As part of a project to restore our kitchen after a plumbing incident we decided to take this opportunity to update the adjoining family room. Out goes the paneling (that I liked, which should tell you enough about my sense of taste) and in comes dry-wall, new recessed lighting, and (best of all) in-wall speaker wiring. So my wife gets a new kitchen (I like it too) but I get a new Dolby 5.1 surround sound system.

Don't be too impressed. We spent more money on the in-wall Monster cable and installation than the receiver and speakers. But, to me, this sounds awesome. I didn't appreciate the sound quality until I rented Alison Krauss and Union Station Live from Blockbuster Online (don't take this as an endorsement of Blockbuster). I thought there was something about the richness to the music but it wasn't until the first song completed that I realized what was happening. The surround sound put me in the front row, I heard the crowd cheering all around me. Now, take a quality live group like this, pair it with a good sound system (at least, to my ears) and I'm a happy camper.

But, our old setup had an mp3 jukebox connected to our stereo. It ran Windows and was based on an old computer I bought off of eBay for next to nothing. It looked really clunky since it was a used office computer so we kind of hid it on a table in the corner behind our couch. It was an experiment that worked. My wife loved the sound quality (even from it's old soundblaster card) and the accessibility to our entire music collection. But, with the new family room we needed to spruce this up with something more stylish. I speced out a new multimedia PC based on the Silverstone Lascala 4 black computer case. This thing looks like a sound system component and not a computer.

However, I ran out of time in March to finish buying all of the components and building the computer. The whole setup would cost about $900 to build and, even then, I am concerned about keeping it cool in the TV stand. But, along comes the Dlink DSM-320 Media Player. This thing looks almost comparable to what I was planning to build (only things missing are an external monitor and a DVD player). Prior media players I explored were limited to RCA audio plugs and stereo sound. The DSM-320 comes with both SP/DIF and Toslink optical digital sound connections. It even has component video plugs.

BestBuy has the DSM-320 available for $200 with $50 in rebates. Subtract the "Valued Customer" coupons they sent me and this box is costing about $130. My optimism may be premature but this things connects to 802.11g networks. I am hopeful it will work with my wireless network since I am using two Dlink 802.11g routers to cover my house.

So, even though I have already bought some components for my custom multimedia computer, this Dlink box should still save me a bunch of money. I'm a little concerned with the quality of the wireless connection and mostly with the quality of the media software. We have been using MusicMatch Jukebox and have been very happy with it (the building of a dynamic playlist while a song is playing is very cool) so this may be a showstopper.

I'll report back my excitement or disillusionment with the DSM-320.