Was looking for a solution for casual listening of ‘internet radio’ and my music collection for our nice living room that would be smaller and better looking than my audio leftovers. Part of the challenge was trying to ‘fill’ this rather large open concept space. Gladly the UE Smart Radio (a feature packed modern clock radio) has worked out very well:
Small; easy to setup (even for me); intuitive in use; unobtrusive; wireless option (of course); supports MP3, FLAC, WAV, AIFF, WMA, Ogg, Vorbis, AAC, ALAC formats from your computer; smart phone apps available; 3.5 mm input; plenty loud enough for our use; and provides decent sound quality on its own (can add powered/active speakers via the 3.5 mm headphone jack). According to Nature Boy (thanks again) sound quality via the headphone jack is good. PSB Alpha PS1 would be a good match in terms of size, glossy black curved looks, and subwoofer output option but don’t see the need to add speakers for low level/background listening. Within range of your wireless router it’s even portable for up to 6 hours from the battery.
For $100, it’s cheap enough (better equipped than Airport Express). Friendly to use; compact; respectable sound quality that is upgradable; with lots of online music service options (Pandora, Spotify, Last.fm, mog, Tunein, Slacker, Rhapsody, etc.) it also hits my cheerful button too.
