Squeezebox Boom review
By Chris Ziegler 
posted September 21st 2008 2:00PM
posted September 21st 2008 2:00PM
The perception that the market's still a small one has given rise to a small handful of radios, all of which are pretty rough around the edges. Sales apparently haven't been healthy enough to evolve these devices as briskly as, say, portable players are, so product lifecycles tend to be measured in years, not months. What's more, outside of the odd poorly-marketed, poorly-executed Philips, RCA, or Sony product, major players have continued to steer clear of the market altogether -- not necessarily a bad thing, but little guys like Roku and Tivoli can't light a fire under the tabletop market all by themselves, especially when Tivoli's cheapest model runs $600 (plus another $100 if you're into that newfangled stereophonic sound).
That being said, there have been some notable standouts. Roku's R1000 SoundBridge Radio has been considered a benchmark for the segment since its launch in 2005, thanks to its decent sound quality, decent appearance, a bright, usable display, and an open, non-proprietary philosophy that lets it play nice with just about any music source you can throw its way. Before launching the R1000, Roku cut its teeth on cylinder-shaped players designed to work with an amp or powered speakers, a market it continues to play in today with the venerable M1000.
It's this market -- speakerless players -- where Roku has classically done battle with Slim Devices. Like Roku, Slim has shown a tenacity and an attention to detail in the home media player world that very few manufacturers have, earning it (and its SqueezeCenter media server software) a loyal following. Besides its M1000-fighting Squeezebox, Slim's gone on to show just a little more hustle than Roku has, launching the Transporter for audiophiles and the Sonos-like Duet, slowing down just long enough to get acquired by Logitech somewhere along the way.
Now Slim Devices is circling back to fight Roku once again, this time with the Boom tabletop radio. Realistically, this is a product Slim should've gotten onto the market years ago; it's got a broader appeal than the $2,000 Transporter ever could, and in the meanwhile, Roku's been getting a free lunch out of the deal for its R1000. Never mind that, though; it's here now, so was it worth the wait? And perhaps more importantly, does it out-R1000 the R1000?
Let's address the most important point first: this is an excellent sounding radio. The R1000 was lauded for its sound quality, too, and while the Boom might (emphasis on "might") come just shy of the R1000 for bass response, it's still got a beefy low end and a crisp, full delivery across the range. You won't mistake it for a Transporter connected to $50,000 worth of amps and speakers, but for a diminutive radio chilling on your nightstand, it'll give you more volume than you need (and besides, if you're bleary-eyed enough to be in bed, do you even care how precise the sound is?). Anyone absolutely demanding more bass is in luck, anyway -- the 3.5mm jack on the Boom's backside can be switched between headphone and subwoofer out.
Like every other Slim player, the Boom relies very heavily -- almost completely, in fact -- on its network connection to operate. That's a scary thought for a device whose job is getting you up in time for work in the morning. The good news is that the Boom features some internal wizardry that will at least keep the clock going and will preserve just the very next alarm that's scheduled to go off should it lose its connection to SqueezeNetwork or your local SqueezeCenter. After that next alarm, you're on your own. In other words, the Boom is a $300 paperweight without WiFi or an Ethernet cable feeding it bytes, so prepare accordingly.
Initial setup was relatively painless, although the Boom freaked out on us the first time we plugged it in and configure our WiFi connection because we were already running an older version of SqueezeCenter that we later found out is incompatible with the player. SqueezeCenter is Slim Devices' extremely powerful music server software that's capable of streaming and serving your local music library in a number of ways. It's free, it's open source, and it's also used as the nerve center for any Squeezeboxes, Booms, Transporters, or Duets you may have lying around. You go here (through a web interface) to configure how you want your Boom to behave, and the options are dizzying -- sure, you can stick to simple operations like adding favorite playlists and streams, but SqueezeCenter also lets you configure minutae like the number of pixels text jumps when scrolling, how ID3 tags are displayed, and what type of screen saver should be shown when the unit is off. If it doesn't do something you want it to (and trust us, it does a lot), there's a variety of third-party plugins available that can add nifty functionality both to SqueezeCenter and your players.
Of course, the daunting customizability here is a double-edged sword that could easily scare away the non-techie who's just looking for a way to listen to some smooth jazz as he gets dressed in the morning -- never mind the fact that not everyone wants to leave their computer running 24 / 7. That's where SqueezeNetwork comes into play, which is basically Logitech's SqueezeCenter in the cloud; it duplicates most of SqueezeCenter's functionality without the hassle of installing it on your local machine. Granted, you lose access to your local music library, but the proliferation of high-quality streams should be enough to entertain you -- and technically, SqueezeNetwork's integration with MP3tunes could still keep you connected to your own collection if you wanted to go that route.
Physically, the Boom looks and feels great. It's glossy black in all the right places, it's got a high-res VFD display that adjusts brightness automatically based on ambient lighting, and backlit keys and a navigation wheel all done up in soft-touch plastic (we might have liked cloth speaker covers instead of the metal grills, if we're nitpicking). Up top, you'll find a standard-issue snooze button, a must for any serious alarm clock. Smartly, only the power button is lit when the Boom is off -- and don't worry, both the backlight and the VFD get really dim on their lowest setting, so even the most light-sensitive sleepers should be okay. Overall, the button layout's fine, but we would've preferred a knob to a rocker switch to control volume; on a couple occasions, we found ourselves instinctively turning the wheel to juice it when Kenny Loggins' timeless classic Danger Zone started playing, to no avail.
So is the Boom the tabletop radio to spark a revolution and put an internet-capable device on every nightstand in the world? Realistically, no, it's not -- we're still talking about a pricey, glorified alarm clock here. But does it set a new benchmark in the market? Yeah, absolutely. Roku's R1000 would still be attractive at, say, $200 -- but head to head at $300, the Boom wins for being the better designed, more capable radio.
I have a Logitech Squeezebox 3 and a Roku Soundbridge Radio R1000.
The Logitech approach to music streamers is better. I Loooove my squeezebox. But because I wanted have an alarm clock radio with internet radio, I also got the Roku. I like my Roku, but it can't stream podcasts like the logitech can and it falls short in a few other areas too.
So when I heard about the Boom I got excited. Maybe it could replace my Roku as an internet clock radio? Until I read this:
"it'll take you no fewer than eleven -- yes, eleven -- clicks and wheel turns to set an alarm if you're starting with a powered-off radio."
Perhaps not.
Someone needs to make a better wifi clock radio/alarm. The Roku R1000 is not a bad start, but its time someone took it to the next level.
The responses to this review are all over the place, plainly because a lot of people don't really understand the product that's being reviewed. This means the reviewer did a lousy job of describing the product, perhaps through failure to understand it himself.
The frequent responders who say "What good is it? I got a iPod already," are missing the point. Can your iPod play non-lossy music files in six different rooms in your house, simultaneously? Can it play different music in each room, simultaneously? Or synchronize certain rooms with the same music, while others have different music? Can it do these things wirelessly? Can it hold a collection totaling a terabyte of music or more?
Those who say "I can buy an alarm clock for fifteen bucks!" are missing the point even more completely. The Boom is not primarily an alarm clock. That's just a cute little bonus feature. Your phone can be an alarm clock too, and it costs more than a cheap bedside clock, but your phone isn't primarily intended to be an alarm clock either. It serves other purposes; the alarm clock thing is just a throw-in feature.
Those who say, "This Internet radio thing is stupid, I'm young and zippy and I demand my own personal music (such as it is) on demand instantly!" are also totally missing the point. The Boom (and all the other music streaming device lines (from Slim/Roku/Sonos/etc.) are not solely about streaming audio from the Internet. Some people like that aspect (particularly for baseball games or whatever), but the point is that you can have your entire music collection, of any size whatsoever, available throughout your home, in any room or all of them, or out by the pool, on the deck or wherever you want it, available at your fingertips. For those of us who have large collections of music, and large houses, THAT is the benefit of a wireless music streaming system. The Boom is just Slim Devices' newest model in their line, and the first to be easy to carry around with amp and speakers included.
These kinds of devices will never be for everybody. But the people saying things like "Aw, this thing will never sell! My iPod does everything I'll ever need!" sound like the geniuses in 1898 who used to sneer at passing cars and shout out brilliant things like "Get a horse!" Horse and buggy days were just dandy for some small-thinking individuals. But plenty of people saw the advantages of the automobile. (And it wasn't the fact that they had a clock in them.)
"Failing to understand" a product that we enjoyed and recommended? Seems like an oxymoron, really. The fact is that the Boom can be many things to many people -- it's an extremely versatile product -- but again, the purpose of the review is not to describe what it is. There are already plenty of great ways to find that out, including prior posts of our own.
I'd also argue that the alarm functionality is not "a cute little bonus feature." A great number of Booms are going to find themselves at bedsides, where they'll be taking the place of a clock radio. That brings the alarm feature front and center, now doesn't it? The comparison to a phone really doesn't hold water, either, because phones aren't permanently stationed on nightstands, nor do they offer speakers loud enough to wake you with music with any level of clarity.
I have the Boom and two separate Duets set up.
The basis is my home music server which is an energy-efficient PC running SqueezeCenter connected to a 750 GB external hard drive.
Sure the Boom and the Duets are like an Ipod, but an Ipod with over 26,000 lossless FLAC files that can be accessed over your home wi-fi network.
The Duets use an amplifier and speakers; the Boom gives one the flexibility to access your music in a room or area where you don't want to put in a stereo amplifier and speakers.
The entire SlimDevices line of products gives you quite a bit of choice as to what to put where to meet different needs and tastes.
The next thing to come will be a software/firmware upgrade for the Duet remote control that will transform the remote into a wi-fi player that can access your music server and stream the music through a pair of headphones. The headphone jack is already there. The firmware only has to be written/released. Cool!
The quality of the equipment also justifies the relatively higher cost. The high end Transporter goes for $2000.
I have a Sqeezebox1 and 3 Squeezebox2's connected to a celeron 300mhz based Linux file server with about 200MB available to the music for now. Most of my music files are 250k+vbr mp3, but I'm starting to rip in flac. I'm planning on getting a Boom to move around the house, workshop, backyard since I'm in a canyon with poor terrestrial radio. So why go this route?
- Very high bitrate streaming, and with FLAC lossless into my main music room, of anything in my collection; no looking for the CD. I still like having the CD as an ultimate archive copy.
- With RadioTime, access to THE WORLD's radio stations at bitrates significantly better sounding than normal FM (from the few FM station I can get. Sometimes its fun to see what a good DJ strings together.
- Discovery of new music by listening to internet radio, news and breaking events.
- Rock solid reliability. My linux server has uptimes of hundreds of days including automatic restart through power failures by the Slimserver (to be replaced by the SqeezeCenter soon I guess) and the Squeezebox2's. The server has only come down for software upgrades in the last 2 years. The SqueezeBox1 does need a manual network restart.
- Syncing all of them together is nice for a party
- News tickers on the displays if you want, among many fun things
- Control any of the players from a web browser on the system
cheers
Just wanted a clarification. The article states "Like every other Slim player, the Boom relies very heavily -- almost completely, in fact -- on its network connection to operate. That's a scary thought for a device whose job is getting you up in time for work in the morning." So basically if your network goes down the alarm will not go off? I was under the impression that if the Boom could not find any music to play it would automatically switch to an internal alarm tone so that you are still awakened. In fact, I know I read that somewhere on the Slim Devices website.
I also disagree with the reviewer's remarks that the Boom is a "glorified clock." It's a portable version of the Squeezebox with an amp and speakers which is something people in the Slim Devices community had been asking for since the SLIMP3 days. It's intended for people who want to stream either their own music or internet radio to a fully self contained device (i.e. don't have to connect it to a stereo system or powered speakers.) They were smart enough to realize that many people probably would use it as an alarm clock so they also enhanced the alarm clock features (all of the Slim Devices products, going back to the SLIMP3, had alarm clock features) but it's not the intended primary function of the device.
Hey....
I have a Boom.
It works AND sounds great.
Just wanted you all to know that.