If I use my laptop, I can listen to internet radio stations through the web browser, and I can use Windows media player to listen to my music collection which is all on a NAS connected to my router.

What I’d like is a single device to do just that, but in a “conventional” box with speakers to replace an ageing mini hifi.

One option is Sonos Play, but:
1 Its expensive
2 You need either an expensive controller, a smartphone or a laptop to control it, so my mother-in-law wouldn’t be able to turn the radio on
3 Did I mention its expensive?
4 I already have 1 network, why do I need another?

Only other options I’ve seen so far is the Logitech Squeezebox, but apparently they don’t connect to NAS (Buffalo Linkstation) very well.

I’ve seen a Sony one, which has an ipod dock, which would be redundant.

Or Marantz do one that looks like a mini hifi, but price-wise is up there with the Sonos.

To clarify, I want to replace a mini hifi with a single unit that will play internet radio stations and stream mp3/wma music from my NAS. Wireless would be good, but can connect via ethernet.

Any suggestions?

I use an Avox box which is truly brilliant as an internet radio, one of the best gadgets that I have. I can also stream from a NAS device and it works nicely once playing but the interface to find the tracks is so painful that only my children use it. There is an iPad app to let you control it as well but for some reason that won’t let you play tracks 🙁

Just got a squeezebox radio, it’s good, decent sound, easy set up and control on the box (or via phone remote or the logitech IR one).

I had a revo before, PITA to use then broke, shame as they’re Scotch.

I looked at Sonos and also thought “Why the ££££?”

I think the Sonos interface is very well regarded which might explain the expense. I’d like to recommend some of the products that I help to make but if you think Sonos is expensive your eyes might start watering 😉

Richpenny: I’ve no doubt there’s some fantastic kit out there, but I don’t have a need for it. As I said, I want a very small amount of the functionality of my very basic laptop, in a small box, with a pair of speakers possibly in the same box. And that’s it.

There was a thread about dab radio a few days back. Search for that, at the end I posted a link to a few standalone internet radio/streaming devices. I think both Roberts and Pure do one, for example.

I have a Pure Evoke, which is great for streaming internet radio and can also access music from your HDD, however it can’t handle music on an external drive, and doubt it could get it from NAS. I hope they fix this in the future…

or… maybe an airport express and itunes type set up? Would that work?
Remote via iPhone/iPod Touch?

Internet radios

Remote via iPhone/iPod Touch?

I have neither, and don’t intend to get either.

Naim Uniti it’s the only way 😉

Thanks Col 🙄

I received my Squeezebox touch yesterday.

Its fantastic I am really pleased with it. I have it doing everything from my music collection on my NAS, Spotify, youtube audio, bbc iPlayer etc.

If you just want internet radio you can get it to talk to the mysqueeze.com on the net and not need to run squeeze server locally

I have a duet on the way for upstairs now.

It does really just work.

what’s the squeeze server?

I have got a Pure Evoke Flow that I use for all of that. As long as your NAS supports UPnP, and I presume it does if you are accessing it from Mediaplayer, then the Pure will have no problem playing.

They do bigger internet radios, like the Sirocco if you want 2 speakers, but I just connect the audio out of my Evoke to my amp when I want to, and then have the flexibility to unplug it and move it round the house and garden with me when I wander around.

The screen is a little small and fiddly to access large music libraries, but you can get round that by setting up playlists and there is a web interface to manage favourites for internet radio / listen again stuff, which makes that easier when you first set it up.

Its the bit of software you need to run on your NAS or a computer to stream your music to the squeezebox devices.

It does some other cool stuff like transcoding audio from one format to another. For instance I have an applet on it the takes youtube video and strips just the audio and sends it to the squeezebox.

Another applet handles spotify so I can listen to that on my squeezeboxes.

But if you don’t run this software you can still do internet radio by connecting to Logitech’s server.

ah, found it. Installing it on a Buffalo Linkstation NAS (what I have) seems to be problematic, but possible.

Squeezebox Touch does look the bo11ox, but I can’t figure out, does it have integrated speakers?

No it does not have integrated speakers.

I think you want a logitech boom for that or a logitech radio.

It really is a cool piece of kit.

I guess you might have to hack the linkstation to get root access to it and install the pearl scripts that make up the squeezeserver software. So do-able if your a bit computer savy.