Strikes and Gutters
Being a radio enthusiast I was excited to try the Boom. My primary use is streaming live radio broadcasts. Although the Boom gives good sound, I returned it and purchased the Squeezebox Radio, which costs one hundred dollars less and is a far superior radio.
The Boom's menu is choppy and cumbersome to navigate. Design is uninspired. Build quality is average. The remote is nice, of course, but it doesn't solve the choppy navigation. After an evening of listening, I knew I loved wi-fi radio, but that this was not going to be my unit.
So I took it back and opted for the next generation, the Radio, whose audio (though through a mono speaker) is to be reckoned as sublime. Jazz with Bill Perkins on WRTI Temple Public Radio, 6-9 EST, though the Radio is a Platonic ideal of a listening experience. One cannot imagine a more perfect radio situation in the history of radios.
I do not know what listeners to individual mp3 music collections will think of the Radio, but radio lovers, who seek more than mere audiophilic titillation, will recognize its brilliance immediately. The art deco design and build quality are smart and appreciated.
Forget the Boom. Get Plato's Radio.
2010-03-11
Not Worth the Hassle! Really!
This BOOM BOX was too tedious to program and it kept disconnecting the wireless connection causing me to continuously reprogram it over and over and over again...until I'd had enough. The sound is anything but a "Boom". It sounded hollow and "plastic". I bought a Squeezebox RADIO a few months ago so I knew what to do. The radio is a whole lot better than the Boom Box. I'm sending the Boom Box back, period. I'll pay a total of $75 hard earned dollars for the 2 shipping fees and a 20% restocking fee. Either I pay or keep the thing in the box collecting dust. That's an expensive box of dust. By the way, trying to repackage the box back to the way it came would be like solving the Rubix Cube. Good luck with that. Not only was this a waste of my money but a waste of my Saturday morning spent trying to get the Boom box set up and working properly. The remote was useless, it had no battery. And, The guidebook is a joke book. Except, I'm wasn't laughing...at all.
I tried to figure out what was my problem so I could alleviate the drama of having to go through the hassle of returning this thing and totally losing money. I could only conclude that it would be best not to have more than two Squeezeboxes set up in your house as one cancels out the other and ultimately results in a disconnection on all the squeezeboxes. Why didn't someone tell me that I only needed one of these things? Stick with the Squeezebox RADIO instead, it's a lot easier to set up and much less hassle. Next time, I'm going to BEST BUY...human guidance equals an informed consumer equals no hassle and restocking fees! Stick to Books Amazon. Really!
2010-02-28
I Love my Squeezebox Boom.
I have a windows xp computer in my finished basement / man cave with a few hundred gigs of music sitting on the music drive. It connects to my router through a wireless G connection & I have the squeezebox boom in my master bedroom on the night stand. It's 100% perfect for a bedroom or kitchen.
I have worked as a sound reinforcement engineer, and dj in the past, so I'm picky about sound quality. It doesn't need to be 100% accurate, but it had better not have any annoying rattles, and when I put on some sub 100hz heavy drum & bass music like Dj? Acucrack or Enduser, I expect to hear the bass all the way down to the bottom. I was skeptical that speakers so small could deliver. The week prior to purchasing my squeezebox, I purchased a set of m-audio audiophile monitor speakers which are 1 inch larger & have a higher quality class of amplifier than this device, and I was let down by their bass performance. I have to say, despite seemingly common sense and my skepticism, I was 110% blown away by the quality of sound that they packed into these little speakers. The squeezebox boom has the best bass reproduction of any small system. I managed to get it on closeout at a major retailer's bankruptcy liquidation sale for 50% off. After having it for a couple months, I would gladly pay full price to replace it if it ever broke.
If anybody has sound problems with this device, then it's a problem with the source material, period.
My only gripe is the lack of usb / flash card reader. Without one, the device doesn't seem 100% reliable as an alarm clock. There's just too many things that could fail if using it as an alarm clock without one.
That & wireless config was annoying. I vaguely remember having to convert the password from decimal to hexidecimal in order to get it to work.
2010-02-24
A Very Reasonably Priced Terrific Player
The following review contains two parts, the first part id related to this player, and the second part is related to amazon.com...
I bought this player as a gift to my friend, and my sole motivation is my experience with my Logitech Transporter. If you are on market looking for a WiFi music player, please give this gem a chance. I do not have any complain about it at this price level, it even exceed my expectation! Having said these...
When I got the package, open the traditional amazon.com brown box... I found that the seal tapes has 2 layers... So, I carefully removed the top layer, and found out the other layer as seals had been cut open! Open the box, and check what's happening inside the box, I found that the BOOM from amazon.com is NOT BRAND NEW! It is an used unit (with a tiny scratch on the remote control), and I do not believe my trusty amazon.com sell me an open-boxed BOOM as a brand new merchandise! Like I mentioned earlier, this is a gift that I want to give to my friend, this unit is completely un-acceptable! 5 stars for Logitech, but 0 stars for amazon.com.
2010-02-24
