So Far So Good with Brian's Logitech Squeezebox

As I speculated that Internet radio would prove more and more tempting, Brian shared his initial impressions with his Logitech Squeezebox, just purchased:

I just picked up a black Squeezebox from Best Buy this morning, on sale for $150. I had enough rewards points available to cover the tax. I have been shopping for one for a while, and almost went with the Grace model for $99 (free shipping), or the Myine IRA (which is no longer $69) at amazon.com. When I went to Best Buy today, I just couldn't resist the price, considering that I didn't have to wait for shipping.

I like that both the Grace and the Squeezebox will allow me to manually add the streaming url of my tiny, local indie outlet. The Myine IRA doesn't appear to have that capability, so it was out of the question. It is reported that the Squeezebox will also work with Clear Channel streams, which is important to me for our local news station.

I plan to play it through my micro transmitter so my vintage sets can play the mix of jazz and indie stations that I like the best. All of the best stations seem to be out of my listening area...

It took me just a few minutes to get the Squeezebox connected to my wifi and I was off and running. I added my favorite streams through the website, and am good to go.

The Squeezebox sounds very good through its built-in speaker, and even better when streamed to my 1956 Blaupunket radio with my micro transmitter.

I'll try out Pandora, as well as some of the streams available through the Squeezebox's menu. I'll post back here in a few days when I've had a chance to test its reliability and usability.

Nothing beats listening to a high bitrate smooth jazz stream on my Panasonic RF-888 (via my Squeezebox and micro transmitter).

Comments

[Angelo]

Quick comment about Radio Shack: I was in there yesterday and asked to see an internet radio and HD radio. The clerk told me they were out of HD radios and he said "Sir, for internet radio, you just download and play through the computer---what type of radio are you talking about?" I told him there are radios that work with your wireless router and you could listen to the radio around the house, like any portable---and get internet radio. He didn't know what I was talking about. I think it's time Radio Shack changes their name. They only have a few radios in the store and apparently, they don't bother to carry the newest advances in radio.

[Scooby214]

It seems that their new branding "The Shack" really fits.

It is truly sad to see the passing of an era, where one could go to Radio Shack and purchase radios and electronic components from knowledgeable salesmen. I remember when I would go in during the '80s and drool over the fancy magnetic phonograph cartridges in the display case. They even had linear turntables that slid out so they could be on a shelf in your entertainment center.

Brian

[Tom Ternquist]

I recently bought a Grace Internet receiver GDI-IR2000 and after some initial problem with set up (WiFi G vs. N) it is working very well. I love the choice of stations.

[Barry]

Brian, I have several Squeezeboxes throughout my house and I hope you enjoy it. I was wondering about your micro transmitter setup. Please explain. I would love to transmit internet to my vintage radios. Thanks!

[Angelo]

Brian: I remember those 1970's Radio Shack catalogs (I think they've been linked to here as well.). They had CB radios, shortwave radios, pocket radios, novelty radios, AM-FM basic portables and all types of wiring/cables/knobs/switches to repair your radio. You're right---the salespeople knew more about electronics than the majority of their customers---now, it's the opposite. I don't fault them for moving to GPS systems, mobile phones, etc.---they have to stay in business. I just wish they would carry some decent radios and at least have a representation of the newest radios like HD and internet. I'd love it if they brought back the "Realistic" brand. I'm sure they could easily rebrand some of the Chinese radios as "Realistics" and we'd have some nostalgia.

[jg]

I've been on a radio spree for the last month or so myself, and I bought a Squeezebox Radio at Best Buy last week as well. The selection of stations is great and the sound quality is very impressive. I used one of my Reward Zone 10% off coupons in combination with the sale price, so I got a good deal on it.

Initial setup was dead simple and I was up and running in no time. Setting of presets was straightforward, basic controls required no help or documentation (Which is a good thing because it doesn't come with any). It even automatically downloaded and installed the latest version of the firmware the first time it connected to my network. The color display is very crisp and looks wonderful. It can stream music from the iTunes libraries on my local wireless network pretty much without flaw. Listening to various streams is very simple, I've only run into a few dead links.

Having said that, there are a ton of bugs in the firmware.

It will seemingly randomly forget presents. When installing "Apps" on it (small applets which give access to services like Pandora, Last.fm, Facebook, etc), the Apps don't install unless you select the "Launch ____ immediately" at the final step. Adding "Favorites" is not intuitive at all. The typical use case is this: You're listening to a stream and want to save it your Favorites. You press the main dial to bring up the menu. There is no "Add to Favorites" menu item. BUT, if you select a stream in the list view, hit the "+" button, you can add it to your Favorites that way. NOW, once you have *something* in your favorites, it will work in the expected use case: when you hit the main dial, you will see the "Add to Favorites" menu item for any stream. But only after you've already got something else in your Favorites.... definitely broken, and it makes one wonder how much time Logitech invested in their own QA before release.

There are a few UI nitpicks which I can deal with, begrudgingly, but some of the design decisions about the way the device operates (either with a Squeezebox Server on your local network, which you can download, or with an account you create on mysqueezebox.com) are perplexing to me. I fully admit that I'm ignorant of the rest of the Squeezebox lineup and how those devices might have influenced the design of the Radio, but some of these decisions seem inexcusable. Take the Alarm function on the Radio. It doesn't work reliably. The Radio relies on one of these external entities (local server or mysqueezebox.com) to store many of your device's settings: Alarms, presets, and so on, and keeping things in sync between device and server is hit or miss. I presume this is why every once in a while my presets are suddenly gone.

I've tried to read through some of the developer threads on the Squeezebox forums, and the gymnastics they're having to perform just to fire off a simple alarm (on a fairly smart device, no less) are truly mind boggling. You can flip a switch and SSH into the radio and do all sorts of Unix-y things; it's an honest to goodness linux machine. So how can it be so hard to develop a reliable Alarm function for it? There is NOTHING more worthless than an Alarm that only works sometimes. And why does the device need to store presets on a server? It just doesn't seem like a good design to me. I understand that a WiFi radio must, by its very nature, be connected to a network to be of any real use. But that requirement alone doesn't seem like sound justification for the reliance on an external server for such basic functionality, which seems to unnecessarily complicate everything.

It's a nice device, and I grow to like it more as I learn to work around the bugs. BUT, I shouldn't have to do that. It should just work. I understand in today's world that gadgets with complex operating systems are rarely free from issues, and require updates over time to improve their reliability and fix bugs, but the Logitech Squeezebox Radio is disappointing from this perspective. It feels like it was rushed to market before it was truly ready, and the software remains in beta.

It has a place for a rechargeable battery, which is not included and Logitech will be selling, along with a remote, for an *extra* $50. Unfortunately it doesn't just run on your average rechargeable batteries, it's a specially configured pack, and it's not available yet (furthering my theory this product was rushed to market for the holidays). $50 for the battery and remote seems awfully expensive, too.

My recommendation for a Squeezebox Radio would be dependent on the price. I definitely wouldn't recommend one at the $199 list price under any circumstances. If I had paid the list price for mine, it would've been returned after the 2nd time it forgot my presets. I wouldn't recommend one at the $149 sale price that Best Buy offered, unless you just have to have one and are willing to endure the bugs. I'm hopeful that Logitech will continue updating the firmware and eventually iron out all of these issues, but until then I wouldn't recommend one to the average radio listener.

It has a lot of potential, but not quite there yet. I really do like it, from the hardware perspective, and for the things that work well, it's great. It's just frustrating to have to put up with buggy software that interfere with some very basic features.

[Scooby214]

Barry, my transmitter setup is quite simple, really.

I actually have two transmitters, a SSTran AMT3000 (for AM), and a Ramsey FM25B (for FM stereo). Both transmitters are kits that you solder together. Until recently, I have used the SSTran for the last year or so, powered on 24/7. It has been used to rebroadcast a very weak FM station to my vintage sets. The SSTran is capable of near FM quality sound, though most AM radios aren't built to take advantage of it's bandwidth. The SSTran has an adjustable audio compressor which is sure nice when listening to old-time radio shows with differing volume levels.

I purchased and assembled the Ramsey FM25B back in December. It is capable of broadcasting over my entire neighborhood, so I keep its RF level turned to minimum. When combined with Ramsey's limiter/filter/equalizer, called the "Stereo Transmitter Companion," the transmitter has a very good full range sound.

I am currently using only the Ramsey setup, as all of the vintage sets I have out of the closet right now receive FM. I plan to switch back to the SSTran when I rotate out some of my radios. I installed a switch to toggle between my input FM tuner (a Marantz tuner) and the Squeezebox. I don't like having to unplug cables when swapping input sources. Before having the Squeezebox, I had an old XM boombox connected to the other input of the switch. I no longer use the XM, so the Squeezebox fits in nicely.

[Barry]

Thanks Brian for the info on the micro transmitters. I love the idea of using them to pump internet streams through my vintage radios.