Overview

The Sound Blaster Wireless Music package consists of a receiver, RF remote, cables, and a software CD. The key components that matter to this review are the receiver and the RF remote.

The Sound Blaster Wireless Music receiver looks as follows:

The front of the unit has - The "Find Remote" button and a LED display revealing the status of the receiver. The Find Remote button allows you to either 1) locate the RF remote by activating a beeping sound on the remote control or 2) assign an RF remote to the receiver at hand. This will allow you to assign one RF remote to multiple receivers if you want to litter your home with multiple Sound Blaster Wireless Music receivers.

The LED display is actually two LEDs - one on top and one on bottom. The one on top shines green when the receiver is turned on and red when it is in standby mode. The bottom LED shines green when the receiver is connected to a Wireless Music Media Server (more on this later), flashes green when it is attempting to connect to the server, flashes amber when trying to connect to a network, and flashes red when it is resetting.

The rear of the receiver is as follows: USB port, optical out connector, line out jacks, and the AC connector. The USB port is used to connect the receiver to a PC which is necessary for wireless network configuration purposes. This is usually a one time event unless you change routers or wireless settings. Audio is output via the line out jacks or the digital optical out jack. If you have a receiver that accepts optical inputs, then use optical out jack since you'll get a pure digital signal rather than the analog signal over the line out jacks.

The RF remote is as follows:

The remote itself is very simplistic despite the immense size. At the top of the remote is the 132 x 64 LCD display which shows your music library, what is currently playing, and network settings. The display is large in physical size but it doesn't actually show a great deal of information. One positive note is the blue backlight that comes on when you press any button on the remote.

There are three major buttons that line the bottom of the display. These buttons are as follows:

•  Now Playing button - see what is currently playing on the receiver

•  Menu button - brings up the menu to the remote

•  Library button - brings up the music library on your PC.

Below these buttons are a set of navigational buttons for that allow you maneuver through your menu selections and below that are standard buttons that you would expect to find on a remote for a device such as this. Here is what the main menu on the display looks like:

Here is a picture of what the library looks like. You can browse by artists, playlists, albums, songs etc.

Here is what it looks like when we select artists - you can pick different artists based on the first letter of the artists. The picture shows the letter 'A' selected.

Now if there was a complaint that I had with the remote - it would be the physical size. It's larger than the home theater receiver remote that I have here at home and it doesn't deliver anywhere near the functionality that a universal remote would provide. On the flip side, the remote uses radio frequencies instead of infrared so you won't need line of sight in order to operate your Sound Blaster Wireless Music receiver. More on the remote later on.

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