MYINE IRA Internet Radio - Review - How 88 USD Can Change your Life

[psychotropic]

Virtually everyone on this forum knows how internet radio works, and how standalone internet radio devices work, but for the few who don't, here's a small layman's description.

Think of it as Worldspace, but with 11,000 stations instead of 36. And ZERO rupees subscription per year, as opposed to 1200 rupees.

What you need - Broadband connection (i have 512 kbps and it;s sufficient) and Wi Fi.

The MYINE IRA cost me 88 USD on amazon (friend picked it up in the US). It works exactly as advertised. The device is small and compact, takes 5 minutes to setup, even a 5-year old can do it without glancing at the manual. The display is readable but not large enough to read from a distance. It has stereo RCA outs but no headphone out or digital out (or built in speakers). But on the plus side it seems to have a nice DAC inside, because the sound is very impressive. Better than the ipods of the world.

It sits two rooms away from my router, shows only 1 or maximum 2 bars of signal, but works flawlessly. Each station takes about 10 seconds to load, which is perfectly fine, and then it's just music!

I've listened to a jazz station from Norway, a classic rock station from south bend indiana, a regga station, a hip-hop station from germany, a japanese jazz-electronica station. It's incredible the variety of content that is available.

Yes many stations are low bit-rate and the fussiest of you audiophiles will whine, but hey radio is all about the spirit of radio, of someone else playing the songs.....it's gloriously fun.

For 88 USD this is the best gadget purcahse I have made since my Topping TP20. If you like music and have wi fi at home, I don't think you should think twice about this. Go out and buy it.

And to those who will definitely ask, I did look at the squeezebox. I only wanted internet radio, and this was cheap, good looking and had good reviews Yes options are available from Aluratek and Grace, and I've looked at them as well. This one sounded like it was simple, non-fussy and did exactly what I needed it to, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[server3249]

Is this different from internet radio channels on Winamp?

 

[srinisundar]

I agree with your review and there is no contention for that...

Why to invest 88USD to hear the internet broadcasted radio station alone ? If you own an media player(xtreamer or some other) it will have enough list of internet radio station streamed freely and it serves more than one purpose. Your software inbuilt in the HTPC/PC have this facility..The purpose of Free is getting void here by using the 88USD gadget.

A man is made for multipurpose and the gadgets what we buy should be multipurpose too and not an dedicated one.

Only in Matrix, all are made for an purpose:lol:

 

[psychotropic]

hey server, these are the same channels avaiable on your computer

@srini - you underestimate the power of a purpose-built device! a device like this

(a) makes the use of, and access to radio much easier than with an HTPC or x-treamer, i don't want to switch on my comp and wait for it to boot or switch on my TV, and flip through several options to finally get around to listening to the radio. i want to press a button and for music to flow. That's what this does. Trust me this is important (at least to me). You'll end up listening to it much more. And also I understand that the x-treamer and such things sound quite poor, this thing actually sounds decent.

(b) by its very existence in your room as a dedicated internet radio player, demands to be played if you have an xtreamer or HTPC you won't feel the same urge to fire it up and find that jazz station broadcasting from Oslo. Again, this is a far more powerful force than you would imagine.

Of course, I come from a "don't want to get my hands grubby" school of though, I want push-button simplicity, which is why I still use a CD player (pop disc and press play simplicity) and not a computer based transport, and I still buy CDs. So this is a device that works especially well for people like that.

 

[gobble]

There is something about HTPCs that makes them really kludgy to use - unless you roll your own linux purpose built to do just one thing with a fanless board and a tiny touch screen and dial without mouse+keyboard.

 

[server3249]

hey server, these are the same channels avaiable on your computer

@srini - you underestimate the power of a purpose-built device! a device like this

(a) makes the use of, and access to radio much easier than with an HTPC or x-treamer, i don't want to switch on my comp and wait for it to boot or switch on my TV, and flip through several options to finally get around to listening to the radio. i want to press a button and for music to flow. That's what this does. Trust me this is important (at least to me). You'll end up listening to it much more. And also I understand that the x-treamer and such things sound quite poor, this thing actually sounds decent.

(b) by its very existence in your room as a dedicated internet radio player, demands to be played if you have an xtreamer or HTPC you won't feel the same urge to fire it up and find that jazz station broadcasting from Oslo. Again, this is a far more powerful force than you would imagine.

Of course, I come from a "don't want to get my hands grubby" school of though, I want push-button simplicity, which is why I still use a CD player (pop disc and press play simplicity) and not a computer based transport, and I still buy CDs. So this is a device that works especially well for people like that.

Thanks for confirming it. Such a device wouldn't make much sense for me. My computer is always on so there's no lag in firing up internet radio. Actually I don't listen to much music nowadays- more of TV shows and movies. WD TV would be more useful for me, but I think it lacks wifi.

 

[psychotropic]

this is the platform that it uses. vTuner Internet Radio

 

[asliarun]

I agree with your review and there is no contention for that...

Why to invest 88USD to hear the internet broadcasted radio station alone ? If you own an media player(xtreamer or some other) it will have enough list of internet radio station streamed freely and it serves more than one purpose. Your software inbuilt in the HTPC/PC have this facility..The purpose of Free is getting void here by using the 88USD gadget.

A man is made for multipurpose and the gadgets what we buy should be multipurpose too and not an dedicated one.

Only in Matrix, all are made for an purpose:lol:

You can buy a high-end smartphone with a 5MP camera, or you can buy a mid-end phone and a separate 5MP camera. Both strategies have their merits and demerits. One is not necessarily better than the other. Personally, I am in psychotropic's camp - I rather prefer discrete devices that do one job and do it well, as opposed to highly integrated devices.

One more thing: Not all, but many people using media players are using it to view pirated movies. I'm not prescribing any kind of morality, but I do feel a sense of discomfort when people are increasingly talking about the hundreds of gigabytes (and even terabytes!) of blueray movies that they have downloaded. In my humble opinion, that is colossal wastage of internet bandwidth and tilting the symbiotic balance too much into the parasitic side of things.

Sorry for the offtopic rant, don't mean to derail this thread.

I wish I knew of this device before I recently bought the Squeezebox Classic.

 

[server3249]

You can buy a high-end smartphone with a 5MP camera, or you can buy a mid-end phone and a separate 5MP camera. Both strategies have their merits and demerits. One is not necessarily better than the other. Personally, I am in psychotropic's camp - I rather prefer discrete devices that do one job and do it well, as opposed to highly integrated devices.

One more thing: Not all, but many people using media players are using it to view pirated movies. I'm not prescribing any kind of morality, but I do feel a sense of discomfort when people are increasingly talking about the hundreds of gigabytes (and even terabytes!) of blueray movies that they have downloaded. In my humble opinion, that is colossal wastage of internet bandwidth and tilting the symbiotic balance too much into the parasitic side of things.

Sorry for the offtopic rant, don't mean to derail this thread.

I wish I knew of this device before I recently bought the Squeezebox Classic.

Personally I download mostly TV shows that are not shown in India, or are shown in the wrong order (i.e. they suddenly start in season 4). And now that I have NGC and Discovery in HD, I don't need to download documentary types any more..

 

[GeorgeO]

Yes indeed-internet radio is a great thing..

 

[maniac_2004]

What you need - Broadband connection (i have 512 kbps and it;s sufficient) and Wi Fi.

Hi Psycho,
what is the net usage(MBs) for a typical session of listening?

Regards

 

[psychotropic]

i have no idea. i have an unlimited connection so i may not jump through the requisite hoops to find out either . Is there a simple way to find out though?

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

A man is made for multipurpose and the gadgets what we buy should be multipurpose too and not an dedicated one.

I bought my Squeezebox Duet for the dedicated purpose of connecting the PC to the HiFi. Wire is a better and much cheaper way but, even though they are in the same room, it is not physically possible here, as opposed to my old house, where I had analogue and digital in and out connected.

What I did not realise until after buying it was that it was also a stand-alone internet radio, requiring only the router, not the PC, to be running.

Mostly, I do not use it that way, but it is neat that I can if I want.

It was about five times the price of this item :sad:

 

[Dushie]

i am interested in picking up this device, saw that it is for 91$ on amazon, if anyone is coming from US, let me know.

 

[rydhun]

Great review, psychotropic and good to know the device is performing well. I had also considered Myine in my search for an Internet radio solution (details here: http://www.hifivision.com/reviews/9761-logitech-squeezebox-duet.html), but decided to go for Squeezebox. Had 1 question: Does Myine have a universal voltage adapter?

Hi Psycho,
what is the net usage(MBs) for a typical session of listening?

Regards

I tried to monitor usage for a few days with the Squeezebox Duet, and found it was consuming about 200-200MB per day, and we listen to it for about 9-10 hours. Please use that just a rough ballpark, since I did see some variations on other days and I didn't monitor my usage very finely! There's also some control data flowing too which would be more for Squeezebox since some of their menus run off their website.

i have no idea. i have an unlimited connection so i may not jump through the requisite hoops to find out either . Is there a simple way to find out though?

To check daily usage:
1. You can log on to Airtel website, select the broadband account, click on Account Information> View Unbilled Detail, it'll show you the data usage per day. Compare usage for two typical days, and one of those days, don't use the Radio (I know it's difficult ).
2. Some wireless routers also have a logging option, you could assign a static IP to your radio, turn on logging for a day and filter by that IP address to get bandwidth consumption for the device.

Cheers!
-rydhun

 

[pnreddy]

The MYINE IRA cost me 88 USD on amazon (friend picked it up in the US). It works exactly as advertised. The device is small and compact, takes 5 minutes to setup, even a 5-year old can do it without glancing at the manual. The display is readable but not large enough to read from a distance. It has stereo RCA outs but no headphone out or digital out (or built in speakers). But on the plus side it seems to have a nice DAC inside, because the sound is very impressive. Better than the ipods of the world.

Could you please let me know what are the output cables required to hook it up your hifi system.

Thanks

 

[psychotropic]

hey rydhun, like i said, i have an unlimited connection, so I doubt I'll get around to checking

and mr. reddy, you connect it by way of stereo RCA cable, an example of which is provided with the unit.

 

[rydhun]

Hey psychotropic, could you please answer my question on voltage too, Please. Thanks in advance!

 

[pnreddy]

hey rydhun, like i said, i have an unlimited connection, so I doubt I'll get around to checking

and mr. reddy, you connect it by way of stereo RCA cable, an example of which is provided with the unit.

Dear Psycho,
Please drop the Mr. We are all informal in this forum. Thanks for the prompt reply.

If any other members are interested in importing this I would like to join in.

Thanks

 

[psychotropic]

hey rydhun, sorry about that omission. i never even thought about the voltage aspect, and hey, it's working perfectly into my household power socket so i assume it's universal.

and pnreddy, i'll drop the mr.