Orb Music Review
Taylor sent me one of these after sending me a quick text asking me for my address. I had no idea what he was sending. LOL Anyway, it was probably the worse time in he world for me to try out something new as I've been in the middle of adding some new programs and working with CARF for accreditation. That is why it has taken me several days to finally post.
The Orb Music comes in small box, which includes the user guide, usb cable, power adapter and an audio jack. It looks like the average retail price for this is around $79.
Initial Setup:
You must initially plug the Orb Music into your PC or Mac (Software can be downloaded for Windows or OS-X). Once you get the software downloaded you simply run it and after it reaches a certain point during the setup process, it will ask you plug in the Music Orb. Once finds the Music Orb, it checks for any updates to the firmware. It found there was two firmware updates that were quickly downloaded and installed. The next step is you have to set it up on your wireless network, by entering the required password. This is then saved to the Orb Music and once that process is completed; you'll see a pop up screen saying you can now unplug the Music Orb, plug it into power and connect the speakers in any location within your wireless network.
Connection:
Once you decide where you are going to install it, you simply use the power adapter and usb cable to power the Music Orb. Then connect it to your stereo or other speaker system. In my case I was not going directly to a stereo so I didn't use the include RCA cable. I instead just used a cable that has a 3.5mm plug on each end. I connected the 3.5mm jacks to the Music Orb and my Kicker Boom-box's Aux input. When you first plug it in to power it takes a minute or so to get reconnected with your wireless network.
Using the downloaded Orb Caster software on my Mac Mini I was able to not only access my iTunes library, but also had a choice of several music services. iHeart, Pandora, NPR, SiriusXM, Amazon Music just to name a few. You have to login to these services and all this information is apparently stored somewhere within the Orb Music cloud. It never asked for this information again, even if you use your phone (iPhone in my case, along with iPad mini) to access to Orb Caster and stream music to the Music Orb.
iOS/Android:
Orb Music has apps that can be downloaded from Apple App Store or Google Play Store depending on your device. You have to do this if you plan to use it from your mobile device. As indicated above because you had already set it up from the desktop application. When you connect the first time via your iOS or Android device it already has the username and passwords stored for the services you may want to connect to like Pandora, Amazon Music and/or SiriusXM. Once it connect the music immediately starts streaming to the Orb Device and of course will be heard through the speaker system you have connected.
You can stream music that is already on your device and if you have music in a library on your computer and you are connected to the same network as your computer, you can stream the music from there or you can opt to use one of the supported music services.
I moved it around to several locations within my home and it always connected without issue and streamed the music without interruption. One thing I was looking for was if there would be any cutting out of the sound and what about the sound quality? I had no problem with either of these. I will say that on my Kicker Boom box I did notice a slight reduction in SQ, but you really have to pay attention to notice it.
When I purchased a Nexus 10 one of the things I was most disappointed about was no ability build in like Apple's Airplay. Though Airplay does require an Airplay enable speaker system ($200 plus), Airport Express ($99) or Apple TV ($99) to work. The $79 make this a great alternative for getting music wirelessly to speaker systems in your home or work space. I certainly see this as a very great option more so for Android than iOS, but unless you already have Airplay devices this is certainly a cheaper alternative even for iOS users.
This is very much so a fun little device which makes setting up any speaker system in your home/office for playing back music wirelessly easy peasy...
Check it out for yourself! You can buy yourself one from TSS Radio where they have great customer service.
Orb Music Player
I don't work for TSS-Radio, but I have to say WOW they have done a lot work on their web site, it looks great.
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