The freecom Musicpal is an affordable internet radio which supports the WMA format and can be connected to WLAN or LAN. It’s available from Januari 2007 for about €130. I have been looking for an internet compatible radio because I don’t like to keep a computer powered on just to listen to the radio and I wanted something which could be used in the kitchen and bathroom as well.
The Good Side
So let’s review it after a week of usage. On the bright side, it worked perfectly straight out of the box. All I had to do was connect the power plug, wait for the boot up sequence, choose my router from the list and enter the password. After that, I had access to about 4000 internet radio stations from all over the world.
The radio is able to display your favourite RSS data stream so you can keep up to date on the latest gadgets or news. When playing songs, the data of the current or next song can be displayed instead (when transmitted by the radio station)
It’s an alarm clock which allows you to set a fixed alarm time on the days you want (for example on weekdays, but not in the weekend). The display is quite big and easy to read when placed on a bedside stand. Even when the power is switched off, a faint white glow will make the time readable at night.
There are instructions provided on the accompanying CD to turn your home ciomputer into a music server so that the radio can access your MP3 files remotely. This worked without any problems on my acer laptop with Vista basic edition. Some of my favourite podcasts like the BBC documentary archive were in the MP3 format as well, so the radio could stream them from within my iTunes directory once I got the windows media player to look for music there. (it won’t play the apple tracks though as they are in a different format)
The Bad Side
So what’s the downside then? Well, the radio has plenty of room, but for some unintelligible reason an external adapter is used. This means that even when the radio is switched off, it still draws a little power. This seems to happen with more and more devices these days and it’s a waste of power, annoying when you move the device from one room to another and les safe than a real switch to cut off the mains supply. Because the power unit is external, the mausicpal weighs very little and when you press the buttons it slides along the table so you have to hold it with your other hand or put it with its back against something heavy.
The sound quality from the internal speaker is mediocre. Compared to my favourite radio the Tivoli Audio Model One, there is a distinct lack of bass. It sounds more like a €25 cheap radio set. The volume range goes from 0 to 100, but it does so in steps of 5. This means that you have 20 volume levels with the lowest one beeing a mute and anything above 60 causes the internal speaker to be overdriven. The first level (5%) is a bit too loud for late time bedside music as well. The good side is that the speaker does not produce any hiss and the typical compression effects of low bandwith radio is masked very well. There is a line out connection, so it’s possible to disable the internal speaker and connect the decoded audio stream directly to a more performant system. In this light, the internal speaker should be seen more as an add-on to make the unit portable instead of a high-end music system. For good quality sound, you definitely need an extra amplifier and speakers.
This is also the first radio with a boot up time. From plugging in to the mains power to the first sound takes a good ten seconds. Which seems a lot longer when you’re waiting next to it to choose your desired radio station.
The BBC World service is by default not available, but there is a workaround possible. Edit the favourites list on the radio by downloading it to your pc and adding
#EXTINF:-1,BBC
http://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/shoutcast-playlist.pls?rn=6703&file=filename.pls
Save the file and upload it to your radio. You will now be able to listen to the BBC world service.
Conclusion
I do like the radio and for a reasonable price it offers an excellent wireless internet radio reception. I don’t like the volume control, speaker and external transformer though, but when attached to a home stereo system (which has it’s own switched power out) the disadvantages disappear. Fair enough, it’s good enough to listen to when you are working or concentrating on something else. For true high quality music, consider it as an alternate input source, rather than a complete system.
Follow Up
I’ve been using the radio for over a month now and I must admit that I’ve become quite atteched to it. The sound quality is great when connected to my tivoli model one or sony surround system and I move the radio from room to room with me for listening to the goon show when taking a relaxing bath.
Update May 2008
The radio updated itself this month and now it can play the BBC stations without having to go trough the workaround. Even BBC7 comedy is included! There is now even support for text-display of websites so that you can read your favourite news (or whatever you need updates on) on the radio itself.
Update October 2008
The radio updated itself once again with new channels and even though I lost the goonshowradio in 16 kbps, I was able to add it by surfing to the site with the musicpal and can now listen to it in 64kbps. I really do love this radio. (And it’s the only Linux machine which I don’t have problems with.)
