Philips WACS7500/37 Streamium Wireless 80 GB Hard Disk 80 Watt RMS Music System

5 comments

1. 

   Bakers Biscuit on March 14, 2010 at 1:27 am

   I just purchased this item from Tiger Direct for $175.00. Unfortunately a day and a half later I will be returning it. I am a technophile and have quite a bit of knowledge with the latest gadgets but I can’t seem to get this thing to work properly.

   I was really sold on the price tag but after listening to both units for an entire day I am unimpressed. The sound quality is good for the small unit but nothing like I can’t get from my standard shelf unit. The Philips product has nice bass but if I paid 1000 bucks for this I would have been extremely disappointed with the sound.

   * The biggest frustration lies with the connection that I’ve been trying to get with the Streamium website. I’ve already received at least a dozen emails from the website (all the same) telling me that I have either successfully registered or that I need to complete my registration. as I follow the link to the broken website I can easily get caught up for an hour just trying to navigate through the website all to the same result.
   
   *I downloaded all of the proper files from the included disk but time after time my system does not recognize either Philips station which means I cannot upload any of my music to the Philips stations nor can I listen to internet radio (the two biggest reasons for purchase)
   
   * the center station has an unusual “popping” during play of music on the hard drive.
   
   * the menu’s are painfully slow on the philips units. Sometimes taking me to error messages that take several seconds to display with no way of backtracking immediately or even going to the Home screen until the message has been displayed.
   
   * The main remote control is broken. I believe it is stuck in the “up” key. which renders it completely useless. This is probably just my problem but I very rarely purchase an electronic item that is broken right out of the box.
   
   * Remote controls for the Philips units have several non user-friendly keys. there is a set of keys that form a circle to move up, down, and sideways but this key will not let you scroll – you will need to use the “scroll” key for that. yes, there is actually a scroll key – WTF?
   
   * Instructions are difficult to follow and there are many functions that are very technical. The problem with the technical instructions is that they are worded just as the basic instructions are – with the assumption that the user understands all terminology associated.
   
   * I don’t know if this technology will last very long but I wanted to jump on the price that I received. At the 200+ dollar price tag (tax and free shipping included)I don’t’ know that this unit has a lot of value. I will be looking for something that will allow me to listen to the internet from my shelf unit.

   I suspect that Philips is trying to move this product. Look on eBay for better pricing but I think if you wait a few more months you may be able to get a killer deal on this product. If you’re lucky you can get my unit on Tiger Direct under the “open box” category. Good Luck.

2. 

   Lena A. Iacono on March 14, 2010 at 4:10 am

   I love this product. I down loaded all my CDs and I have continuous music all day and night long. Great for parties. Although I haven’t read the complete booklet yet, I am wondering why one unit is playing a different song then the other unit.

3. 

   anthonyg on March 14, 2010 at 5:35 am

   I got this device, but not the pair of devices, about a year ago. Overall it’s nice for bedroom-filling sound in a very attractive package, but…

   There is the unit that comes with the hard drive and allow you to rip music or load music to it, as well as play wireless music from your UPnP enabled computer/ server. There is also the unit that comes w/o the hard drive. I got the one w/o the hard drive somewhere else, even though the guy who sold it to me “thought” it was the one with the hard drive. He was confused and so was I… just reading the description for this item, I think Amazon is selling both devices for this price, which is reasonable.

   I also should state that I got the smaller Philips NP1100/37 to add to the house music experience. The NP1100 does not come with speakers – just a wireless device that has a readable screen from several feet away, although a small and slightly clumsy remote to use. What I do like about the 1100 that I want to mention is that it connected to the internet when I installed it and downloaded the latest firmware almost effortlessly and with little help from me. Great feature! The WACS I have had nearly a year has never done that and it’s not enabled to do that, even though it’s the pricier model. In fact, I didn’t know there is a firmware update for it until I went to find out myself. The firmware update process for the bigger unit requires a PC to be involved and extra software on the PC and it takes longer. The web browser also crashes during the update, so it took me a few tries before I got it right and figured out the whole process on my own.

   So now that I have the firmware update I can write a better review, although not much better. Although the design of the device is very nice and the sound is excellent for it’s size, the screen on the WACS is way too small to read from more than a few feet away. I have to be right on top of it to see the music I want or the playlists. Additionally, my device will not display ID3 tagging information not matter what I do. Song title – but not the ID3 tagging information. The newer 1100 I bought does – this one doesn’t. This is immensely disappointing considering how much I paid for it.

   Another thing to pick on is it’s wireless abilities. I have two wireless access points in the house – it’s a big house and with wireless it makes sense for coverage. When I move the device around the house it’s going to get a stronger signal from one or the other, so I go into the menu to change to the other SSID. When I switch SSIDs and then try to move the device back to the other room, it’s ‘forgotten’ the password to the first wireless AP. Have to enter it again. Pain in the neck to have to do that, you know?

   Looks and design and sounds are great for this thing, but what’s under the hood needs vast improvements to justify the price for this thing. I don’t own the one with the 80GB hard drive, but 80gbs? Gimme a break. Cheaper and better to get 120gb or even 200. Enthusiasts are the ones looking for devices like this, and they’re not going to be content with a measly 80gbs.

4. 

   Mark on March 14, 2010 at 7:12 am

   I bought the WACS7500 because the compact shape of the unit and the remote station were a good fit with my personal environment. I’m not an audio expert; I have no issues with the quality of the speakers. The unit sounds great loud and has decent bass for its size.

   My problem with the WACS7500 (and probably with other Streamium products) is the lack of accurate documentation on how to use and set up the product and how to use the Club Philips website to manage and activate certain features, such as Internet radio and feature updates. I had to muddle through the set-up process with the help of an online Streamium user forum.

   In summary, I don’t recommend this product unless you are comfortable with ambiguous and incomplete product instructions. Otherwise, it is a nice wireless streaming music machine.

5. 

   Szekeres, Tibor Gyorgy on March 14, 2010 at 9:42 am

   here is the Philips link : http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/en/us/consumer/cc/_categoryid_WIRELESS_MUSIC_SYSTEMS_SU_US_CONSUMER/

   I bought the WAC7500/12 as it is called in Europe for about a 1,000 EUR or about $1280, so the $800+ price is good.

   Philips is a hardware company. This is a software product. I was never impressed with Philips software in the past witness the HDD 120 – no software upgrade for years and living with a crude interface and many little bugs. To top it, the WAC7500 software was written in China, or so it seems. The Chinese are great gadgeteers but in software they are still in the times of the Ming Dynasty. And it shows. The system is full of little bugs, which could be annoying. It is no accident that the iPOD is a winner, Apple is a software company.

   The management interface accessed via a browser is crude, sort of half done as one would expect it from Philips after a while. Their website is trash, haphazard attention is paid to updates, sometimes just don’t work. Lately though they paying attention to it. I had little problems with Inet radio but it seem to work.

   The hardware itself is first class. I was going to build some like the WAC7500 had I not found it already made. Speakers are great, remotes (there are two of them) are Ok. The remote with a display is weird, it lacks some of the features of the one without display.

   The main unit called Center Station, can and should be managed from a PC. In order to connect to the PC you need to turn off all, I mean all, security firewalls even certain VPN software security policies.

   Features are great. But it really needs a software update in the whole number category (x.0 I mean) where they fix feature cross compatibility – these are basic design issues. See the link for more detail on features.

   For CD database they use Gracenote. I like freedb.org. In general they should open the box for compatibility, else they aren’t going to sell many. This is really a techie toy. Neatly fits into the mp3, iPOD, Inet radio, WI-HIFI, software based music world. So if you’re not ready to fool around with a little technology don’t buy it. Else it is a great toy though a bit expensive.

   peritter@hotmailcom