Long Term Road Test: Creative SoundBlaster Wireless Music

I remember reading through old Road & Track magazines when I was a kid and they had a feature called "Long Term Road Test." Rather than a quick tour of a new car, they would live with the car for like a year and really uncover how good it was.

That type of review seems to be missing today. There's a flood of websites that review stuff - engadget, gizmodo, cnet, etc. but these are quick reviews of new products. In some cases they're reviews of products they haven't even touched yet. Are they buying it at the store, bringing it home and then using it for six months? I don't think so.

Therefore DDad is kicking off its own "Long Term Road Test" section. First up is the Creative Labs Wireless SoundBlaster Music.

Oh lord, where do I start? I've owned this for almost a year. The big attraction is the remote - you simply scan through your library of MP3s that sit on one of your PCs and then play it. No need to walk over to a PC or turn on the TV or walk to some one line LED display. Cool.

The setup is easy. Plug it into the USB port, run the network setup software and it will detect your home WiFi network (assuming you have the SSID broadcasting, which I am sure you do). Disconnect the USB cable, plug it into your stereo somewhere in your house and your done.

And then it all starts to go downhill.

The problem is the software. You install it on the PC with all your music files and it pumps them out to the little receiver you've connected to your stereo over WiFi. Actually, to call it software is almost too misleading. It's more like a virus. A nasty virus.

Here's the problem: the import function does not work. You need to import to get your music files read by the PC and out to the stereo. The software/virus from Creative  doesn't read the ID3 tags properly, especially ID3 v2 tags (like the one used in iTunes).  You will get a bunch of "Unknowns" in Artist and Title if you import. Email tech support and they will tell you that "yes" they do read the tags properly. They don't. They DO NOT.

Also, if you click the box to use the tag information from the directory (i.e. c:\my music\itunes\artist\title), the software will not only interpret that as TITLE/ARTIST (backward) but will re-tag all of your files.

If you do this then you are really screwed.

But, there is a workaround. There is a "Sniffer" option in the Creative software. It will periodically search a directory and add music files into its listings. Amazingly, if you set it to your music directory the files will be added correctly. Yes, there appears that there are two routines for importing - the manual import is broken but the "sniffer" import works. This shows how horribly awful the Creative software is - so poorly constructed. If you are saddled with this software, never use the Import function, just the Sniffer function.

At the time this was the only WiFi system with a remote that could browse files. Fortunately the Sonos system is now about to ship. I am looking forward to that system.

It took me months to figure out how bad the Creative solution is. If they spent a bit more time on the software then it would be worth $99. At this point i would pay $99 to get my music library back the way it was!

Comments

[Scheherazade]

Hi there,

I've been living with the Creative Soundblaster for just about a year, too. I generally like it, but have only just started wanting to import music from other sources than simply uploading my CDs, which it seems to recognize just fine. I've been getting mp3 files emailed to me, I've downloaded a few, and today I just bought my first iTunes song. I've managed to figure out how to import the mp3 files I've downloaded and received as attachments, but how do I get the iTunes song into my Creative library? Is it hopeless?

I'm not ready to buy an iPod and mess around with my setup yet again, because it's generally functioning fine. But if I can never add music from, say, iTunes, that'll be a real hassle.

[Digital Dad]

The Creative setup only plays MP3 files. ITunes songs are in AAC format and encrypted with Apple's digital rights management scheme - a double whammy to insure that they will not play on the Creative system.

You will need to either a)remove the DRM scheme using iOpener and then converting the resulting AAC file to MP3 format or b)burning the iTunes song to a CD and then rip it back as an MP3.

Good luck!

[Sybil]

Really good work.
I found a lot of profound information which can help me to go on.
Thanks for all this input.

[Franklin Steer]

December of '05 I bought my first Soundblaster Wireless music system after drooling for one since they first came out.
It's easy to set up.
The iTunes complaints are moot since I don't use that claptrap. I have over 4000 clips in RealPlayer and it imported them without a hitch.
I now have 4 and what a treat.