jtfields
04-13-2004, 07:16 PM
Slim Devices has offerred a special promotion on the wired version of the Squeezebox to those who are a member of their listserv community that is good through this weekend. For those of you familiar with the SLIMP3, the Squeezebox is the successor to the SLIMP3. Besides a new look, it adds digital and headphone outputs as well as built-in support for PCM streams to compliment the built-in MP3 decoder. There are other improvements which can be found at their website.
The PCM support allows the server software to decode just about any kind of comressed audio (Ogg, FLAC, etc.) and stream it to the player (the SLIMP3 only supported MP3's which meant that the server had to transcode other compressed formats to MP3 which took a lot more processing power and degraded the sound quality.) MP3's are streamed in their compressed format and decoded by the player itself. The server software is awesome and will not only stream to as many SLIMP3/Squeezeboxes that your network can support but will also stream to Winamp. This means that you can stream to other computers (including say from your home to office assuming you have the bandwidth capabilities.) It also supports various internet radio stations.
Anyway, if you go to the Slim Devices website ( http://www.slimdevices.com ) and enter "community" in the promotion code box when placing an order for a wired Squeezebox you will receive a $50 discount (bringing the total to $199 plus shipping.) The promotional code is intended for the members of the listserv community but obviously anyone can enter the code. :)
I've had a SLIMP3 for a year (and just ordered a Squeezebox using this promotion.) It is an amazing product. There are other digital audio receivers out there (in fact I also own a Rio Receiver) but you won't find one as good as the Squeezebox/SLIMP3 as far as MP3's go and you won't find any kind of player with the kind of dedicated support that you will get from Slim Devices and the developer community that has arisen for it. As quickly as you can post a problem/request to the community someone responds with a fix/answer. I highly recommend it and recommend that you seek out reviews of both the SLIMP3 and Squeezebox. You will see that I'm not the only one impressed. Maximium PC gave the wireless version of the Squeezebox a 10 out of 10 last month, a rare occurrance, and named the wireless version one of the ten "must haves" for a WiFi network. Tom's Hardware also has a glowing review of the SLIMP3 (in fact most of the few negatives they had were fixed by software upgrades as quickly as the article came out.)
The PCM support allows the server software to decode just about any kind of comressed audio (Ogg, FLAC, etc.) and stream it to the player (the SLIMP3 only supported MP3's which meant that the server had to transcode other compressed formats to MP3 which took a lot more processing power and degraded the sound quality.) MP3's are streamed in their compressed format and decoded by the player itself. The server software is awesome and will not only stream to as many SLIMP3/Squeezeboxes that your network can support but will also stream to Winamp. This means that you can stream to other computers (including say from your home to office assuming you have the bandwidth capabilities.) It also supports various internet radio stations.
Anyway, if you go to the Slim Devices website ( http://www.slimdevices.com ) and enter "community" in the promotion code box when placing an order for a wired Squeezebox you will receive a $50 discount (bringing the total to $199 plus shipping.) The promotional code is intended for the members of the listserv community but obviously anyone can enter the code. :)
I've had a SLIMP3 for a year (and just ordered a Squeezebox using this promotion.) It is an amazing product. There are other digital audio receivers out there (in fact I also own a Rio Receiver) but you won't find one as good as the Squeezebox/SLIMP3 as far as MP3's go and you won't find any kind of player with the kind of dedicated support that you will get from Slim Devices and the developer community that has arisen for it. As quickly as you can post a problem/request to the community someone responds with a fix/answer. I highly recommend it and recommend that you seek out reviews of both the SLIMP3 and Squeezebox. You will see that I'm not the only one impressed. Maximium PC gave the wireless version of the Squeezebox a 10 out of 10 last month, a rare occurrance, and named the wireless version one of the ten "must haves" for a WiFi network. Tom's Hardware also has a glowing review of the SLIMP3 (in fact most of the few negatives they had were fixed by software upgrades as quickly as the article came out.)