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We love iTunes, but confining all our best music files to the computer room is as cruel as awarding Nobel Prize winners with jail time (even if it's at a "country club" prison). We want to set our music free, and the SoundBridge does the job, playing our iTunes library from a Mac in any room in the house, courtesy of a wired or wireless network. We just connected it to our entertainment system receiver, and it played through those speakers. Aside from a few requests and interface issues, the SoundBridge was everything we wanted.
We tested the M1000. (The $500 M2000 is the same except for a larger, 12-inch display.) The cylindrical SoundBridge rolled around during setup until placed in the included cradle. Although initially this seemed flimsy, they actually fit together well, and this design allowed us to rotate the angle of the display for the best view. We plugged into an RCA-jack sound system--it's also capable of digital coaxial and optical SPDIF output--and then connected it to the Ethernet network. It automatically configured itself on our DHCP setup and connected to a basement G4 running iTunes. We also tested the bundled Wi-Fi card after sliding it into the SoundBridge. This wireless connection found the network and walked us through a few steps to configure passwords.
Using either connection, we navigated through the interface and music library with the included remote. The remote's refreshingly limited number of buttons mastered all of the important controls. Four arrow buttons navigated menus; Play, Pause, Forward, and Reverse controlled songs; and among a few others, Add, Shuffle and Repeat managed playlists.)
We learned the interface fairly quickly, but some of its nuances were unexpected and unwelcome. After navigating to a song or album, the Play button doesn't start the music. Instead, we had to hit Select through two screens. While the Web-browsing model of back- and forward-buttons would have worked well on the remote's left- and rightbuttons, we instead had to hit Exit to go back, and there was no automatic way to return to the last page. (The left- and right-buttons were used mostly for scrolling by letter in long lists.)
Still, there was a lot more to like about the interface than to complain about, and we easily got AAC, MP3, WAV and AIFF songs thumping. (Other formats and a few different features are available with the unsupported, open-source SlimServer at www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads. html.) The music sounded great with the full range of audio reproduced by our living-room speakers. We couldn't play purchased iTunes Music Store songs (because Apple won't license its FairPlay digital rights management system to other companies), but all of our other playlists, songs and favorite Internet radio stations were available. The ability to queue tracks stood out as one of the best features; we started one song and kept adding to the SoundBridge's playlist for uninterrupted audio. The music never skipped or stuttered.
The SoundBridge performed its most important task--playing music--flawlessly, but we would have liked a few more features. It worked on our network, but it couldn't take manual IP and network information; you may have setup headaches if using an atypical network. Also, once it connected, we had to choose one library and couldn't cull songs from multiple Macs concurrently. Roku says that the SoundBridge is officially licensed by Apple to work with iTunes, but the last-played information for a song didn't update in iTunes, and music couldn't be activated directly from iTunes. Also, we couldn't fastforward or -rewind a song that was playing.
The SoundBridge is one of the best network music players we have used. Its features aren't perfect, but its rock-solid performance and smooth playback compensate amply.
-ZACK STERN
SOUNDBRIDGE M1000: 
Roku | www.rokulabs.com | 888-600-7658 | $250
Pros: Bug-free playback, works with iTunes, AAC support, digital audio-out.
Cons: Minor interface flaws, doesn't play iTunespurchased songs, no manual setup.
Requires: iTunes 4.0 or later (OS 10.1.5, 400MHz G3 or faster, 128MB RAM), Ethernet or AirPort (802.11b-compatible) network
macHOME recommends: Same
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