Web control is very cool and allows you to fully control the device from your web browser, even on your internet enabled phone. I like this even better than the built in IR remote and it is more functional to boot.
Cons:
1) No battery operation, decreases portability. Would be nice if it had a built in rechargeable battery, even if it only allowed 2 hours of use. As is it always needs a plug and a huge wall-wort.
2) No usb port to attach external storage. Would be amazing to plug in a flash/external HDD drive, mp3 player, and have access to any music on it.
3) No iPod dock. I am NO Apple fan but we do own one iPod Nano as do most people that this device appeals to. It would have been worth the licensing fee for this convenience and to be able to control the ipod directly from the Boom. As is you plug mp3 players in via their headphone jack which just converts the Boom into amplified speakers, hardly the intent of this this amazing device.
4) No handle to carry it around, I plan to port it around and it is small enough to carry, but a handle of some sort would have been nice. Couple that with the battery mentioned above and really becomes a "BOOM" box.
5) Price too high. At retail I feel that it is probably twice as expensive as it should be. For 150 it's almost a no brainer, at 300 I decided to wait for a better deal. IMHO this is not an audiophile device, but it carries an audiophile price tag. Probably because there is little competition in this space.
6) Boom REALLY wants to connect to a SqueezeCenter on your PC/Mac. First issue is that I don't want to keep my PC on 24/7 so this device can access it. Second issue, it was challenging to bypass connecting to my powered off SqueezeCenter the first couple tries even after having already configured the PC and the Boom correctly. You can go direct to Internet Radio via the Wi-Fi connection, but not without some fuss from the device trying to link to the PC first.
As many mentioned the device is great at what it does, and it does an awful lot. However you pretty much need to have a geek-level of 8+ to even consider this device, it is NOT user friendly in any way and pretty much requires a LOT of external devices (wifi, PC, audio storage) and configuration tweaking (internet radio, SqueezeCenter, music catalog) to maximize its potential.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
Saving...
