WiFi 04 : Sangean WFR-20

I've had the Sangean WFR-20 a couple of days now and I'm beginning to find my way around the thing.

In many respects it compares well to the Noxon iRadio, particularly in terms of sound quality and volume, but in some areas it is either lacking or I just haven't figured how to do it.

The Sangean was quite easy to get up and going. On initial turn-on the unit first of all updated its station list, then searched for any firmware update. The menu, although tortuous, is still rather easier than the Noxon's and the display, while not state-of-the-art, looks a lot better than the Noxon's clunky blue screen. The remote though is not as competent.

The unit also found my wireless network music server - TwonkyMedia - quite easily and navigating through the tree is once again quite simple using the single knob on the front rather than figuring out which button does what on the remote. The radio happily plays the usual formats including .flac, but is not capable of playing .ogg which puts it at a disadvantage to the Noxon which can, and although it can't directly play .flac it does work with TwonkyMedia's .flac transcoder.

Where I have yet to get any success is getting the unit to play my wlan's music stream. I'm not sure if it's a deficiency on my part or the radio's but whichever, it's a big issue for me. *sorted here

The Noxon has the advantage of showing up on the local network as a network device. As such it also has a device webpage which enables the manual input of radio streams in addition to the ones already available at its web radio gateway - vTuner - the Sangean uses Reciva. This means it's possible to input the address of a local network stream, in my case operated via SHOUTcast server. As yet I haven't figured out how to do this for the Sangean, or if indeed, it's actually possible.

Generally, I'm very pleased. The unit does 90% of what I want very well indeed. However, the .ogg codec issue and the inability to play music streamed on my wlan are a significant downside.

Internet radio devices still have a way to go.

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*See my hifi / media index here.

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WiFi 03 : Music Server

Despite the disappointment with the Sangean WFR-20 so far, one of the past year's best buys has been the Noxon iRadio.

Apart from its obvious use as an internet radio, it also has a talent for playing music streamed across your wlan and can even act as a music server along with your digitised music collection.

The free server software associated with the iRadio has the rather odd name of TwonkyMedia but is quite easy to set up and doesn't really need any further explanation from me. However, as with streaming, a large percentage of my collection is in .flac format, a codec the iRadio cannot play.

When streaming music across the wlan this problem is dealt with by the ShoutCast server which transcodes all formats into either .mp3 or .aac which the iRadio recognises. However, when using it as a server the raw files are broadcast out and when the iRadio encounters a .flac file ... silence.

There used to be a TwonkyMedia transcoder application, but examining the latest version - 4.4.5 - it's not clear if transcoding works with it, and the files don't seem to be available on the website any more.

However, I'm still using TwonkyMedia 4.4.2 which seems perfectly adequate and the .flac transcoder files are archived here and just need unpacking and placing into your Program Files/TwonkyMedia/cgi-bin folder for the iRadio to be able to play .flac files. HTH.

That still leaves the question of .ogg and .ape formats. There are instances of people getting .ogg to play over the iRadio. As for .ape I'm not so sure. However, I only have very few files in these formats, and it's not really worth the effort at the moment unless a solution falls into my lap.

To be honest, the server navigation on the iRadio is pretty clunky but it does work. Sound is surprisingly good through headphones given a reasonable source file.

When my hifi is permanently set up I intend to move on to something like SqueezeBox to provide a link to my digital collection and leave devices such as the iRadio, and hopefully, the Sangean to provide internet radio facility around the house.

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*See my hifi index here.

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WiFi 02 : Streaming

There are a couple of choices when it comes to using your WiFi internet radio to play your music collection; running a music server and streaming audio. The Noxon iRadio can do either.

I use streaming to play a random selection of my music library across our home wifi network. It's possible to listen to the stream via a computer on the wlan as well as a device such as a wifi radio.

Probably the easiest way of doing this is to use WinAmp and its associated SHOUTcast software.

Installing WinAmp is straight forward enough. There are possibly better music and media players, but WinAmp is reasonably easy to set up as a streaming application.

In addition you need the SHOUTCast DSP plugin for WinAmp and SHOUTcast Server. Both come with instructions on how to associate with WinAmp. The plugin is activated from WinAmp's options menu, but the server requires a little setting up via a .txt file. The settings are all fully explained in the file, but do require careful reading.

The advantage of streaming in this way is that you can play any music file format you like - or at least have the WinAmp codec for - despite the fact that the iRadio will only play a limited number of formats. For example, the iRadio will not play .flac or .ape files, but WinAmp/SHOUTcast transcodes the stream into an .mp3, or in my case, AAC+/48kbps format for the iRadio to play.

The disadvantage of streaming is that it is not possible to effect a choice of what's played through the iRadio. The music is directed by WinAmp's playlist. However, it does mean that from time to time you rediscover the little gems hidden away in your music collection.

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*See my hifi index here.

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