 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Home >> Handheld & PDA Reviews: Linksys Wireless-B Music System WMLS11B | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
User Submitted Linksys Wireless-B Music System WMLS11B Reviews (cont...)Date: 2004-12-28 Portable Music System that Rocks First read all the reviews. If you get this, definately go to the Linksys web site and download the latest firmware update September 04 version 1.09. After that, you will, within minutes, be listening to tons (over 1900) internet radio stations, surely you will find something that meets your mood. As other reviewers stated, the sound is not the loudest, but it is adequate for around the house use. If you want shake the walls sound, hook it up to your home stero system. I looked at other systems, and the fact that I could take this unit, anywhere in the house and listen is awesome. Other units will have to live on your component rack only. Musicmatch server does a fine job, with the occasional comercial to upgrade to the plus version. There is a plug in for Winamp (tonkyvision) that will also run a media server, but it requires Win XP, I have Win ME. In microsoft website I also read that they have one too, but also runs only in Win XP. Once the unit is up and running, the built in web server makes it nice to add favorites from ShoutCast (this system only accepts streaming MP3 not WMA or Real) by saving the playlist to a file, opening with an editor, and copy and paste server URL to the favorites. One minor bad thing was that I run a 11G WiFi and I had to change the encryption from WPA-PSK to WPE-SK, in order to continue to have a closed system. You should also turn off the SSID and enable MAC address filtering, to help make it more secure. Remember, is does not stop a hacker, just slows them down. Anyway, this is exactly what I was looking for, the ability to play my MP3's, listen to internet radio stations, and do it all WiFi anywhere in the house for around $115 from Best Buy after rebates. Definatly worth the money. Date: 2004-12-27 too much hassle, great idea bad way of doing it I was excited to try this thing out when I got it for christmas. I have alot of music on my computers and wanted a way to be able to tap into it onto my stereo system in the living room and deck for partys. After opening it I found that where this thing apears to be portable it is not. It has 3 different sets of wires across the back of it for all the speaker hook ups. It has to be plugged into a power source all the time. The other dissapointments are that it has to have a server software running on one of the computers. The software is music match media. This software wouldnt run correctly on my computers and kept locking up. After 2 hours of trying different things I got it to play a song over my wired network. It could browse songs but it takes a while to find them on the little screen. Any song queing needs to be done with playlists and that has to be set up previously on the computer with the software. Wireless? It wasnt working rite. I had it connected, but it wouldnt browse any more than about ten songs at a time before it had a long wait period to look for more. Then it would play the song once you found it. It did seem to sound ok through its speakers that came with it. For the money this thing is more of a hassle the a cool inovative device. It requires toooooo..... much setup and configuration. It also requires too many steps to get to your music. I suggest finding an old PC with a tv out card and hooking it up to your stereo and tv. Much more convenient. Dont buy this thing, I am returning it. Date: 2004-12-14 Wireless?...Well, not really. I thought wireless meant "without wires"! Not the case with this device; you will have plenty of wires to choose from! This player is going back to the store...you get what you pay for. Wireless The description claims that you can "Carry the Music System around the house and have access to your entire music collection". Well the only problem is that you will need a VERY long extension cord to do this, because this unit does not run on batteries...only an attached DC power converter. Setup I have 5 computers in my house sucessfully connected to my wireless network. However, I was unsucessful in creating a robust wireless connection to this device. I could get it working, but then the device seemed to reconfigure itself on occasion. It also often grabbed bogus IP Addresses when using DHCP. Features In concept, this device is nice. It includes a lot of useful features such as: Internet Radio, self-populating Playlists. However, I often could not get many of the features to work. Many of the songs would not play (media error) even though I can get them to play on my other 3 MP3 streaming devices. Ergonomics Wires Everywhere! The back of the device is a web of wires...one to power the device; one to power the speakers; one to connect the right speaker to the device; one to connect the left speaker to the right speaker. And...they are all jammed closely together, which makes it nearly impossible to coonnect them all. The other problem is that you must use the remote control in order to access most of the features of the Jukebox. I think its reasonable to expect to be able to control/configure a device from the main unit. MUSICMATCH Jukebox: What was Cisco/Linksys thinking? This device requires MUSICMATCH Jukebox running on your media server in order to access your songs. Now, I realize that this area is still not standardized in the industry...each manufacturer seems to have their own server-side software package that is responsible for streaming your music. However, most manufacturers are using either Windows Media Player, or their own proprietary software. Linksys chose to use a shareware program that constantly bombardes you with advertisements, and ofers to "upgrade" to their not-free "professional" version. I will return this today and continue to search/wait for a more robust stand-alone media streaming device. Date: 2004-11-20 Ok product EXCEPT.... I had no trouble setting it up on my wired network. Plays fine EXCEPT for @ 80% of my mp3 collection. For @ 80% of my collection I get 'media error' and they will not play. I tried a firmware upgrade, it was easy and was successful, but did not cure my problem. I was using the included MM software, I updated that as well, no help there either. I also have WMP 10 + the UPNP media add-on and tried that, no luck with that media player either. I also tried 4 systems as servers running XP home, XP Pro, and 2000 with AMD or Intel processors, plenty of RAM and hard drive space, no luck. I emailed Linksys and after 4 weeks I received their answer: "the bit rate that usualy work stable with the WMLS11B are the ones running on 128 bit" and "Try to also to use sound forge version 6.0 as the MP3 converter". Well, my mp3's are all ripped from my own CD's at 320 Kbps using a standard LAME engine. The unit will play my (few) mp3's ripped at 128Kbps and lower. I have had 2 other networked media players (Oritron and a Rio Receiver) that played my entire colelction without any problems. This is unacceptable. I will be returning this item. Too bad they dont mention this limitation in the technical specs, FAQ's, or even on the box (all of wich I read before buying). Date: 2004-11-16 Fine product with firmware upgrade and later production runs I've been eyeing this one for a while and I jumped in at the sub-$100 price. I purchased it yesterday (11/14), wired everything together, plugged it in and I was immediately listening to Internet streaming radio over my existing 11b network. Been running the MusicMatch server and streaming my MP3 collection to the unit with no problems. I did upgrade the unit to the latest firmware available at the Linksys site. Most of the reported problems seem to be due to early QA problems and early firmware. Some negative user experiences may be attributable to a poorly documented UI on the unit. Playlists have worked fine for me, as has adding Internet radio stations to the favorites list using the onboard web interface. I say give it a shot! Good luck!
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ©2004 SimplyHandhelds, All rights reserved. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
