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Logitech’s Squeezebox Duet won a Best Buy award in last year’s group test of streaming audio players.
The Duet consists of a receiver with stereo phono, coaxial and optical S/PDIF outputs and a remote control with a colour screen. The remote control allows you to browse tracks from your music collection and play them through the receiver and on any other Squeezebox device connected to your network. The remote can communicate with both the SqueezeCenter server software installed on your PC and the receiver.
Squeezebox products aren’t compatible with UPnP, iTunes or SMB shares, but the open-source SqueezeCenter server software works under Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Setting it up on our wireless network was easy, and pointing the server software at our music collection was also straightforward. The controller’s iPod-style interface and scroll wheel make it easy to select tracks and connect to podcasts and internet radio stations. The Duet supports a wide range of online music services, most of which offer free trial subscriptions, while others such as Last.fm offer free as well as subscription services. The Duet can also access archive.org’s free Live Music Archive.
With both the controller and the receiver connected wirelessly, there was sometimes a delay of a couple of seconds between pressing a button on the handset to pause or skip tracks and the Squeezebox receiver responding. We found that controlling more than one receiver was unreliable when using an 802.11g wireless connection, and the Duet was nowhere near as easy to set up as the more expensive Sonos kit.
The intuitive user interface makes this receiver a joy to use, and its sound quality is excellent, but you’ll need to connect your own speakers. It’s more expensive than most streamers here, but the flexibility of the wireless remote control makes it a pleasure to use.
