However things have move on since then and the market for network MP3 players, especially wireless ones has boomed with the market leader the Slim devices Squeezebox flying off the shelves. This revised soundbridge unit is both smaller and cheaper than the older M1000 but can it out slim the Squeezebox?

The familiar Roku styling cues are retained in this new unit with the large Smartie tube design with a smaller 16 character x 2 lines LCD screen for track details and menu information. Power is via the supplied AC adaptor and if you intend to use it wirelessly then that is the only connector you'll be needing. There is an RJ45 port should you wish to cable up a Soundbridge player.

So to setting up a network with the Sound Bridge network player. In its basic form the Pinnacle unit makes this task very easy, you either cable up the unit or add it to a WiFi network 802.11b/g and you can also set it with WEP or WPA security. It uses basic TCP communication and can work with a dynamic DNS handing it an IP address, however we found it easier to give it a static address if you already have a busy network of devices to contend with.

Once sat on our test network we pointed it at our music server which is a windows XP box with around 40gb of music tracks of various file formats. You have 2 choices with the Sound Bridge, either work with an existing programme like iTunes, Windows Media Player, Music match or  install a server application like firefly or slim server. We already run Slimserver on our music system and for the purposes of this review added firefly, but our first tests were with the SoundBridge working in its simplest mode.

First up we tried to connect with our server while it was running iTunes (as stated by the manual) but despite our best efforts the unit could not see our database of iTunes catalogued tracks. A bit of surfing and Googling later we found that iTunes 7 had broken this function and on a rollback to iTunes 6 we managed to get the Sound Bridge to see the database without issue. We also managed to prove that both Windows media player and Music match 8 can bee seen by the device using UPnP and that track listings and hierarchy are preserved.

That said you really do need to use server software which is designed to serve music tracks to wireless music units, this way you can connect multiple units, access playlists and even internet radio stations via a broadband connection on the server. The firefly server application is pretty much operating system agnostic running on Windows, Mac, Linux and even on some embedded solid state devices like network attached storage meaning you can work without leaving a server switched on. Our server week long tests were with SlimServer which provided a stable music source for the Pinnacle player. We were able to see all contents in all the formats that are supported by the bridge, namely WMA, AAC, MP3, WAV and AIFF, UPnP AV and Windows Media DRM 10. It is important to note that although you can see ACC tracks purchased from the iTunes store the player cannot handle the DRM and therefore cannot play locked tracks from Apple.

Using the supplied remote and with the bridge hooked up to our HiFi via the 2 RCA connectors we started to browse through the music available via WiFi. The small ish screen is at a disadvantage to the Squeezebox 3 but strangely also to the M1000 on which this is based, it seems that the latest batch of SoundBridges to carry the Pinnacle logo have undergone a small reduction which may in part explain the price drop.

We started with a quick browse through the music collection while connected via cabled Ethernet in order to get a baseline impression before going wireless. Sound quality is first class and we managed to play a variety of MP3 files at differing bit rates and also some unlocked ACC files, there is no sign of any hiss, pops or other electronic noise and the signal is reproduced in a way comparable to an MP3 player. An annoyance is the lack of support for Ogg Vorbis which meant that this system didn't get a once over with Fatboy slim as our tracks on the server were only encoded in Ogg.

After removing the RJ45 cable form the end of the Pinnacle unit it was time to test the Sound Bridge in its most likely configuration, wireless mode. On first starting to play some James Brown the quality seemed great and in fact difficult to tell we were now without cable, admittedly we were very close to our Linksys router and so further tests were carried out with a bit of distance and some brick walls in-between. Much to the units credit we only noticed the occasional bit of background noise and only once had a data starvation which caused a slight digital stutter, but on the whole a very robust playback experience.

Browsing media isn't as easy as the older M2000 unit we tested before or with the Squeezebox, this is mainly due to the reduced screen size which limits tracks titles and needs an amount of scrolling text where previously the whole title fitted on screen. Subsequently drilling down through menus using the remote is a little less pleasant but nonetheless functional.

Internet radio stations can be added as one of 18 presets available on the SoundBridge player and it supports most streaming formats with the exception of Real audio, this is not worth losing sleep over as so few stations stream in Real format anyway. Perhaps the bigger problem is finding the radio stream URL which is so often hidden away on websites. On the Roku website they have a little sniffer application called "snooper" which you can point at a website and it will find the audio URL for you, a very nifty little app!

A week with the base Pinnacle SoundBridge and we have to admit to being quite impressed. It is unfair to pitch this budget streamer against the might of the Slim Devices Squeezebox 3 as it is half the price!  Clearly something had to go in order to get this down to Netgear MP101 money and the main difference seems to be screen size, however it only slightly effects the user experience and when paired with a good music server application the SoundBridge basic is more than a capable performer.

Priced at a bargain £99 it is an ideal budget streamer or perhaps as a unit for another room where you don't really need all the extras of a Squeezebox.

Published - 10/12/2006

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