I want to stream the mp3's off of my office pc to my receiver in the living room (like everyone). I have been reading here and looking around on the net and I see mostly devices that you interact with using a hand-held remote. I just cannot image trying to find something in a large collection without using a keyboard and typing into a search field of some kind.

I do have a Ethernet connection near the receiver and plan to use that. I know a small pc would be an option, but it seems like overkill for this. I don't need a gaming rig right now. I guess I want something I can interface with using a keyboard somehow or use my laptop to somehow interface with it.

The Squeezebox Duet looks interesting or the new D-Link DSM 750, but again, I don't want to be stuck using the remote to find a song or create a playlist....or am I making too big of a deal out of using a keyboard? BTW, both the laptop and the pc have XP SP2 on them. The Sonos system would be way to expensive for my needs as well.
Thanks for any help.

I just cannot image trying to find something in a large collection without using a keyboard and typing into a search field of some kind....or am I making too big of a deal out of using a keyboard?

I think you are Strummer. One of the big hurdles of systems like Squeeze Duet and Sonos was to make Controllers that allow people to browse and scroll through large collections without a clunky keyboard. Now, how successful you think they've been is up to you, and YMMV, but I just don't see how a keyboard is a very conducive or natural part of the music-listening experience.

If you want to try and straddle the fence, try a Squeeze Classic. It's IR remote kinda works like a keyboard; if you search by Artist, you enter letters using the numbers on the remote...like a cell phone...until you feel like you've got enough to accurately search. Example, let's say you were looking for the Artist Beck: you'd search by Artist, hit 2 twice for B, 3 twice for E...now if you said search from there, you'd get the 100 closest hits to Artists that start with BE; if you were searching your own files, you'd probably be in business...if you were searching Rhapsody, you'd probably want to go BE, hit 2 three times, BEC and then search.

And, if all else fails, get a pc in your listening area and you can use the keyboard to access SqueezeCenter, which is the service that runs the Squeeze Classic anyway.

CD

I have a Transporter, SB Classic and a SB Boom and don't miss the Duet remote at all. Squeezecenter runs on an old laptop I have in a closet and my music is stored on a NAS. I access SC from my primary laptop and actually prefer the web interface. My buddy has a Duet and a SB and he always forgets where he left the controller.

Thanks guys. I just finished reading every post in the Squeezebox thread along with your replies and think I have a little better understanding now. I think I will download the SqueezeCenter software and see how I like that. I am kinda thinking that the Duet may be the way to go when I factor in the spousal element and then, as both of you pointed out, I can always use my laptop to hit SqueezeCenter if I feel more comfortable doing that.

I realize it's a huge step, but it would be really neat to see Logitech evolve this idea into the video realm as well! But first things first! Thanks.