Linksys Wireless-B Music System WMLS11B

Average customer rating: 3.0

4 out 5 stars
Nice idea; flawed execution
Not Perfect, but works well (on linux to boot)
LinkSys did a poor job on this one
Have to admit.. a bit of a flake - for early adopters only

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Linksys Wireless-B Music System WMLS11B

Manufacturer: Linksys
Product Group: CE
Binding: Electronics
ASIN: B0002229JQ

Related Categories:

Receivers & Amplifiers

All Wireless

Wireless-B (802.11b)

Product Description

The Linksys Wireless-B Music System lets you bring the digital music stored on your computer to your Home Entertainment Center, without running cables through the house. Using a wireless connection, the Music System finally frees your digital music collection from those little computer speakers to play in full glory through your stereo system. The Wireless-B Music System sits by your home stereo and connects to it using standard consumer electronics cables. Then it connects to your home network by Wireless-B (802.11b) wireless networking, or if you prefer, it can be connected via standard 10/100 Ethernet cabling. Using the included remote control and the built-in LCD menus, you can browse your MP3 or WMA formatted music collection on your home PCs by title, artist, album, genre, or playlist. Or, access the Rhapsody Digital Music service (free trial included) to listen to over 450, 000 songs on demand, create custom playlists and radio stations, and burn mixed CDs on your PC. You can also tune into thousands of Internet radio stations from over 100 different countries around the world.Choose the music you want, and let the Wireless-B Music System play it through your living room stereo. Or, with its small but powerful detachable speakers, it can also act as your portable digital music "boombox". Carry the Music System around the house and have access to your entire music collection, and your favorite Internet radio stations, anywhere within range of your wireless network - the kitchen, den, even out on the patio by the pool. Let the Linksys Wireless-B Music System bring digital music out into the living room for the whole family to enjoy.

Customer Reviews:

4 out 5 stars.......2007-04-26

I read a lot of reviews before purchasing this product. The one thing that kept popping up was the loudness/pour speakers issue. So when I bought it, I assumed I was buying a device with sound quality equal to an alarm clock speaker. When I received the linksys and tried it out, the speakers seemed very loud and good bass given the size. I started playing different mp3's and found the loudness issue to be directly related to the quality of the mp3. I had one mp3, which was poor quality and quiet on my pc, and guess what, it was poor quality and quiet on the linksys. This was not an issue with the music I ripped from windows media player. Also, had problems playing WMA lostless files.

I'm not too crazy about musicmatch software, with comes on a cd, and needs to be installed to share your music ( there is other software that will work ). It's constant nagware to purchase the software or upgrade. But on the flip side, It works seemlessly, using libraries and playlist.

The internet radio is cool, most of the pre-load channels do not work ( I tried about 15 and only 2 worked )I would have given this 5 out of 5 stars if I could program my own stations...

The linksys device has a website you can access and make changes. Its a little bugy, had to reload the page after making changes or navigating and the favorites page never retained any entries. Even after upgrading the firmware to 1.09 it still had problems.

Overall, I am very please with the product, but I wouldn't pay anything more than 50-60 bucks for it. I am so pleased, I bought another one.

Nice idea; flawed execution.......2007-04-03

What a great concept! I can take this very portable device anywhere within reach of my wireless router and have streaming music from my digital library or Internet radio stations.

Here's the reality (as I have experienced it): even after upgrading to the latest firmware, my WMLS11B will not stay connected to my wireless network. I have to re-enable the SSID every time I turn the device on to get an initial connection. From then on, streaming music stops and starts as though the connection were spotty, even though my laptop (also on the wireless and sitting next to the device) is streaming beautifully.

In addition, the WMLS11B will only receive Internet radio stations that broadcast as strict mp3's. Which means no .pls, no .asx, etc. Unfortunately, this is what most streaming formats are in.

Luckily, the speakers are powered and are connected to the wireless device by standard RCA jacks. I use this product now primarily as a way to play songs from my iPod nano.

Not Perfect, but works well (on linux to boot).......2006-06-22

I bought this not having super high expectations after reading all the comments. That said, I think it was a good purchase.

I run it on my linux system (Linspire 5.0 using MP3beamer software) to listen to my mp3 collection and playlists.
It set up easily (I'm techie enough) with MAC address filtering and 128 WEP encryption.

The interface (screen) is not much different from the SMC wireless media adapter I have, but the remote is much better and the buttons on the unit are handy.

The speakers are only good enough for a small room (I use mine in the bedroom)

I don't use internet radio really, so no comment on that feature.
- Cheers

LinkSys did a poor job on this one.......2006-04-11

My wife gave me this "Wireless-B Music System" for my birthday (a year ago now) on the recommendation of a friend. Unfortunately she bought it in Texas and took it home to Florida where we live. As a result, returning it to the store became a problem. So I was forced to keep it and doggedly tried to set it up despite of al the awkwardies that this unit has. I eventually gave up anyway because it seemed impossible to associate it with my wireless network, even when I had "downgraded" network encryption from WPA back to WEP (the WMLS11B can not handle anything above WEP encryption). The WMLS11B has been gathering dust ever since. A few days ago I decided to try again because new firmware (1.09) is available now. And indeed, the network setup problems are over, it links fine now wirelessly, albeit with WEP encryption only; as before. But the link is stable now. I was able to set it up with several Internet radio stations that I found on the web, which it can play (from the favorites list) directly from the router without the PC having to act as a server or the like. Really nice. However, the WMLS11B can only play MP3 live audio streams from the web, and not Windows format, or Real Audio format. It would have been easy for LinkSys to create firmware for the WMLS11B that can play all the 3 streaming-audio standards so this is a serious weakness I think.
The next step was to set up the WMLS11B as an MP3 player using the PC as an MP3 server. This apparently requires the Musicmatch Jukebox player to run on the PC. I agree with most of the reviews here that this player is horror. It aggressively tried to take over all file associations from Windows Media Player (my favorite player). It really would have been nice if LinkSys had given the option to choose between different media players, not just Musicmatch. A very poor move it seems, from LinkSys. I did manage to get it going though. But once it had been setup, I have all the problems that other reviewers pointed out: Really awkward menus on the WMLS11B, the "file format error" appears randomly for whatever reason (in fact a web search for that error brought me to these reviews which promted me to write one myself), and I can't get it to play multiple songs in a row, have no idea how to overcome that (if possible at all). To summarize: Works great as Internet radio albeit only with MP3 streams, but completely sucks as a remote MP3 player using the PC as a music server. I'm sure the hardware would be able to handle the task though, if only LinkSys would be writing better and updated firmware for this unit. But apparently they prefer to just leave it as it is, while selling a newer unit instead. You know, I hear so much complaining about Microsoft all the time, but where can you buy a product (WinXP in my case) and still be able to download updates from the manufacturer after more than 4 years? LinkSys should take an example from that Microsoft model!!

Have to admit.. a bit of a flake - for early adopters only.......2005-11-26

All the reviews are good. If you are a techy, filter out the 'I found it difficult to connect'. If you know your WAP from your WEP and a hex doesn't freak you, then no worries.
What they say abou the UI is true. It sucks, big time. The number of times I have stabbed a button on the remote and cursed because it went to somewhere that was not intuitive.. grr. Big thumbs down to linksys/cisco engineers there.
As to the performance, again, not too impressed. It sticks, it goes bloop bloop, it fails to respond - just like a computer.
If you reboot your PC (i.e. your music server) and unplug then plug in this product, everything should be ok. For a while.
You'd better get your playlists in order. Browsing through your music is a joke. And even when you play your playlist, I found that going to the next song with the usual >>| did not work. Access and playing your tunes is rubbish with this interface.
If you rack up your tracks in an order you like then fine. If you want to skip your racked up tunes, then hard luck.
But other users have other experiences. Maybe I don't know how to use it properly yet. That'd be beacuse the manual sucks too.
In summary: this unit for early adopters who know about wireless parlance (if you run wireless security). It blips out from time to time, it simply doesn't play sometimes. Sometimes it gets stuck in loop in a loop and I have to pull the power plug.
But, in saying all that, the ability to play the tracks that reside on your PC or laptop rocks. For all its early weaknesses , I am glad I bought it. But it is not for the faint-hearted.
Note to Linksys: come on guys, put a hurryup on producing a more robust unit with a much better UI.

An alternative is the Squeezebox. It gets rave reviews: [...]

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