I think there will come a time at Halloween when I could hand out the remote controls scattered about my house along with candy corn and gum, and satisfy the string of trick-or-treaters that canvass my neighborhood. Honestly, in each room where I listen to music, watch TV or movies I have a minimum of six remotes. It gets tricky, particularly for a reviewer, when one remote will turn on an unwanted component during use of another. I'm not lazy, but it's maddening to leave the chair to turn off a piece of equipment you didn't want to engage in the first place. The universal remote is not a new idea, but most are far more complicated than the originals they intend to replace. If I have a choice between spending an evening listening to music, watching a DVD or ...

Back in 1981 Sammy Hagar had a big radio hit, singing, “There's only one way to rock.” When it comes to setting up a digital music server, however, there's most definitely more than one way. There's hundreds of ways, but most of us want something simple. Digital audiophiles go to great lengths to turn laptops or old towers into music servers, running them through digital-to-analog converters to boost the sound and then using any number of ways to stream the music to an audio system. The drawback of such an approach means that you have an extra computer, and that it always has to be turned on, and so on.  A better solution, in my mind, is to bring all aspects of computer audio together into a single server, player and streamer. And that's just what the Olive Opus 4 ...

With the rash of recent A/V components integrating the plethora of web related, streaming audio content into their feature set, Logitech has been streamlining their delivery of the same content in their Squeezebox series.  The Squeezebox Radio is Logitech’s most recent release into this field.  The compact form factor of the Squeezebox Radio is designed for an audience looking to bring their library of music into a smaller room.  Additionally, the Squeezebox Radio is ideal for those who have a Wi-Fi network already established for streaming audio files. The Squeezebox (MSRP: $199.99) comes packaged in a small box and wrapped in light plastic packaging.  It also comes wrapped in a thin plastic film designed to keep smudges off the finish.  The piano black, glossy finish (also available in red) is very susceptible to fingerprints and dust is very visible as ...

The raging debate du jour these days for both the music industry and audiophiles is the future of physical media. The compact disc is 25 plus years old, but is still the primary format for physical music purchases. There is also a tiny sliver of music buyers who opt for SACD, DVD-A, or Vinyl LP. The formidable and rapidly growing population of music buyers, who purchase music downloads, prefers to be free spirits in their relationships to any physical medium. The trade off is these consumers are willing to accept much lower sound quality. It should be noted that there a handful of websites that also sell high resolution, lossless music files as well, but at a premium, and usually by lesser known artists.Music servers systems are at the vanguard of the new landscape. Truth be told, the iPod and ...

Introduction In all my years of reviewing audio equipment, no product has graced my system that I’ve despised more than the original release of Apple’s AppleTV.  The first incarnation of the wireless media extender/server for Apple users was so fatally flawed that it begged the question, “Why bother?”  I wasn’t alone in my feelings for the AppleTV.  Sales were abysmal (which is uncommon for many upstart Apple products) and consumers either returned them in record numbers or voided their warranties by cracking them open and making them do the things we all hoped they could. Personally, I bought three more and, with the help of some third-party software, managed to make the AppleTV what I wanted it to be with little effort.  Minus the fact that it still didn’t support multi-channel audio, 1080p video or high-definition, all was well.  I didn’t ...