Product Review
Product name: Exstreamer
Product type: Networked Digital Audio Player
Ports: Headphone, RCA out, LAN, Serial, Power
Controls: Status lights, reset button
Likes: Small size, low price, browser interface
Dislikes: MP3 only, Java requirement, running process, no
digital output, playlist requirement
Review
The Exstreamer is a networked MP3 player made by Barix AG,
a Swiss company. It’s small (4" x 3.25" x 1.5") and well made, with very good audio quality.
Like most English-as-a-second-language documents, the instruction manual has
some humorous grammatical constructs, but in general it is logically laid out
and reasonably well written.
Product installation is not as trivial as you might expect
of a standard network device. The device requires software to be installed on
some machine on your network. The device software depends on having a Java
Virtual Machine (VM) installed on that same machine. The device software does
not come in the product box, so you will need to download it from the Exstreamer
web site. The Java VM can be downloaded from Sun’s web site. I feel the
requirement to have a Java VM running is onerous and will negatively impact the
wide-spread acceptance of the Exstreamer.
Once both software components are installed, you must run a
batch file(!) in order to enable the Exstreamer to find and play your
network-resident MP3 music files. This batch file MUST be running any time you
want to play music through the Exstreamer.
By using the RCA out ports (there is no optical digital nor
coax digital port), you can connect the Exstreamer to your home stereo. You can
also listen to your digital music by plugging earphones into the Exstreamer, but
it’s not clear that there’s any audio advantage to that approach vis-à-vis
plugging earphones into the sound card in one of your networked PCs.
The next step in the setup process is to get a pen and
paper, plug the included earbud into the earphone jack, plug in the power supply
and listen as the Exstreamer, in an Arnoldesque accent, “speaks” the IP address
of your device. It’s necessary to know the IP address in order to access the
module’s user interface. If your network does not have a DHCP server resident
(to assign your device a meaningful IP address), the batch job running on one of
your PC’s (you did remember to leave it running, right?) will eventually figure
out an IP address to assign to the Exstreamer.
Whew! That seems like a lot of work to get access to your
MP3 collection. You’re not done, though. There are any number of controls and
options you can set through the device’s browser-based user interface. Music
can only be played through a play list. If you already have .m3u files on your
network, they can be used to play music through the Exstreamer. I could
not find a way to access individual tracks directly
and the only way I could
find to build playlists required using a separate utility program.
The user interface does support most standard
playback control functions, including: play, next track, previous track, fast
forward, stop, mute, shuffle play on and off, repeat on and off.
Summary: The Exstreamer delivers capabilities commensurate
with its cost. It performs its key product goal very well. As an interface
between your networked music files and your stereo system, it makes all your
MP3s sound much better than they do played through a computer sound card and
computer speakers.
