MaximumPC 2006 12

reviewsTes Ted. Reviewed. veRdic Tized

 MAXIMUMPC december 2006

T

he Logitech Wireless DJ corrects

nearly every deficiency we identified

with Logitech’s Wireless Music System

for PC (reviewed July 2006), thanks to

much-improved software and a slick remote

control. It’s easier to use than Slim Devices’

Squeezebox and costs hundreds less than a

Sonos ZP-80; unfortunately, it doesn’t sound

nearly as sublime as either.

On the other hand, the Wireless DJ’s

audio quality is good enough with high bit-

rate audio—we tested it with everything

from 320Kb/s MP3s ripped from CDs to

WMA Lossless tracks purchased from

MusicGiants—that you might not notice

what you’re missing.

The system consists of a wireless

remote control with a big, blue LCD; a USB-

powered Bluetooth transmitter; and an AC-

powered Bluetooth receiver that doubles as

a charging cradle for the remote. The system

is a breeze to set up, and the Bluetooth

device pairing occurs almost automatically.

As with other Logitech streaming products,

you can pair the transmitter with more than

one receiver (this model limits you to four),

but you can stream to only one receiver at

a time. This is another area in which the

Squeezebox and Sonos systems are superi-

or—both allow you to stream different music

to multiple zones.

Logitech’s website and manual claims

its StreamPoint software allows you to play

music through your PC speakers while

simultaneously streaming the same mate-

rial to another room—resolving one of the

other complaints we voiced about its earlier

MusicAnywhere program—but audio on the

PC side sounded garbled when we tried it.

That’s when we discovered an insert to the

manual informing us that this feature “is not

in the current release, but should be includ-

ed in a future update.” Call us crotchety, but

if your product can’t do something out of the

box, don’t claim otherwise.

The software

automatically

populates its music

library by vacuum-

ing artist, album,

track, and genre

information from

your ID3 tags, plus

any installations

of Windows Media

Player, iTunes,

and MusicMatch

Jukebox. It picks up

playlists, podcasts,

and your favorite

Internet radio sta-

tions from these

same sources, and

you can manually

point the software

to any other vol-

umes or folders

in which you’ve

stashed music.

The Wireless

DJ’s remote control

is fabulous for a

product in this price range. The LCD screen,

backlit buttons, and the intuitive scroll

wheel with its center selection button render

navigation of the onscreen menus a cinch,

even in the dark. And because it also uses

Bluetooth technology, there’s no line-of-

sight requirement.

The Wireless DJ gets around DRM

restrictions by using the controlling media

player (iTunes for protected AAC tracks, or

Windows Media Player for protected WMA)

and your PC’s soundcard or onboard audio

to play the music in analog format. It then

intercepts the audio, converts it to digital,

and routes it through a USB port to the

transmitter. The transmitter streams the data

to the receiver, where it’s converted back

to analog and sent to your A/V receiver or

powered speakers. Audio quality definitely

suffers from these repeated conversions;

but as we said, you might not notice it. We

detected another minor flaw, however, in

the form of a high-pitched noise pulsing

in the background. We had to crank our

A/V receiver way up to detect it—much

louder than we could comfortably listen to

music—but that doesn’t make it any less of

an imperfection.

Audio purists will happily trade the

Wireless DJ’s fancy remote and an extra $50

for a better-sounding wireless Squeezebox;

well-heeled audio purists will want to step

up to Sonos’ system to get the best of both

worlds. But we found plenty of reasons to

like Logitech’s Wireless DJ—it delivers a lot

of bang for the buck.

—Michael Brown

Logitech Wireless DJ

A poor man’s Sonos—almost

as if we didn’t have enough reason to pan Draft-n gear, the

netgear wnr854T router we’ve been testing caused drop-outs in

the logitech wireless DJ’s audio stream.

$250, http://www.logitech.com

logitech wireless dj

sTreaMing Music

Slick remote control;

supremely easy to use;

streams protected tracks.

sTreaMing oBsceniTies^8

Audio quality is inferior to

other streaming products we’ve tested.

AUDIO FORMATS MP3, WMA, AAC (including protected and lossless versions)

OTHER AUDIO FORMATS Podcasts and Internet radio

SUPPORTED MEDIA LIBRARIES iTunes, MusicMatch Jukebox, Windows Media Player

TRANSMISSION TECHNOLOGY Bluetooth 1.2 (2.4GHz)

specs