Logitech Squeezebox Duet Wireless Music System: The Unboxening

The black-on-black musical notes is a nice touch (I wonder if they were inspired by the "Smell the Glove" album cover). All told, the packaging is very Apple-esque, but not of the same high-quality materials; fit-and-finish is a tad lower as well. Good, not great, but better than the packaging that most of Logitech's lower-end stuff comes in. One thing that surprised me was that there was no CD included. I figured they'd at least include the PDF manual and some other stuff on a piece of media, but nope. And in retrospect, I'm glad they didn't...saves on material and weight...both good things. The box's entire contents are as follows (roughly left to right): the Squeezebox Receiver, Squeezebox Controller, power cord and North American plug adapter for Receiver, Controller recharching cradle and power cord (attached), Controller battery, stereo RCA cables, and Controller power plug adapter. The finish on the Controller is the same velvety pseudo-rubber you get on high-end SLR cameras...mmmm...smoooth.... The Receiver is very compact and very neat and tidy. If it weren't for the color, I'd have sworn it came from Cupertino. The status LED (glows red, green, blue, and white at various stages of setup) is also the only button on the Receiver. To give you a sense of scale, here's the Receiver next to a Mac Mini, a Series 2 TiVo, and a compact center channel speaker. Please ignore the hideous wiring...it's temporary...really...

After a few hours of use, I'm very, very impressed. The Duet is a really powerful way to control your music. It is amazingly flexible in its ability to handle a variety of music sources (iTunes, raw files, etc.) and to be customized per your preferences (it took me 20 minutes just to explore all the options in the Settings menu on the Controller).

Beyond the wide variety of online music services it supports (e.g., Rhapsody, Pandora, Slacker, etc.), the Squeezebox also has some nifty tricks up its sleeves. You can set the Controller to download and display photos from Flickr (yours, someone else's or random pics) when it's not being handled. It also has an accelerometer inside so it comes back to life when you pick it up (a nice touch). And, if that weren't enough, you can add both Controllers and Receivers to your wireless network and operate any Receiver from any Controller, or sync up all the Receivers to play the same content. At just $150 for each added Receiver, you can outfit a large house for far less than you could using Sonos' products.

So far, I'd have to say I like what I see. If you want to check out the Squeezebox's complete specs, along with a demo movie, head over to Slim Devices' website. More as I know it...