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MagicBox Imp Adapt

Thanks to John McGrath for sending me this radio for review.

Following on from the Imp Radio, this Imp Adapt again from MagicBox is a smaller player, without the built-in speaker, designed for use with a current hifi system.
Build quality, again, is extremely good and the small remote looks the part.
The connectors (power and 3.5mm jack for the included 3.5mm to 2 x RCA cable) are hidden under the end-cap, similar to the original Roku M1000. This keeps everything tidy and in place.

The setup again was very straight forward, as it seems to have the same software as in the Imp Radio.
Entering the wifi key took a bit longer as although the remote looks good, scrolling through letters on the tiny buttons is, in practice, a little more tricky.

As with the Imp Radio, the selection of radio stations is extremely large (the US list is enormous, but I kept mainly to UK stations).
On top of the main BBC and top commercial stations, there were a lot of smaller stations as well as University radio from most Universities.
The bitrate for BBC stations was quite low, around 48kbit/s which is a shame, but not a fault of these radios.
It works with all BBC stations including the listen again ones which is an added advantage, especially for anyone abroad.

This device competes (in terms of price) with the likes of the Terratec Noxon 1 and 2 and the Streamium SL50i and SL550i, although none of those support Real Media stations (which include BBC radio, although they are changing to WMA).
I had this plugged into a set of Edirol MA15D active speakers which I have used with all of the players reviewed on this site.
The sound quality was good, easily competing with the Noxon and Streamium on MP3 playback and again, internet radio was restricted by the bitrate of the stations.
This won’t out-perform the Squeezebox, Roku, Sonos etc. on sound quality, but it is primarily an Internet Radio device and if viewed as that, is very accomplished.

The menu structure is the same as on the Imp Radio and is very clear and easy to follow.
It is also just as responsive so you don’t find yourself accidentally pressing a button a few times and ending up in a different menu item.
The remote is a little tricky to use, scrolling takes a while on the small buttons which are a little spongy, certainly not as good as the excellent scroll-wheel on the Imp Radio.
The screen has a decent backlight (which again can be altered) and can be read from a reasonable distance, but not from too far away, probably on-par with the Netgear MP101 or Noxon.

As with the Imp Radio, the PC connection was more temperamental, again taking a few rescans to find computers and folders.
Once found, the menu is the same as the Imp Radio, with tracks being added to the end of the queue, rather than being played immediately.
The browse button enables you to view songs currently in the queue so you could skip to the end if wanted.
Again, UPnP support worked much better and as it has the same functions as the standard connection, it is what I would choose.

Overall, as an internet radio device, this is an excellent way of adding thousands of radio stations to a current hifi.
It is small and attractive, so won’t look out of place and the reliability is a bonus.
Sound quality is on-par with the competitors which lack the Real Media support.
The remote is a little tricky, if there was a way of adding a scroll-wheel, that would be excellent!