Roku SoundBridge M1000/M1001

Just purchased a Roku Soundbridge for about $130 to pull MP3 music from my network attached storage drive (D-link DNS-323) and play it through my modest home theater system. After powering up, I was immediately impressed with the step by step configuration process...other than finding the device's MAC address (not a major problem, but I had to dig a little), the entire setup process was smooth and intuitive. The device was streaming internet radio flawlessly even before I had figured out how to interface it to my NAS. The remote, while seemingly limited by a small number of buttons, has proven to be more than adequate for browsing my massive song library thanks to some extremely well-thought-out interface design by Roku's engineers. Unlike some TV-based media players (i.e. DMS-520), browsing is FAST and easy using the very bright (but adjustable) Soundbridge text display. I particularly like the fact that with NAS and Soundbridge, I can access all my music without turning on either my computer or my TV. Without even looking at the users manual, I mastered nearly all of the operations of the device with maybe 15 minutes of menu-surfing - intuitive design is such a joy. The remaining capabilities were a pleasant surprise...the ability to quickly assemble extensive playlists/queues via hotkey, customization of the display, etc. If you tire of the blue-green display, you can also fully interact with the Soundbridge through your web browser - very handy for operations like specifying internet radio sources and such. The web interface also displays "Now Playing" and song queue information...again, all very well thought out.

My one complaint is that my initial efforts to get the Soundbridge to communicate with my the UPnP server on my NAS were unsuccessful. Partial directories and file lists would appear on the Soundbridge, but only a few isolated files and directories appeared to be accessible. I am now 95% certain that this is a D-Link 323 problem and not the fault of the Soundbridge per se. Once I switched to the NAS's native iTunes server, the Soundbridge worked flawlessly. The only major downside of running of iTunes (other than my general bias against Apple products...) appears to be that you cannot access Winamp-generated M3U playlists. Perhaps when I am feeling bolder I will attempt to set up Firefly or Twonky on my NAS...or at least run a UPnP server on a networked computer to verify that the Soundbridge can in fact stream music from it. Based on everything else I have seen from this little gem, I don't expect it to be a problem.