Streamium is premium

I live with a music and tech geek (and a totally crappy blog contributor). This means I get exposed to new music and gadgets without the work, but am also exposed to...how do I put this delicately?...somewhat unproven music and gadgets at times. Music is much easier to preview, so the unproven part falls largely in the category of technology. Take wireless, in-home stereo systems, for example, we've gone through the Audiotron (booo), PS3 (yay) and, as of last week, the Streamium (super yay).

[Quick Addendum . 08/20/09: What is a wireless, in-home stereo system? It is a piece of hardware that can play music over a wireless network, perhaps from a subscription service (Rhapsody, et al.) or off a main home computer over a wireless router. The resident tech geek set up our home computer to house all our music, but without a wireless system the music could only be played through the computer. Throw the wireless stereo into the mix and now the music is played in any room the stereo resides (within the wireless network, of course).]

The Audiotron took a degree in computer science to hook up and still had numerous flaws. The Playstation 3 has a music feature built-in and was a surprisingly great solution for streaming music, but not portable (you need to hook it up to a TV at the very least or TV and speakers). The Streamium looked to provide a musical solution for our kitchen, office, bedroom and all other locations our heart's desired. Having run it through the gauntlet in the kitchen, here is my official verdict:

Pros	Cons
- Portable	- Big cord and adapter
- Insanely fast setup - so easy!	- Buffering between songs causes a small pause
- Compact design
- Search capabilities
- Good sound
- Wireless

Overall the Streamium has been a great purchase - I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Overall I give my music and tech geek 4.8 out of 5 (slight deduction for not blogging about this himself).

[Addendum . 09/03/09: The Streamium gets lugged around the house more frequently than a purse dog in Southern California. It has been a great investment.]