Affordable wireless music streamers are here! If you have a computer and a wireless router, what are you waiting for? It’s time you switched to a digital wi-fi music source. You don’t need to buy one of those mega-priced hi-fi units either - the smart money is on a Roku SoundBridge or Slim Devices SqueezeBox. Either unit will only set you back around the price of a multi-CD changer, and they’ll both give you way more music options.

Low End Comfort

The first thing you should know about these products is they’re both excellent quality wi-fi music playback devices. They both deliver a wide set of features and great sound quality. But, neither has any local storage. If you’re using a wi-fi connection from your computer and don’t mind storing music on your hard drive, there is no need for one of the high-end media streamers with tons of built-in storage. Hard drives are cheap, you can buy storage these days for way under a buck a Gig.

Another method of cost saving is in the DACs. Digital / Analogue Converter chips can be costly, and for good reason - they have a serious effect on sound quality. But you don’t need high end DACs if you intend to use the unit's digital outputs. Both units offer your choice of either optical or coax digital outs. By using the digital output, you’re sending an unprocessed digital signal to your receiver and letting its DACs worry about decoding. It’s generally recommended to connect any source to your Home Theater receiver digitally for the best sound quality.

Here’s how I’ve found both units to stack up in key categories:

Price

Slim Devices SqueezeBox $299

Roku SoundBridge M1001 $149

Roku is the price winner, coming in at around half the price of Slim Server. However, both are shockingly inexpensive for the services they perform.

Slim Devices SqueezeBox: 0

Roku SoundBridge: 1

Music Servers

To stream your music collection, both units rely on a music server or service running on a PC in constant communication with the device, via either wi-fi or hard-wired with RJ-45 cable. Roku can use iTunes, Media and even its competitor Slim Devices' music service called Slim Server.

Both are compatible with all the major digital media management systems including iTunes, Windows Media Player and Slim Server. As an iPod user, this is a tremendous convenience. I can use iTunes to manage my online music collection, and either wireless media streamer will gladly accept my iTunes playlists, etc.

Slim Devices SqueezeBox: 1 

Roku SoundBridge: 1

For being compabile with an array of music management software, both devices get equal footing in this category.

DRM

Microsoft PlaysForSure 

SlimDevices SqueezeBox is not compatible with Microsoft’s PlaysForSure. So, if you’re using an online subscription-based music service, such as Yahoo Music that uses PlaysForSure (Microsoft’s DRM10), sadly you’re out of luck trying to stream this to your SqueezeBox.

Roku SoundBridge is compatible with PlaysForSure so receives a point.

Slim Devices SqueezeBox: 0

Roku SoundBridge: 1

Apple FairPlay

Neither device is compatible with Apple’s FairPlay DRM. This means all your music purchased on Apple’s iTunes music service won’t work on those third party media streamers.

Slim Devices SqueezeBox: 0

Roku SoundBridge: 0

Internet Radio

Roku SoundBridge is not directly able to tune in Internet Radio. Instead, it relies on the music management service running on your PC to take care of Internet Radio navigation and playback. It’ll work only if Internet radio stations are added to your music server software, such as iTunes or Media Player.

SqueezeBox has a clear advantage here in the Squeeze Network. If SqueezeBox obtains an IP from your wireless router, it’s capable of connecting to Squeeze Network independent of your PC or music service. So, you can connect to Internet Radio or Slim Device picks and other options available only on Squeeze Network, even when your PC is off.

Slim Devices SqueezeBox: 1

Roku SoundBridge: 0

802.11g

Both are 802.11g compatible but Roku SoundBridge communicates over 802.11b.

Slim Devices SqueezeBox: 1

Roku Soundbridge: 1

Processing and DACs

As stated earlier, you probably won’t be concerned with DACs when using digital outputs, which both devices have. But if you try, it’s likely you’ll get the best performance from SqueezeBox’s 24bit Burr Brown DAC.

Roku SoundBridge: 400MHZ Blackfin processor

Slim Devices SqueezeBox: Burr-Brown PCM1748

For using a name-brand DAC that’s probably as good as most receivers, Slim Devices gets the nod here.

Slim Devices SqueezeBox: 1 

Roku SoundBridge: 0 

Lossless Audio

If you’re ripping your CD collection to your hard drive, with space as cheap as it is today, you might as well get to know one of the lossless codecs. Ripping to lossless means you get audio quality that hasn’t been nearly as compressed as the average MP3, and you’ll get sound quality closer to the original CD’s PCM encoding.

This is where Roku SoundBridge gets into trouble – it simply doesn’t support lossless codecs. Fortunately, Slim Devices SqueezeBox supports most of the majors, including Apple Lossless, WMA Lossless and Flac.

Slim Devices SqueezeBox: 1

Roku SoundBridge: 0 

The grand total

Slim Devices Squeezebox: 4

Roku SoundBridge: 4

Summary

They’re dead even, which may be a cop-out. But it’s difficult to fault either device for their individual characteristics. It’s really a matter of finding what features best suit you. If you’re using a subscriber service like Yahoo Music, you can have its million song library of 128bit MP3s streamed to your Roku SoundBridge. You can’t do this with SqueezeBox. But if you’re using 128bit MP3s, you’re probably not so fussy about getting the best sound quality you can. So, SqueezeBox’s support for lossless codes is probably irrelevant. But SqueezeBox is the clear choice for audiophiles seeking a budget method of streaming a lossless music collection to a home entertainment system.