Usage

As seen in the previous section, the Sound Blaster Wireless Music receiver can be a pain to set up. However once the configuration is done, the receiver connects to the wireless network fairly effortlessly. The configuration problems do point to the notion that setting up this receiver may not be the easiest thing for some users. In order to get this unit set up in your home network, you will need to know intimate knowledge about your wireless network such as your SSID and your encryption keys if the network is WEP enabled. On the flip side - someone purchasing this product may already be familiar with wireless networking.

I used the receiver in conjunction with my Harman Kardon home theater receiver and the audio playback was flawless. Audio playback when network conditions are perfect isn't the problem here of course - it's when the network conditions are not so perfect. There were times where network connectivity dropped out and as a result, audio playback cut out. This leads to an even greater problem with the receiver. It appears that the receiver fails to buffer up data to allow for more efficient playback. This is apparent when one song finishes and the next song starts up. There is a noticeable hesitation between songs which should not occur if the next song was buffered up. In general, network hiccups should not result in audio playback problems either. If the receiver has the chance to read in more of the music data during playback - then it should do so.

The Creative MediaSource Player/Organizer is a solid software application that organizes your entire music collection. However, I'm sick of having so many different proprietary music organizers on my PC. I now have organizers from Real, Apple, iRiver, and Creative on one box. I guess it would be too idealistic of me to hope for a standard here someday.

Now we can talk about another major problem - the RF remote. First the good thing - the remote is RF based which means you won't need a line of sight to the receiver in order to use the remote. This was about the only positive aspect with the remote. Navigating through the remote is just utterly slow. It often takes 2-3 seconds for a button press to be registered with the remote. That is just plain unacceptable. Slow navigation becomes even more of a problem when you consider how long it could take to scroll through a list of artists or songs. There is no button on the remote which lets you skip past a number of names or titles so you need to scroll through one name at a time.

And finally - why make this device a wireless device only? At $249 MSRP, the Sound Blaster Wireless Music isn't a cheap device and therefore it should have a few more features. Creative should at least have the option of connecting an Ethernet cable to the receiver if one is available. A wireless only receiver is a nice idea but the truth is - wireless networks are still a pain to set up and use for many people so having multiple interfaces isn't a bad idea.

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