It's hard to review the Squeezebox Duet without comparing it to the Sonos system, current ruler of this class of products.
Since there are already many excellent reviews, I thought I would focus on a comparison of the two, to help you decide which system best fits your needs.
Controller
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Both controllers are responsive, pleasant to hold and operate. They are well built, and their LCD screen of excellent quality and easy to read.
Squeezebox: thin, light, easy to operate with one hand, excellent battery life, battery is user-replaceable, comes with charging stand. It also features an infrared blaster and a headphones port, which will be supported at some point in the future (although Logitech makes no promises there have been demonstrations of prototype firmware using both features), as well as a 3D accelerometer (yes, like a Wii remote).
Sonos: bulkier, designed for two-handed operation, battery life could be better, battery is not user-replaceable, charging stand optional.
Networking
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I did not compare the two systems in the same location, but they both operate well with a range sufficient for most medium-size houses.
Sonos: uses proprietary mesh networking that requires to plug one of the players into the wired LAN. Other players act as repeaters.
Squeezebox: uses standard 802.11g networking. Can hook up to an existing wireless network, or the player can be used as an access point for the remote.
Players
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Sonos offers two players: the ZP100 has a built-in amplifier and the ZP80 doesn't (but it offers a digital output missing from the ZP100). Both players feature an Ethernet hub and an audio input.
Squeezebox: on top of the inexpensive player bundled with the Duet, the Squeezebox system is also capable of controlling all other Squeezebox devices (excluding the first generation models).
Audio quality is comparable, although audiophiles may be attracted by the compatibility with the Squeezebox Transporter.
Server
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This is where both systems differ radically. Sonos connects to existing SMB shares whereas Squeezebox requires that you install and run the SqueezeCenter server on your computer. SqueezeCenter is open source and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Sonos: less intrusive, no software to install, works happily off a lowly NAS. But: if your music collection is larger than 30,000 tracks, you may hit the limit of the indexing capabilities, a problem with no easy workaround.
Squeezebox: requires simple installation of server software, so you have to have a computer always on. Server is too CPU-intensive to run properly on a low-power NAS such as the D-Link DNS-323
Internet radio
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Sonos: Napster, Rhapsody, Audible, eMusic, Zune Marketplace, Sirius, Pandora, all configurable from the controller
Squeezebox: Rhapsody, MP3Tunes Locker, Radio IO, RadioTime, Slacker, Live365, SHOUTcast, Sirius, most must be configured and authorized from a computer using the SqueezeCenter web interface.
Support
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Both companies offer spectacular support through their on-line forums.
Summary
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Price: Squeezebox. A three-zone Sonos system will cost you about twice as much as a three zone Squeezebox system.
Capabilities: tie
Ease of setup: Sonos
Ease of use/WAF: Sonos. The Squeezebox interface is beautiful, but Sonos is more logically organized and simpler.
So, should you get Sonos or Squeezebox? It depends. Both systems are excellent.
If you're a tinkerer and want a solid, inexpensive system, the Squeezebox is for you. If you don't mind the added cost, want the best, simplest, friendliest user interface around, Sonos is still the ticket.
One thing is for sure: Sonos finally has some serious competition. Logitech Squeezebox Duet Wi-Fi Internet Radio
First off, this is a great device. A have been upgrading my Squeezeboxes for several years and the Duet is by far the coolest. I have a friend that spend three times this amount on a Sonos and they have the same features, including access to internet radio and other subscription services such as Rhapsody and Sirius. However, I found out a piece of information just after I bought and installed my Duet that would have saved me a lot of money.
If you have an iPod Touch or iPhone, you can buy an application for it by iPeng for $9.99 and control any Squeezebox from it. The controls are the same and you really don't need the Duet controller. If you don't have an iPod Touch, then you can get one along with an older version Squeezebox off of Ebay for about the same price as a Duet. Then you get two toys for the price of one.
I bought this product 4 months ago, and I love it... when it works.
Unfortunately I don't think that the product is ready for primetime, for the following reasons:
1/ The remote control takes a very long time to wake up. I think Logitech shold build an image of the music database on the remote. Currently, the remote is sluggish (takes 30 seconds to one minute to wake up). I assume that this is so because the remote has to connect over Wi-Fi to the computer that hosts the music folders, and this takes time (hence my suggestion for an image of the datebase on the remote).
2/ The whole setup is very sensitive to the smallest changes made in the home network. I say this because I want to give it some benefit of doubt; I could also describe the system as unstable over the long run. So far there were 3 instances when the remote/device was unable to connect to the main PC, and I did not change anything on my home network in two of these instances (I did reinstall an antivirus program today).
For this reason, I think that the Logitech solution is not conceptually sound. I think a far better design would have been to build the Logitech device on top of a NAS box that had a 4 slots for SATA drives(no 802 required to stream music). This way, the end user could have just added the music drives to the box. This solution coupled with a remote that has an image of the music database on it, might make this product work...
I believe that this approach was taken by a Korean company (see Dvico TviX HD M-7000), which was awarded the European Imaging and Sound Association award for the best Media Player)... see EISA awards on the internet.
The current design fails, and when it does so, it is very annoying.
3/ Subpar support - when the system failed to connect to my main PC the second time, I called the Logitech support, and after a few unsuccesfull attempts to solve the problem, I was told that Norton was the cause for all my problems. At that point, the rep asked me to remove Norton - as a condition for providing help further. I refused to do so (the system was working fine that same morning, and Norton has been running on my system forever (it was running before I bought the Logitech Duet)). We agreed to disagree, and I was left holding an empty bag of broken Logitech promisses.
4/ I saved the worst for last: Logitech is manipulative. After the incident listed above I went to the Logitech Duet product page, and posted a negative review... to this day (more than 45 days later), that review is not yet published. Right now I don't feel very good about Logitech as a company.
To sum it up: I am disapointed in the product, and would like to return it... I will see what Amazon will do. I think that their policy is 30 days... so it might be too late.
Stay away from the Logitech duet, it is a half baked product.
PS: I have worked in high tech in the last 10 years, and I consider myself computer literate... - Internet Radio - Wireless - Logitech - Wireless Music'
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