A few weeks go I finally got fed up of picking out which music to listen to. I don’t have the biggest music library, and since I moved back to Windows, I have been at a loss to find something that displays it in a way conducive to listening to all my tracks. (Somehow, Amarok on Linux did that job very well. Awesome player.) As a result, I started using Pandora, and really liked it. At first it played my “seed” songs too much, but a little nudging caused it to branch out, and now I have a couple of really enjoyable stations with a good variety of music.
Now for the inevitable problem: my computer is loud and it’s a waste of energy and a distraction to turn it on to listen to music. The solution: listen to Pandora on a stand-alone device. As a secondary requirement, I wanted a device with an iPod dock, since I have felt a similar problem with not being able to listen to the iPod.
The only device I found out there was the Grace Digital Audio IR3020. It has quite a bit more features than my basic requirements; it plays Sirius radio over the internet (with a subscription), Pandora, iPod, any of a number of streams (podcasts, terrestrial radio over the internet), and music files shared over your local network. You can also set an alarm clock and a sleep timer. It has a remote, and you can set 99 presets (haven’t explored that feature).
Out of curiosity and interest, I have tested most of those features, except for the podcasts (although I’m checking it out now), and the Sirius. Here are some thoughts on each of them and the device.
- Pandora. Works as advertised. All your stations show up in a list, and you bookmark, thumbs up or down, and skip tracks. The Quickmix is available, but you can’t select which stations go into the quickmix (I’m not sure if your configuration from the website holds over.) The big downside is the remote is completely ineffective for this. They don’t have the “Reply” button on the remote, and so you can’t give feedback or skip tracks.
- iPod. You can navigate with the iPod wheel to pick music as usual. Similar to Pandora, you can’t really control the iPod with the remote. Shockingly, I couldn’t even change tracks; I could fast forward and pause. Unlike the radio stations, you can’t set iPod as a preset, so you have to be able to see the screen to play the iPod.
- Streaming Radio. Thousands of stations from around the world are available to stream, and you can add them to your player through the website. This web-config option is one of the coolest things. Change a setting on the internet, and the option appears on the player. This doesn’t have many controls, so there’s nothing the remote can’t do.
- Network Music. I actually did not expect this feature; it can play music from a Windows share, as well as from a Universal Plug’n'Play server. I haven’t been able to get the former to work (very frustrating!), but Windows Media Player 11 sets up the latter with ease, and if my computer is on, I can access my entire library through the radio. And to really placate me, it allows you to navigate through your music either by artist, etc. according to the ID3 tags, or through the filesystem. I am really organized, so the latter is generally a very good choice for me. If you have a home media server, this would be a really sweet feature.
- In general, the interface is very poor. I have harped on how the remote doesn’t really do anything. The turn-wheel on the front of the player, used to navigate menus and make selections, has so much resistance that when you try to push it, you slide the radio across the table. The screen is too small for its functionality–showing only 3 lines of information and a line of status–so you are constantly scrolling and discovering easter eggs because you didn’t know certain menu items exist!
- It has both an ethernet jack and a wireless b/g antenna. It was a little annoying entering the 16-digit (or however long) key for the router in there using the scroll wheel, but it was a one-time exercise. One cool thing is that it sets the time automatically when you get online, so it pays you back in effort right there.
- For completeness, I’ll tell you that it (apparently) has 2 20-watt speakers, RCA and headphone out. The equalizer has a half-dozen presets.
Overall, it is a very good device. It meets your needs, but on its terms. That, of course, is the story of consumer electronics.
