So we were quite keen to review the Freecom MusicPal WLAN Radio as we don't see that many of its kind passing through the office. First impressions were ok, yes its styling is a bit retro and the screen is a bit basic but given the price we were prepare for it to be a little cheap in places.

Set-up was fairly simple, it supports both cabled Ethernet and WiFi connections, including 801.11 b/g networks with WEP , WPA and WPA2 encryption, although we'd recommend using a cabled network for best performance our tests showed the WiFi was perfectly adequate for almost all functions. Once on the network its a case of selecting an internet radio station to listen to. The Freecom MusicPal supports streaming MP3, WMA and also the layback of WAV files which covers a good slice of available radio stations. Freecom say that their list has 5000 working radio streams most of which seem to be USA based, we did find quite a few dead ones but that's more to do with them shutting down than the device not working.

Being a connected device Freecom make lots of the RSS feed capability and delivering updated information to the 128 x 64 pixel screen, this is cool but nothing that new to anyone who has seen DAB radio or for that matter our personal favourite Squeezebox 3. A nice touch is to be able to use this RSS feed capability to check lists of stations or stream and pick up the latest shows in archives from stations such as WFMU in New York, home of the excellent Mr Fine Wine (a Lordpercy top tip).

Freecom have also ensure that the MusicPal supports UPnP so that it can discover volumes of music stored on network hard drives or other network machines, so in this respect it makes a useable network multimedia player albeit without some of the features of devices designed solely for the job.

Of course the key measurement for any audio device is its sound and this is where we were badly let down. The MusicPal has a weedy 3 watt mono speaker that sounds like a wasp farting in a paper bag, although the wasp has more bass and a better defined top end. How Freecom can release a modern device that has this poorer sound is beyond us, it sounds like a tranny radio and when you hear what Pure digital can do in a smaller enclosure for less money Freecom do look rather bad. We can only assume its down to cost and you should budget for a set of outboard amplified speakers for around another £30 - £40 on top of the Freecom if you insist on sticking with the MusicPal.

If you intend to hook it into a HiFi system then it may work for you, but then there are many other media adaptors on the market that will also do the job. The Freecom MusicPal WLAN radio is designed to be stand alone, no PC or other speakers and while it functions it is a very disappointing sound which must be the primary role for a WLAN radio?

Priced at around £60 down from £100 it is cheaper but for us just not worth the cash (sorry).

Published - 05/08/2008

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