Roku SoundBridge M500 Network Music System

• Wireless digital music receiver for streaming music from a PC or Mac to any home stereo or surround sound system
• Native support for Apple iTunes and Rendezvous, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Player 10, and Rhapsody
• Compatible with Windows Media DRM 10 music services, including Napster, MusicMatch, and Walmart.com
• Easy-to-read 40-character, 2-line LCD display shows artist and title info; built-in WiFi card slot (card included) and Ethernet interfaces
• Ultra-fast 400 MHz Blackfin DSP; measures 10 inches wide by 2.37 inches in diameter; 1-year warranty

Roku's Soundbridge units don't work with all routers, so before you think wireless music is within your sites, do your homework. To Roku's credit, they offer a list of, and rate compatability factors for, most of the common routers consumers are using at home. CHECK THIS LIST CAREFULLY before you buy this product or you might end up with some expensive audio equipment that only works if you go WIRED. Also, Roku has a nice discussion board forum on their site, and you can get a realistic idea about issues concerning the pros and cons of their products. If you do buy something that doesn't work, they do offer a 30 day-no-questions-asked return policy. Bottom line is CHECK OUT THEIR SITE b4 u buy anywhere else.

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Received this unit last night. Had it set up in minutes! Instructions were simple, configured to my wi-fi with encryption, no problem. Found my computer, no problem, didn't find my napster library added the folder with my music to the shared folder, then worked no problem. Internet radio station no problem. It will drive headphones directly if you want, has volume control on remote. Would be great driving computer speakers. Even shows time and date when off.

With napster it is really great. I can load up my computer with thousands of tunes and then put the M500 anywhere in the house and have access to all the tunes. One of the few devices that can do this with "rented" music.

I highly recommend this device.

The 500 has all the features of the bigger brothers but not the slicker display. However the LCD is plenty readable. The VU meters are a bit slow (not a big deal). It comes with the Wi-Fi card (which you install used to be an option I guess) so it is really ready to go out of the box. If you have napster, rapsody, yahoo music or a lot of your CD's ripped to MP3, WMA or AAC than you should consider this.

What you can't do (maybe true of all "streaming" devices) is fast forward or rewind inside a track. This can be problematic with long tracks if you want to hear a section again.

Finally I have napster to go and an Iriver player. On the Iriver the gaps between tracks are long while the player loads the next track, this can be annoying on classical or spoken word works. The Soundbridge doesn't have this problem. I think because the computer can stream the next track faster than the portable Iriver could. (this is a DRM WMA issue, for the Iriver and not an issue with MP3's).

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Within 20 seconds of plugging it in I was playing music from my iTunes music library on my Powerbook. Simply could not have been any easier. Excellent sound quality. Streams internet radio stations (including any in the iTunes Radio tuner and tons more) -it more than replaces XM or Sirius anywhere you have internet access.

Minor downsides: Remote could be designed better, and would be nice if it used 802.11g instead of b (since tests have shown that one "b" device slows down the whole "g" network), but these are minor complaints in relation to how well the SoundBridge works and how easy it is to use.

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Finally bought after several weeks on research. It works well; easy to connect to ITunes and Rhapsody (my two favorite music servers).

Just a few notes

1) The manual is a bit hard to follow especially concerning wireless connectivity.

2) Will not stream Itune files ripped using Apple lossless really big deal for me since I use lossless as my default.

3) 802.11b instead of g no big deal to me; my network performance is mostly gated by the speed of my DSL connection.

The biggest problem is setting it up. If all works well when you first plug it in great. Else be prepared to search through the tech support documents and the user forums.

Everything the other reviewers claim is true.

It was easy to set up, was found instantly by my wireless router and is reliable and responsive. It is served music by my PC's Windows Media Player and Media Connect which you must download if you're using WMP 10.0. If you're using WMP 11.0 the music server is already built in.

The unit will show up as an icon in your 'My Network Places' window and by right clicking it (the icon) you can Invoke' a web page to configure your settings, see what you're playing and cut, copy and paste Internet Radio Station urls of your choice.

Yahoo also has a cute (did I say that?) little Widget to control the Roku from the Server PC or any other PC that's on your network....and with album artwork too...So if you're in one room with the Widget and the Roku is in another, you can advance, replay, pause and adjust the volume from the PC that you're at!

Music is such a large part of my life and this little gem teamed with either MusicMatch, Yahoo Unlimited Music or my own 'ripped' library give me complete control over my music listening needs.

Do not pass go, do not consider any other music client...I promise that the Roku of any numeric ilk will do exactly what you want.

If need be, please eMail me for further info about this or any other item that I've reviewed.

Peace Out,

Warren