PHILIPS STREAMIUM SLA5500 Wireless Music Receiver Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)After researching several other streaming audio devices in the sub-$200 range, this product seemed to have the features I wanted plus a lot of good customer reviews (here and at other sites).
I have a large collection of MP3s (non-DRM) on my PC and a WEP-secured wireless network in my house. The physical setup was really easy - plug in the AC adapter and connect it to my stereo with the provided audio cable. The wireless setup took more effort than I expected, but in the end my problems were with my wireless router.
Even though it's a DHCP server and works fine with all the PCs in my house and my Tivo, the Streamium was being assigned an invalid IP. I fixed this by using the 'reserve IP' feature of my router to specify the IP that DHCP will assign to the Streamium based on it's MAC address. Your mileage will vary depending on your brand/model of router.
After I got it on my network, the rest was a breeze. I decided to use the Philips Media Manager software instead of the Windows Media Center (or whatever it's called) because I really don't trust Microsoft to not-screw-up my existing MP3 collection. iTunes already wreaked havoc once (it tried to rearrange all my files until I disabled 'manage my music folder'). I wasn't going to tempt fate a second time.
The Streamium device looks really slick. The screen is easy to read and displays a decent amount of information. Selecting songs, artists, albums, shuffling, etc. were all easy to do. And, most importantly, the sound quality is great.
The only negative comment I have:
You have to use the remote. There are zero controls on the device itself. If you lose that remote, might as well chuck the rest of it in the trash. The same thing can be said about many competing products though.
At this price, it does everything I expected and it does it well. I'd give it five stars if it didn't rely solely on the remote.

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