Logitech Squeezebox Duet
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May 7, 2008 01:00
Excellent
2.0/5
In short summary:
I purchased, setup and lived with the Duet for two weeks. I then returned it.
I had three zones total (upstairs, downstairs, outside)
Duet. Two. As in two faced, when it worked, it was fine. And when it didnt it was frustrating.
I work in IT. I consider myself more than just "Tech Savvy". Even still, setup on this device was maddening. The Logitech tech support folk were very helpful and patient and after four hours we got it to work. When applying the multiple firmware upgrades / patches it kept losing settings and having to be reconfigured. Each reconfigure required a reboot of my router (D-link). Wireless setup is not so easy to do. Wired setup was only a little better.
The original plan was to have this setup over the wireless network. Whelp, that didnt work so well. 15 feet away from the router the signal would drop and the device would stutter / drop out. Is this the fault of the router? Perhaps. But on more than three occasions the Duet would need to be reboot to synch back into the network (or the router would need a reboot to allow it back in). So that plan was nixed for a wired solution. Purchased a network switch to reuse the network cable going to the Tivo.
Once it was up and running on a wire it was much more stable (the same could not be said for the two other zones). However, access over the remote had similar range issues. I could not sit outside and control the unit (25 - 30 feet away). And performance was intermittently slow (a consistent 15 -20 second delay was the deal breaker. Up to three minute delays did happen)
Lets talk synchronized music for a moment. Yes, the Duet did synch the playback - and it came very close to doing so well. But either network issues or something else got in the way (about once an hour a song would un-synch then re-synch). On a few occasions my local network was overwhelmed by the demand and crashed.
Lets talk NAS (Network Attached Storage). This is in place of having to leave your computer on all the time. For whatever reason the NAS would shutdown in the middle of a track or the Duet would not be able to access the NAS and throw an error (this happened three times, once requiring a reboot of the Duet). In all cases I was able to access my NAS from any of the computers in the network.
Performance. When the remote what in the same room as the router and network speeds were not in question, to scroll through my media library was not as easy as I would like. Not enough screen space (or perhaps poorly managed screen space). Then there was some lag time for the remote to catch up with my key entry. On several occasions I had keyed ahead too far and had to backtrack. In any case I was not able to navigate as well as I would have liked. The remote did fit very well in the hand and was physically well designed. Performance on the Duet was adequate. There were some audio artifacts (noise) in my FLAC files and MP3 files that did not return on repeat playback. Kind of like a juice harp being introduced to Led Zeppelin (along with cow bell). It was often enough to be noticed, but Logitech support could not explain it.
In the end I was not happy with the device. I fully support open source, but never felt comfortable with the basics of the machine to see what was developed by the community at large.
Hence I returned the Duet.
I next purchased, setup and am living with the Sonos system. The Sonos proprietary network has not given me any trouble. I had it setup and running within an hour of opening the box. The Sonos unit that is wired has an extra port and acts as a network switch so I did not have to run an extra line or buy additional hardware. Synchronized playback has yet to even hint at a problem. And while the remote is big (not quite clunky) it responds beautifully and was easier to operate. I am now looking for some GPL stuff for the Sonos as the manufacture does put some of their code out to the community.
Is the Sonos more expensive? Yes. Do you get what you pay for? In the case of the Sonos yes. But I sure do hope they come down in price and add some to the feature set now that there is another game in town!
Bottom Line: If you are using a wired system and just need one zone to liberate your music, the Duet may just be the right answer for you. If you plan to fill your house with sound, dont plan to do it with Duet. -
March 5, 2008 10:25
4.5/5
To "Not Entirely Convinced" the Sqeezecenter 7.0 fixes the sync issues and about the Rhapsody music service last I heard Sonos could only do one stream compared to three on the Slim devices. -
March 6, 2008 10:07
4.5/5
Ok, first and foremost, the user "ro53ben" above is a longtime Sonos advocate and big contributor on the Sonos forum, so consider the source (google "ro53ben sonos").
For me, it was between the Squeezebox and the Sonos. Sonos is closed architecture and yes, awfully expensive. The Duet (which I received today) will replace my Squeezebox3. It's the perfect choice for my whole-home audio system. I just need one source to replace my 200 disc CD changer to provide music throughout the house. This fits the bill. The UI is great, bright and responsive. The setup was easy, and I'm very happy.
The Duet is $200 less than the cheapest Sonos alternative...oh yeah, you have to pay $40 extra for the Sonos charger. Add the open source community to the mix with the great plugins availabile, and it's a winner. -
March 6, 2008 09:14
4.5/5
In particular, to "not entirely convinced", I for one am not interested in Rhapsody, Slacker or Pandora as living in Europe they are not available, so the fact the the squeezebox may or may not be able to stream these is irrelevant to me.
What I am more interested in is the fact that this remote gives me a visual access to my music easily in a configuarable way that I view by composer/ensemble/work/conductor or other combination without being fixed to the artist/album combination.
Finally the quality out of the duet is leagues ahead of any other simarily priced (even some more expensive) digital music systems. -
December 8, 2008 11:25
Excellent
2.0/5
Yes, I am tech savvy - and I still haven't gotten this reliably working (even for 2 days in a row) 7 months after owning it and many calls to tech support and lots of fiddling. I have updates software and firmware many times, turned encryption off, changed channels, added a hi-gain directional antenna, and reset/rebooted/re-initialized so many times I know the routine by heart. Crutchfield told me to request a replacement from Logitech but I haven't been able to convince them to do that yet either... I love this thing when it works - it excites me - but time actually streaming me music so far has been less than 6 hours total I think... then it burps, loses connectivity, and has to be re-booted 3-4 times before it connects again. Next I am buying a wireless repeater to boost the signal or even get close enough to stick a hardwire into it, in hopes it will behave and stay connected. Gee, by the time I've done all this guess I could've bought a Sonos after all, but it's too late to return it now. -
March 9, 2008 01:09
Excellent
2.0/5
The Squeezebox is great when it works. Unfortunately from 60 feet away neither of the two new receivers that I purchased will connect for more than a few moments at a time, whereas the Squeezebox 3 that they replaced did so without difficulty. Normally you expect new models to have better performance than older ones but this does not appear to be the case in this instance. -
December 22, 2008 06:48
3.0/5
as a CE professional I was really excited about using my Pandora and Slacker accounts and streaming to my home audio system. the set up was so frustrating that I had to walk away from it several times before finally linking it to my with my wireless router. Once done it would alternately bounch back and forth between good performance and bad performance. Determining that this may be the wireless router I hardwired it and thought I had licked that issue, stupid optimism on my part, it would perform on again off again, I shut down everything else on my router to see is network traffic was the issue and even dramitically increased the buffer size of the unit to 30 seconds. nothing worked that day, the next it was fine, followed by another day of frustration and no music......really disappointing but this product has a terrific future IF the engineers can conquer this spotty performance. This product has the ability to bring a huge variety of music to the masses in a very simple format if they can get past this problem. -
December 9, 2008 09:10
3.5/5
I was hoping for more out of this product. It could be great, but there are just a few things that make it tough to love. The application causes major issues with Itunes and removable drives. For some reason I get popups that drives have been disconnected...and you cannot get rid of them until you CTRL+Alt+Del them them. When you close itunes, I also get popups that the application is being used by other processes. The problems with the recharging port, the issues with the album artwork, leave just a sour taste, but the functionality with Pandora and ease use still make me a fan. I really want to love it, they just make it so hard. -
December 3, 2008 09:04
4.0/5
I almost gave up on installing it once I simply couldn't configure it to work with my router (D-Link DGL 4300). After a couple of days filled with frustration, an update to my router firmware was all that was needed. Just like magic, it started working. And it is a beautiful thing. I even have the SW portion of it running on my Windows Home Server unit (where my mp3 collection resides) and it works without a flaw.
Pandora works, and I even have subscribed to Sirius so I can continue to listen to the same favorite stations I enjoy in my car.
I highly recommend this gadget if you can afford it, and it's totally worth it. Of couse, Sonos does look a bit more impressive, but at the end of the day, the Duet gets the job done and in a nice way! -
November 12, 2008 09:37
4.0/5
Nice unit for $300 and change. Cost less than my son's Ipod touch to stream music where in the house. Cool.
