As I stated here, I recently purchased a Roku network music player. Here is my review of the Roku Soundbridge M1000.
The Roku Soundbridge comes in two flavors, the M1000 and the M2000. Both units appear to have similar functionality as it pertains to music output, the difference appears to be only in the display. Although I didn’t test the M2000, I did call the company and speak to a rep about it and he stated that the two are identical units except for the display. Roku lists the specs here.
I chose the M1000 – simply because I didn’t think I would need the larger display. After seeing the unit up close and installed, I think I made the right choice. However, an extra $50 wouldn’t kill me, although for my purposes, I’m not sure I’d see the return on investment.
The unit shipped with everything needed to easily install in a very short time. I powered the unit up by plugging the power cord in. As stated in the directions, the unit takes more then a couple of seconds to display something. After the boot up process, configuration is necessary. It couldn’t have been simpler – I plugged it in to an ethernet jack and it automatically picked up a DHCP address and attempted to search for a music server. Since I hadn’t setup the server, it politely told me that no music server was found. Because I was going to place this unit in an area where I don’t have an ethernet connection, I elected to configure the built-in wireless network. The unit only uses 802.11b – not sure how this will affect the performance. Using 802.11b should be acceptable considering it is widely available and compatible with 802.11g. The wireless install was pretty straight forward – if you’ve configured a wireless router, this will be a similar experience. It automatically detected my wireless network and I entered my WEP key. Once I did that, it again searched for a music server.
Since I had the power connected and the network ready, I only needed to connect it to my stereo system. The Roku unit comes with several connection options – Digital Audio (Coax – S/P DIF and Optical (Toslink) as well as Analog Audio. Since my stereo unit’s Digital Audio ports were used, I chose to use the RCA jack. I was surprised that it wasn’t an ordinary RCA jack – you know the type – one with a red and a white connector on either side. This cable had an RCA connection on one side, and a 1/8” line level jack on the other. Not a big deal – just might be difficult to replace as they’re not as readily available – at least not in my house. In any case – this puppy was installed and ready to go.
I installed Microsoft's Media Connect 2.0 w/o issue. I selected all the default values and had it up and running in less then 10 minutes. Once Media Connect was installed, the M1000 found the music server. Media Connect does NOT, by default, allow automatic connections. A security feature I’m sure, but something you should be aware of none the less. Once I enabled the M1000 in Media Connect, the two could begin communicating.
From this point on – it was pure hell. By that I mean, I only had the tedious work ahead. I had to add my music! Have you ever copied several hundred CDs to a hard disk? It takes forever!!!
Although there are a million and one options to rip CDs, I used MS Windows Media Player. Version 10 is required for Media Connect, so I upgraded to that. I hadn’t used Media Player extensively before, but I really like it. Everything I did in Media Player was reflected on the Roku unit. Once I copied all of my CDs I was able to create play-lists. I didn’t spend too much time trying to learn Media Player as it seems quite intuitive – but I did find it difficult to synchronise play-lists. I would think that if I made a play-list based solely on a genre, when I added another song to that genre, my play-list would be updated as well. Well, it doesn’t. Once I had my play-lists created, I attempted to utilise them in the Roku unit. At this point, I didn’t want to make too many play-lists, so I created one each for each genre I had.
The Roku unit allows the user to search for play-lists so I started there. After selecting a play-list, I pressed play – the 1st song in the play-list started. The user also has the ability to use repeat which will repeat the play-list. I’m not sure how functional that is unless you have a small amount of songs. But at the rate I’m going, I could let this play for 24 hours straight and not repeat a play-list for days!! The user also has a random button available– which I find invaluable. Considering the unit simply dumps the play-lists from the music server, it’s quite possible that songs from the same artist will be in order. Pressing the random button allows the music/artist to be scrambled and less likely to hear the same artist back to back. Not a big point, but one I liked.
The user also has the ability to search for Artist, Song Title, Composer - you name it – it’s there. I can’t see myself using all of these features – but they’re available if needed.
The display is crystal clear and displays the menus quite easily. Considering the unit is relatively small, all the info can not be displayed, but it is enough to identify the song or the artist that is playing. When the unit is not in action, an attractive date/time is displayed; a feature I’ve come to like.
Overall, this is one slick unit. If I had to mention anything bad, it’s that the directions mention that the end caps come off so that the user can access the wireless card. I tried everything in my power to get the end caps off – they didn’t budge for me. In any case – I didn’t need them off, but it should be a bit easier. Besides the cable I mentioned above, those are the two things that I cold (but didn’t have to) say bad about this unit.
I didn’t touch on it here, but the unit can also playback Internet radio. In the near future, I’m going to try to push my XM subscription to it. In addition, I’m also going to try to create an ASP app that will allow me to pull what song, artist etc that is playing from the unit to be displayed on a web page. Why, well why not? :-)
More later on the rest of the features that I haven’t touched upon. I’d rate this unit a 4.5 of 5 stars. Very nice - I’m impressed!!