Streaming Music with a Network Music Player

Posted by Ellen
January 19, 2007

My late Christmas present to myself was to go out and buy a network music player so that I could listen to my music on my home theater system in my living room as well as my computer in my home office.  Amazingly, things fell into place and I ended up with a system that I am very pleased with and thought I would share it with you in case any of you are thinking of doing something similar.

First, I’ll give a little background, then how things fell into place and lastly the equipment I have to stream my music into my living room.

Last year I was having problems with my hand from using the touchpad on my laptop all of the time and needed a more ergonomic setup for the majority of my work. I had an old desktop computer that I used as a print server on my network as well as storage but for doing my work and browsing the web it wasn’t the best piece of equipment.  So, I purchased a new Dell Dimension E510 about 6 months ago and added it to my network.

A couple of months later I decided I wanted to add a shared storage drive to my network so that I could access files off the network without having to have my desktop on all of the time.  Also, I was ripping and downloading a lot of music to my desktop computer and it was eating up my hard drive.  I ended up purchasing a Maxtor 300 gb Shared Storage Drive with 2 USB ports, one of which I use as a print server, and a built-in media server.  I copied all of my music over to the Maxtor so that I could listen to the music on both my desktop and laptop.

But, I was still burning mp3 cds to play on my Sony home theater set up in my living room.  My quest was to be able to stream my music from my network to my home theater system.  Now, most of the time I would do extensive research and compare products and such and take my time in purchasing an item but I ended up with a gift card from Best Buy and a little extra cash from Christmas burning in my pocket so I went shopping.  I figured I could buy and if I didn’t like the item could return it easily.  I was impulsive but it paid off!

Okay, now to the point — I ended up buying a Roku Soundbridge Network Music Player (M1001) which has both wireless b/g and ethernet connection, optical and coax digital out and a nice digital panel to control the unit and display song titles and artist names.  It cost me $199.  I bring the Soundbridge home, read the directions briefly (I usually try something first, then read directions!) and go and hook it up to my home theater by plugging the unit into my coax digital audio connector. 

I thought I might have some problems because the directions said that the unit would work with music server software like Windows Media Connect (either a separate download or now part of Windows Media Player 11), iTunes, Rhapsody, MusicMatch Jukebox and SlimServer.  Well, my purchase of the Maxtor Share Storage Drive months before paid off — all that needed to be done was to select my music server, in this case the Media Server that is integrated into the Maxtor and I was up and running with my music being streamed through my home theater into my living room.  Between the set up of the unit and a few minor tweaks, like enabling the Media Server on my Maxtor, I was up and running in less than 20 minutes.  I love it when things fall together so nicely. 

The really nice thing is that I don’t have to have any computers on in order to play my music through my home theater.  The built in Media Server on the Maxtor takes care of that.  The Soundbridge plays Internet Radio through the network as well.  You can have up to 18 preset stations.

So, the equipment I have in order to run a networked music player is

  1. 300 gb Maxtor Share Storage Drive
  2. Linksys Wireless G Router
  3. Roku Soundbridge Network Music Player
  4. Sony Home Theater system with coax (or optical) digital in.

The only issue I have run into was that my playlists were not picked up properly by the Soundbridge.  The playlists would show up on the display but show 0 items.  I searched the Roku forums and found out what I needed to do and implemented the fix.  The forums for the Soundbridge are excellent. 

That’s it.  Now, if you are thinking of doing something similar I suggest you check out the Soundbridge M1001, read the reviews here at Cnet, and check out their website and user forums.

One major point to be aware of is if you purchase through iTunes, this unit is not for you.  It will not play AAC protected files.  It does work with DRM and WMA files though.

Lastly, another network music player worth checking out is the Squeezebox by Slim Devices which retails for about $299.  Read the Cnet review.  The Squeezebox has some nice features and the Cnet article points lays them out nicely. 

For me the Soundbridge works great.  My music streams seamlessly to my home theater, no drop outs, no interference.  It’s a keeper!

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