Music streamer group test

The meteoric rise of MP3 has made it easier than ever to build up a huge music collection. Back in the day you’d need acres of shelf space for your LPs or CDs, but now you can stuff thousands of hours of digital tunes onto your computer – and it’ll even sort everything into alphabetical order for you!

But storing your music on a PC also creates a problem – how do you listen to the latest banger from 50 Cent in your living room if your computer is upstairs in the spare room? Well, the answer is simple: you get yourself a music streamer, a piece of gear able to grab the music off your computer using your home network and either play it itself or let your existing hi-fi setup play it. We put five of the finest audio streamers through their paces.
Sony NAS-SC55PKE

Setting aside the cost and set-up quibbles, this is a decent alternative to using a computer as the storage medium in your wireless music system. 80GB can hold a heck of a lot of Lionel Ritchie albums (either ripped from CDs or transferred over from a computer or storage device). That said you’d be forgiven for expecting a larger drive for the price! Sound quality, however, in both the hub and secondary player is more glorious than that voice of a questionable angel, Chrlotte Church. You can also add more secondary players to create a full-on multi-room system in your home.

Click to read the full review >>
Go to the Philips NP1100 product page >>
Philips NP1100

Tidy-looking, small, easy to set up and a dependable performer, the NP1100 is also nicely affordable, making it a top buy for anyone looking to add music streaming and web radio to an existing hi-fi setup. Potential buyers should be aware that it won’t play any lossless or DRM-protected content – but with iTunes now ditching the dreaded DRM that’s perhaps less of an issue than it would’ve been six months ago.

Click to read the full review >>
Go to the Philips NP1100 product page >>
Apple AirPort Express Base Station

If you use Apple’s iTunes software to organise and play back your digital music collection, this is a cheap and effective way of getting that music into another room, but it’s plagued by limitations and the fact that you can’t control playback and choose tracks without toddling back to the computer is a real killer, especially as we’re lazier than a sloth on chloroform and demand remote controls! Still, if you’re on a strict budget, you could do a lot worse than Apple’s multi-talented streamer.

Click to read the full review >>
Go to the Apple AirPort Express Base Station product page >>
Revo Blik RadioStation

If you use Apple’s iTunes software to organise and play back your digital music collection, this is a cheap and effective way of getting that music into another room, but it’s plagued by limitations and the fact that you can’t control playback and choose tracks without toddling back to the computer is a real killer, especially as we’re lazier than a sloth on chloroform and demand remote controls! Still, if you’re on a strict budget, you could do a lot worse than Apple’s multi-talented streamer.

Click to read the full review >>
Go to the Revo Blik RadioStation product page >>
PriceRunner recommended
Logitech Squeezebox Boom

If you’re the sort of person who finds an iPod complicated, and you’re seeking a straightforward, no nonsense music streamer that produces great audio quality and won’t tie your brain in knots with a complicated set-up process, let the Boom shake your room. Sorry we went all Will Smith on you, then. This is a simple, dependable streamer that looks reasonably neat and performs solidly with both web radio and the many digital music formats it supports. Awesome!

Click to read the full review >>
Go to the Philips NP1100 product page >>

Related Articles:

1. Apple AirPort Express Base Station reviewTurning your house into a wireless network doesn’t need huge, monolithic boxes taking up all your precious space. The Apple Airport Express Base Station is smaller than a door mouse’s house and has more talent than all the contestants on Britain’s Got Talen combined. But what’s it like as a music streamer? Let’s find out… [...]...
2. Philips NP2900 music streamer delivers improved stereo sweet spotPhilips has launched the NP2900 wireless music streamer, claiming it delivers a much wider sweet spot than traditional stereo setups. It all comes courtesy of Philips’ LivingSound technology, which combines a digital signal processor with multiple speaker drivers and amps. Philips claims that this array allows the tracks streamed by the NP2900 to fill a room [...]...
3. Philips NP1100 reviewBig house? Loads of music? You, my friend, need a music streamer to pipe all your digital tunes from one room to the next. The Philips NP1100 is a stylish black little number, with more musical talent than the whole of Girls Aloud. Although that’s not saying much really, so you’d better read on to [...]...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Rate this article