Roku SoundBridge M1000/M1001 Network Music System

I bought one of these great little devices when they came out. Attach a pair of powered speakers to it, or plug it into your stereo and you have expanded your digital music capabilities. Mine sits on my home network and plays both radio and iTunes out of a pair of Logitech X-230 2.1 computer speakers. Nice set-up. Too bad Roku got successful with streaming Netflix Video to your television becuse they have basically abandoned this product and any support for it. I was playing FLAC files using the Firefly Music Server software that was developed to help the Roku function with something other than iTunes, and that has not been updated in three years. It no longer work with OS X after 10.5

A shame, really. But it still plays radio.

The Roku Soundbridge does what it was made to do. Play music from your computer on any stereo system you plug it into, and play Internet radio. Unfortunately, even though I got the latest version, it only accepts the rather basic WEP wireless security settings. My laptop doesn't even offer WEP, because the encryption is easier to break than the newer security protocols, so I had to run Ethernet from my wireless router to get it to work. Unfortunately, my router is upstairs, and the radio system I connected it to is downstairs. You see the problem.

Had I realized that the Roku Soundbridge was nearing the end of production, I would have purchased a Logitech Squeezebox instead. I really don't understand why Roku didn't set their new video bridges to play music files or Internet radio as well, when their Soundbridge is becoming obsolete. I'm waiting for the day when Roku shuts down their Internet radio website, and my Soundbridge won't be able to find any Internet radio stations other than the ones I've loaded into it.

So in sum it works great, but I had to plug it into Ethernet because my wireless laptop doesn't use the low-end security encryption that the Roku requires to work wirelessly.

I bought this for one purpose: to hook it up to my stereo system and listen to Internet radio stations around the world. It does it's main function fairly well, but their website which is required for that functionality is down several times a year, sometimes as long as 3 days. They also have no more online support or even online documentation. I can understand moving on, but getting rid of all documentation, etc, at your website?! There is a workaround to get it work with the website down, but it's a bit clumsy, and I haven't really tested it during website failure. The manual is incomplete, and I still don't understand half the buttons. Again, functionality is decent, but you expect a bit more by way of customer support in this day and age. Also, as several have noted the product has been dropped, and this company has made it very clear it's not much interested in supporting an older product like this one.

I was waffling between this and a Logitech Slim device. The price point won me over, and it's been a good addition to my home theater. I tried using both the Slim Server compatibility mode, and the native Firefly Server. The Slim Server compatibility mode is quite lacking in both usability and user interface (the fonts are very small in that mode). The Firefly server works like a charm and is very easy to use. It also connects to my Mac's music shares as well. Browsing is intuitive, quick, and playback audio decode quality is excellent. In my rather WiFi saturated apartment complex, I did find that it works better with a wired connection rather than the wireless one but I don't blame the device for that. Having over 20 wireless networks available makes using WiFi tricky for even the best devices.

The only cons I can report come from the Internet Radio mode. The first is configuring stations, which was non-trivial to figure out. It's possible that using the bundled radio discovery software on Windows makes this much simpler, but I don't listen to Internet radio on my Windows systems and didn't have any of the supported players installed. Some digging showed that there is a web server on the device for configuration, and from that interface you can add names and URLs of preset stations. That solved most of my problems, since I have a subscription to di.fm and that requires the use of custom URLs to get the better quality feeds. The only issue is somewhat frequently the playback from internet stations (especially higher bitrate ones, like the di.fm subscription channels) will pause and re-buffer. I don't believe this is a network issue, as none of the computers I use for playback (like my Mac with iTunes) exhibit this problem. I had hoped that the M1001 would have a configuration option to increase the Internet Radio buffer size, but it does not.

Overall, the device fills 95% of the audio playback needs I had for my home theater: the device is pleasing to look at, the Internet syncronized clock in stand-by mode is very useful, playing audio files and streams from my network without requiring the use of the TV (unlike my SageTV HTPC), and being significantly cheaper than the Slim Devices alternatives. The somewhat regular pauses for a few seconds while in Internet Radio mode for re-buffering are not overly annoying (and a software update fro Roku could easily fix that). I'd recommend the M1001 as an excellent alternative to the Slim Devices players for the price.

First i will say thanks Amazon.com for fast shipment and handling outside USA (Germany). I have searched this device in germany but i found only used devices. This devices is branded by pinnacle and comes without iTunes Server support. My original Roku SoundBridge works perctly with my iTunes Server on my NAS.

For german orders only:
- The PSU works fine with 230V but for the US-Prongs must have an US to EU Prong converter.
- Amazon.com has made all zoll and formalities for me.

Operation of the SoundBridge is verry simple and i hear webradio past 5-10 minutes after unpacking. The connect to my own iTunes Server (NAS) is totally easy and also works fine.

The technical data can see on the webside or other reviews.

Tip: [...] - This little java program is for remote controlling the SoundBridge over PC and works with multiple (linux, xp, vista, 7) platforms.

Kind regards,
Dirk