Logitech Wireless Music System

Every once in a while a device comes through the office that makes us go "Wow, why didn't someone do this before". The Logitech Wireless Music System is a primary example of this. It is such a simple little device, yet it has the capability to completely change how you listen to music in your house.

Essentially this kit allows you to wirelessly transmit music from your PC to a speaker setup, be it across the room or across the house. It comes with a tiny, USB-key sized adapter that you plug into your PC and a slightly larger (but still minute) receiver that connects to your television, amplifier or speaker setup. Then all you have to do is install the software and begin streaming.

The whole setup process took us about three minutes from start to music! The receiver connects via a simple RCA connection (with the option of converting to a 3.5mm stereo jack) which means you can connect to pretty much any home entertainment device. After installing the software and rebooting our machine, the devices found each other instantly, with no tweaking necessary, and all we had to do was fire up Winamp and we were off.

Support is included for all the main audio players, including Winamp, Windows Media Player and RealPlayer, as well as all the major file formats, meaning however you typically listen to music you should be well catered for.

Some wireless systems can encounter problems with interference, but we found no such flaws with Logitech's product. Reception was crystal clear even in our office, which has enough electronic noise to disrupt a small naval fleet, so rest assured, any normal home will have no problems. The wireless connection is rated up to 100 metres which feels like overkill, but we tested it from one side of the office to the other with no problems.

The other really cool thing about this system is the infra-red remote, which allows you to control what is playing on your PC from the room containing the receiver. It gives you play, stop, track skip, volume and mute keys, everything you could ever need. Obviously it suffers the problems associated with infra-red, that is, your pointing has to be fairly accurate to get a response (no aiming the remote at the roof!), but nonetheless the remote adds the sort of flexibility that turns a good product into a great product. Imagine the implication for parties; set up three hundred tracks on your PC and hit play. You can still control everything with a remote but you don't need to risk your CDs getting damaged.