Freecom is launching an internet radio and MP3 streaming device with speaker for under £90, the cheapest of its type according to the company.
The MusicPal comes with an Ethernet port and 802.11b/g Wifi supporting WPA and WPA2 encryption, a cut above many streamers that get stuck on rather insecure WEP.
If the three Watt speaker isn’t enough for your tastes (just the right volume to accompany me on my morning routines, I find) then composite and line out connections let you attach it to a bigger audio system.
My first impressions of the design and price are good – the rubber controls and comfortable to use – but I’m not convinced by the choice of internet radio server provider, vTuner.
vTuner, a list that points hardware in the direction of online audio streams, musters up 4000-5000 stations. This is far short of the 13000 I’ve seen on the Linksys Kiss 1600 and it also doesn’t have a lot of the Danish national radio stations I like, which the Noxon 2 does.
The MusicPal currently only supports MP3 and Wav audio streams, but WMA and AAC streams will come via a firmware update before Christmas according to Freecom, which may broaden the number of stations available.
