If you’ve got an iTunes library bigger than Spotify’s entire catalogue, chances are you’re in need of a way of unleashing it from your PC. The Creative Sound Blaster Wireless for iTunes + Receiver is designed to do just that, piping sweet music into your gaff. So is this a Joe McElderry style winner? Or a disaster of Jedward–esque proportions? Read our Creative Sound Blaster Wireless for iTunes + Receiver review and we’ll tell all.
The Creative Sound Blaster Wireless for iTunes + Receiver set is designed to upgrade your PC or Mac to a premium wireless sound system. It’s comprised of a USB dongle that functions as your transmitter (and comes complete with a rather floppy aerial), a separate compact wireless receiver, a remote control, an audio cable plus installation CD.
Styled in chic black throughout, the Creative Sound Blaster Wireless for iTunes + Receiver is very easy to set up. Slip the CD into your computer and follow the simple installation instructions, plug in the dongle and press the connect buttons on both the transmitter and receiver and wait until the synchronisation is complete. Then attach the receiver to your hi-fi, speakers or entertainment centre and within seconds you’re streaming live audio from your computer.
Read our Sonos Zoneplayer S5 review now
The dongle part of the Creative Sound Blaster Wireless for iTunes + Receiver includes separate headphone and microphone inputs while the receiver has a pause button and controls for skipping tracks forwards and backwards. Using the supplied software, you can effectively divide your house into four reception zones, Sonos-style, and then toggle between them using the remote.
However, although streaming music works as well on the Mac as the PC, the software is clearly biased more towards PC (including the X-Fi EQ settings and Creative Alchemy which only works with Windows Vista). The remote didn’t seem to do much other than control volume, pause and mute functions. Creative have promised, though, that X-Fi will be available for Mac in future updates.
The wireless reach on the Creative Sound Blaster Wireless for iTunes + Receiver is 30m which should be enough to reach all the major rooms in your house and we experienced persistently solid signals, except when the router was causing the occasional bit of interference on the 2.4GHz frequency. If you want to cause a racket to keep up with your kids predilection for tawdry chart punk, this is most definitely a gadget worth looking at.
