Rating: 
Summary: VERY happy with this wireless music server
Review: This first effort from Creative Labs in wireless music technology is not perfect, but it's pretty damn good. Setup was easy, and I found the music ripping, storage and server software very easy and intuitive to use. You can't use uncompressed audio files, but I found WMA files (Windows Media) at 160Kb/s to be virtually indistinguishable from the original CD audio and FAR superior to MP3 - regardless of the data rate used. In short: - Sound quality: This was my biggest concern, since I was connecting the server to a very high-end audio system in my living room. Happy to say that the sound is simply outstanding. In fact, I did a test by comparing my (expensive) CD player - against the same track playing through the server/receiver via WIFI into my sound system. I synced the two up via trial and error and then had my son switch back and forth without telling me which was which. I was FULLY expecting to hear at least some difference between the two sources - especially since the server was using compressed audio and a wireless connection to the amplifier, but I was very happy to find that I simply could not tell which was which. At that point I knew I'd feel good about ripping my entire CD collection (over 1000 discs) onto the server. - Operation: Once you're wired up and ready to go, using the remote control is extremely easy. Despite earlier reports about very sluggish response between the remote and the server, it seems that most if not all of those problems were addressed in the latest software/firmware update. There is a delay from the time you press PLAY to the time the track begins, but it's usually never more than four seconds (it appears that the server caches about one minutes worth of the track into memory before it begins to play - which would account for the delay. Obviously this is done in case the receiver loses contact with the server(PC) and gives it time to re-establish a connection). I must say, even though my WIFI transmitter is on one side of my house - and the receiver is on the other (3000sq/ft home), the receiver has never once hiccupped or made any strange noises. This is a real plus, since I listen to my music very loud and I was concerned that any "thumps" or "pops" coming out of the receiver would blow my speakers. - Shortcomings: The "RF" remote needs more range than the 20 or so feet I'm getting in my home. I may try to find a way to attach some kind of antenna to the receiver to help boost the range. Fast forwarding and rewinding through a track is next to useless, since the audio is muted during such operations. I wish there was a way to tell the server when certain tracks should be played up against each other with no delay between them. For example, a LIVE concert may have track markers, but it's really intended to play continuously without any breaks between the tracks. This is really annoying, though my ipod does exactly the same thing. Overall, I'm very pleased with the system. I dedicated an older 1GHz PC running XP-Pro as my music server. Once I loaded all the CD's onto it, I programmed the BIOS to kick the PC "on" at 6AM every morning so I can grab the remote from my beside table and start playing music right away!
Rating:
Summary: A Long Time Coming
Review: This is a great device for people who meet the follwoing criteria: 1. Love music
2. Have mp3 files (any size collection)
3. Have a wireless network This is a great product, complete with very user-friendly and intuitive software. I disagree with the reviewer that said it was only for people with small collections. I feel they were being unrealistic in loading a playlist of 1,000 songs. Playlists are designed for a mix of specific songs, not your whole collection. I have an extensive collection of well-organized, high quality mp3s (just to give you an idea...I have an external 200GB USB 2.0 drive dedicated just to mp3s), and it is quite easy to create playlists or browse your collection by artist, album, track or genre. I will stress, however, that in order for this device to be useful you must have an organized collection complete with proper tag information on the files. If not, you're in for a nightmare of a time sorting through the music. All in all, a fantastic product that works as advertised!
Rating: 
Summary: useful little gadget. wish the software was better !
Review: this is such a neat little gadget. it has revolutionised the way we listen to music in out house. my large and unwieldy CD collection had grown to the point where i could never find the song/CD i wanted. now i can. my song collection is now 1500+ and this devices handles it ok. i run the server on a windows 2000 box.
problems
1. about 1 in 5 times, (of the unit being turned on), it cannot
connect to the server. almost always, a quick switch off/on
of the unit fixes the problem.
their software could do with a lot of improvements. some suggestions.
1. editing / data entry : tab movement, auto completion should
work like it does in all windows program.
2. if a song has more than one artist, that song must be
reachable by looking at either of the two artists.
currently, if you enter the two names comma separated, the
result is a new artist (whose name is a concatenation of
the two names.
3. faster search for songs, artists, etc from remote.
currently, the first level menu is a list of single letters
from A to Z and the next level is the name of all the songs.
Rating:
Summary: Now I 'get it'
Review: This is what I have been looking for for quite a while. MP3 players are nice to take your music outside, but what I have been looking for is a way to listen to all the tracks on my PC (10,000+) in my bedroom and dining room. The SoundBlaster Wireless Music product does just that. All I needed to do was add a powered speaker to the wireless 'receiver' and I had a very high quality music system in my room. The wireless system setup without a hitch ... installed the S/W CD, pointed the S/W at my MP3/WMA files and powered up the wireless receiver. The receiver automatically configured itself to my network and I saw all my music files on the remote. Just that simple! The remote is a little slow, but really works just fine. It is great to have the display in my hands and not have to strain to read something on the TV. In my bedroom, I have setup one of the Favorite buttons to play 'rain & wave' nature tracks. My wife and I can just press the button when we are ready to sleep and before the track ends, we are fast asleep. Well done Creative.
Rating: 
Summary: BEWARE!
Review: This product was an unpleasant ordeal from the beginning. The installation program crashed the first 3 or 4 times I tried to install it. Finally I got it installed by deselecting the options in the Media Source portion of the install.
At this point things seemed to be going well. The device connected and the remote worked and life was good. Until I noticed that both of my cd/dvd drives had stopped working. Somehow the installation had corrupted the cdrom drivers. After uninstalling the SB Wireless software and fixing the cd drivers I decided to risk trying it one more time. After reinstalling I could not make the device link up again. Also, the Media Source(the music management system from Creative) application had a corrupted library and removing the entire Creative directory and reinstalling did not help it.
Since it was Saturday and Creative Labs only offers support on Mon-Fri 9am to 6pm using a long distance number (This is a terrible support policy) there was no support available. I sent an email and got a reply 4 days later after I had already returned the product. I have owned MANY Creative Labs products over the years but this really soured me on them. It is unfortunate that the product was so error prone because for the few hours it worked it did exactly what I wanted.
I returned it and bought the Linksys Media Link which setup easily with only one minor problem (which turned out to be some corrupted mp3s on my system) and I was able to talk to tech support at 1:00 am on a toll free line. Much better policy than Creative Labs.
Final Word: BEWARE!
Rating:
Summary: Best so far but still leaves a lot to be desired
Review: With any product based on an emerging technology, it tends takes a few generations before they work out the kinks. Having used a few, I can say that this definitely holds true for networked mp3 players. However, if you are like me and want to be the first geek on your block to have one, this MP3 player is your best bet.
Installation:
As usual with these sorts of things, the instructions promise easy set-up without incident but if you honestly believe that you have apparently never done something like this before. As expected, my network would not detect the player "automatically" and I had to manually configure it. Still no luck, even after removing all security features of the network. I finally got someone at Creative support who seemed to know what they were doing who suggested that I switch my packet encryption on the network from G(802.11g) to B(802.11b). Even then it took a few tries before I could get the mp3 player recognized on my network. Why this wasn't something Creative anticipated with all of the new wireless G routers being sold I have no idea.
Finally after setting it up it was time to install the software and set up my wireless pc music library. Unfortunately, Creative's media organizer does not recognize real audio, so I had to convert thousands of my real audio files to AAC or MP3. In my case, this was a big inconvenience, which takes me to the point where I begin ranting and foaming at the mouth about Real Player, ITunes, et al, and why they can't just agree on one digital music format and be done with it.
Anyway, finally having switched my packet encryption, removed the wireless security features, assigned IP addresses to everything on my wireless network, and converted my files to AAC I was in business. Simple!
Performance
The unit performs just as advertised, giving you access to your entire PC music library via the remote with LCD screen. In my opinion, it is the RF remote that makes the Creative labs unit so special. You can walk around the house and scroll through your music library, control volume, fast forward, and every other function you would want. The only thing the interface is lacking is an easy way to create playlists, but perhaps the next generation will have that...
Pros:
Good file retrieval speed over wireless network
RF remote with display
Optical out to stereo
Cons
Easy installation - Hah!
Unit needs to be manually powered off after freezing
Media organizing software leaves much to be desired.
Wireless laptop users squatting on front porch to take advantage of free wireless broadband access
Hours of life squandered waiting on hold for creative support
Rating:
Summary: Creative's entry into DAR market is mostly successful
Review: You saw the pictures, you read the Creative's marketing spiel, your read "reviews" in ad-soaked magazines, so now here are an actual user's impressions (mine): the product does have a few shortcomings, but none of them are lethal, and all are outweighted by a really neat implementation of core features. The sound is great, the interface is nice, and the value is terrific. The visual centerpiece of the package is the remote. It's big, substantially looking, and sports a large blue-backlit LCD screen which alleviates the need to use a TV for visual navigation. The menu structure is laid out well, the navigation buttons are laid out conveniently, and the fonts are crisp and easy-to-read Tahoma-like type. You can either navigate your collection by Artist/Album/Genre/etc, or use playlists created on your PC, or use "smart playlist" such as "newest added tracks" or "most often listened" and such. There are loop/shuffle controls, but no timed auto-shutoff, which would be handy in a bedroom. The remote's LCD is apparently capable of displaying different fonts and graphics, but alas doesn't use them for anything except the boot-up splash screen and volume control bars. Perhaps Creative could implement a spectrum alanyzer or use larger type for Now Playing track info. Also, I am puzzled why Creative didn't make the buttons backlit as well, having all the componentry for that already in design. The receiver is a small and clean-looking black/silver brick in a slim paper-back NY Times bestseller format. It can either be propper upright on an included stand, or layed flat. It has green/red/amber leds that indicate whether the unit is powered up, searching for the network, and connected to your its server software running on your PC. Since the remote communicates to it using two-way radio, the most logical choice to position the receiver once its configured is simply to hide it somewhere out of sight altogether. The output options include RCA-style stereo jacks. Perhaps because of the size of the unit, there is no amplifier circuitry, hence you need to use powered speakers. Additionally, the unit has an optical ("Toslink") SPDIF output, for feeding sound to your audio receiver or straight to capable speakers such as those from Roland/Edirol. Optical cables can provide for a really stealth setup! Alas, even with SPDIF the output is stereo-only, meaning that you can't play multi-channel WMA files, or stream AC-3 sound or anything like that. But given scarcity of multi-channel tracks, that's not a big loss really. The sound that you do get is very clean, equally with 802.11b and 802.11g setup. Really nothing to complain about. Worth noting is that the unit works in Infrastructure mode only. No Ad-Hoc support. If you don't have a wireless router or access point, you'll need to buy one. I am successfully using NetGear 614. With that in place, the receiver will sniff out all available wireless networks, and on each will try a DHCP request, and to discover a Media Server to latch on to. On the PC side, the package manifests itself in a number of applications. One, Media Server, runs in the background and serves up your MP3/WMA collection to the receiver. Another one, Media Organizer, is used for cataloguing of your collection based on ID3V tags, as well as creation of playlists. There's also a piece of software to rip the tracks from your CDs. A separate Sniffer app can sense addition of new files to your collection and will trigger a corresponding update of Wireless Music's internal catalogue. For the initial configuration of your receiver, there is a Network Setup wizard. You will only have to use it if you deploy more than one Wireless Music receiver in you house, and want to give each one a unique name, or if your network is WEP-protected and you need to supply a WEP key. It utilizes a USB connection (a cable is supplied). Finally, an upgrade utility is supplied for flashing of your unit (both receiver and remote) with new firmware, also over USB. If you ever used any Creative Labs product at all, then perhaps you're aware of the notorious quality of their software and drivers. Previous reviewers highlighted the issue of slow loading of playlists and general sluggishness of the remote. However, new receiver and remote firmware downloads dated 11/18/2003 are available at us.creative.com. By all means, go ahead and install them. They greatly improve remote's response times, and also add some features. Some, however -- such as F.F. and Rewind skipping -- don't work as claimed. That's Creative Labs for you. Just be ready for it. Same thing with their product support. I recently emailed them with a bug report describing a loss of connection between the receiver and PC if the latter is rebooted, and their support responded with a canned battery of instructions asking me to upgrade my Windows XP to SP1, or reinstall the software, or to reformat the drive and to reinstall Windows XP altogether. Standard nonsense just to make you go away and stop bothering them. So, in a nutshell, on to Pro's and Con's. Pros:
Great sound quality
Great receiver auto-setup features; support for 802.11g.
Great backlit RF remote with large screen; no TV required
Clean, intuitive user interface
Upgradeable firmware
Unobstrusive design
Toslink SPDIF output available Cons:
As usual, incompetent techical support from Creative
As usual, mediocre Creative software
Buttons on the remote are not backlit
No playlist manipulation using the remote
| 
