WD TV Live Plus--Has Anyone Tried It?

[richardp01]

The WD TV Live Plus is a relatively cheap device that can stream audio from computer to audio system and is rated for the following file types: MP3 WAV/PCM/LPCM WMA AAC FLAC MKA AIF/AIFF OGG Dolby Digital DTS. It has HDMI output as well as Optical s/pdif. This looks like a good alternative to the Airport Express and Logitech Squeeze Box. Does anyone have any experience using this device?

[Paul R]

Works great for video, but for audio... Well.... Lets just say it sucks dead bunnies through straws.

Paul

 

IMO, YMMV, TINAR, etc.

 

 

The WD TV Live Plus is a relatively cheap device that can stream audio from computer to audio system and is rated for the following file types: MP3 WAV/PCM/LPCM WMA AAC FLAC MKA AIF/AIFF OGG Dolby Digital DTS. It has HDMI output as well as Optical s/pdif. This looks like a good alternative to the Airport Express and Logitech Squeeze Box. Does anyone have any experience using this device?

[wgscott]

it sucks dead bunnies through straws.

 

Audiophile terminology at its best.

[richardp01]

Works great for video, but for audio... Well.... Lets just say it sucks dead bunnies through straws.

Paul

 

IMO, YMMV, TINAR, etc.

 

Thanks for your response. Can you tell me how it was set up? Did you use the HDMI, s/pdif, or analog output for the audio? What device did the D/A tranformation? What format audio files did you use? If you were using digital out can you conjecture why the sound was bad--inaccurate digital transfer? bad timing?

[Paul R]

Through single crystal nanotubes perhaps?

 

Audiophile terminology at its best.

[Paul R]

Basically, it works great for video. One doesn't tend to notice audio imperfections when there is video on the screen, for whatever reason.

 

But with audio, it sounds really terrible to me, through HDMI or optical. It also really didn't work well with anything other than WAV files. FLAC and AIFF sort of worked, but it would not accept any high-res music. What it did play, it played very inferior to a Airport Express or SBT. The SBT of course, does high-res up to 9600, and also allows you to easily stream LPCM to it. Streaming LPCM to the SBT sounds really good, depending upon the DAC you use with it. It sounds okay from the SBT itself, but adding a good extenral DAC makes the SBT and the Airport Express really sing. Doesn't help much with the WD Live.

 

-Paul

 

 

Thanks for your response. Can you tell me how it was set up? Did you use the HDMI, s/pdif, or analog output for the audio? What device did the D/A tranformation? What format audio files did you use? If you were using digital out can you conjecture why the sound was bad--inaccurate digital transfer? bad timing?

[realhifi]

The WD TV Live Plus is a relatively cheap device that can stream audio from computer to audio system and is rated for the following file types: MP3 WAV/PCM/LPCM WMA AAC FLAC MKA AIF/AIFF OGG Dolby Digital DTS. It has HDMI output as well as Optical s/pdif. This looks like a good alternative to the Airport Express and Logitech Squeeze Box. Does anyone have any experience using this device?

 

It sounds like what you would expect from a device in it's price class. Grey, dry, dull and lifeless.

 

Other than that it wasn't bad.

[kelvinwsy]

Try the Ethernet out to a PS Audio PWD mk Ii - really quite good ! It only serves as a NAS HD with Linux based software outputting WAV or Hi-res FLAC digital output.

[Paul R]

You mean just acting as a file server? Or is there someway, currently unbeknownst to me, that it can stream audio out over the ethernet? (UPnP?) -Paul

 

 

Try the Ethernet out to a PS Audio PWD mk Ii - really quite good ! It only serves as a NAS HD with Linux based software outputting WAV or Hi-res FLAC digital output.

[iamimdoc]

I have several and they are OK for video - but no way to put all movies in 1 composite list if on different drives. There is no global search for a movie, just by drive. But device plays fairly well and plays virtually anything - other players do not.

 

Never really tried audio except in passing. As best I can tell, you would have to use their sofware as a music player which would be unusably slow, clumsy and ugly. Did not pursuit it.

[kelvinwsy]

It is uPnP compatible. It serves both as a music NAS HDD as well as a server. Use the eLyric IPhone App from PS Audio and the network bridge in the PWD

[richardp01]

The WD TV Live Plus is a relatively cheap device that can stream audio from computer to audio system and is rated for the following file types: MP3 WAV/PCM/LPCM WMA AAC FLAC MKA AIF/AIFF OGG Dolby Digital DTS. It has HDMI output as well as Optical s/pdif. This looks like a good alternative to the Airport Express and Logitech Squeeze Box. Does anyone have any experience using this device?

 

Well to answer my own question: I just bought one and tried it out. I used the optical audio out into my DAC. I set the audio in the WDTV to DTS Capable and Optical Digital Out Only. When I compared a CD copied to my computer to the original disc played on my CD player I could hear no difference. I conclude that the WD TV Live Plus is a capable device for playing music from copied CD's and podcasts. When I tried some high sample rate files through the WD TV Live my DAC indicated that the .flac file came through at 48 khz instead of 96 khz, however, it sounded very good. I ran some frequency sweep .wav files through the device and found that 88 khz did not pass, nor did 176 khz files. The 96 khz and 192 khz files came through at 48 khz and there was some noticeable aliasing above 20 khz audio frequency.

 

As someone stated below you have to use the WD Live player to play music. There doesn't seem to be a way to access a computer player to play music. I also found it difficult to navigate music files that were on my computer through the WD interface.

 

My plan is to use the device to stream movies and podcast music. If I decide to go to high definition audio files I will get a better device.

[richardp01]

Well to answer my own question: I just bought one and tried it out. I used the optical audio out into my DAC. I set the audio in the WDTV to DTS Capable and Optical Digital Out Only. When I compared a CD copied to my computer to the original disc played on my CD player I could hear no difference. I conclude that the WD TV Live Plus is a capable device for playing music from copied CD's and podcasts. When I tried some high sample rate files through the WD TV Live my DAC indicated that the .flac file came through at 48 khz instead of 96 khz, however, it sounded very good. I ran some frequency sweep .wav files through the device and found that 88 khz did not pass, nor did 176 khz files. The 96 khz and 192 khz files came through at 48 khz and there was some noticeable aliasing above 20 khz audio frequency.

 

As someone stated below you have to use the WD Live player to play music. There doesn't seem to be a way to access a computer player to play music. I also found it difficult to navigate music files that were on my computer through the WD interface.

 

My plan is to use the device to stream movies and podcast music. If I decide to go to high definition audio files I will get a better device.

 

I got some additional information from the WD website. Windows Media Player can be used to stream music from my computer to the WD device. I can right click on a song either in WMP or Windows Explorer and select <Play To> to select the WD Live TV player. The computer then takes over the player to stream the song directly to the player. Unfortunately J River Media Center does not seem to have the <play to> feature. WMP is a much better piece of software to navigate music files than the WD device player. It would be interesting to find out if the files directed to the WDTVL are bit perfect. My cursory listening test with the CD indicates it may be although I think there may be some occasional errors in the wireless data transfer. Occasionally I hear snaps in the sound which may be inaccuracies in the file transfer process. These are very infrequent. So far the WDTVL seems like a good value and all that I need unless I decide to go to Hi Resolution Audio files.