I just plugged one in to the 990 and configured it to the wireless router. Turn on the computer and the Squeezebox wakes up ready to go.

I set it to randomly play my music and it's like I am listening to a great radio station that only plays music I like, all the time.

This thing is a great addition. I can't wait to figure out how to need another one. Best $300 I've spent in a long time.

Absolutely - these things rock. There's nothing like having your whole CD collection available at once and putting this thing on random.

Haven't seen this before now. Looks very cool, with some good reviews out there. One question I couldn't find an answer to...

Can it connect to my music library over the internet? In other words, can I use one at work and access my library on my home computer?

I think you can do remote access. The best place to get an answer to your question is here:
Slim Devices forum

I have a Squeezebox 3 hooked to my 990 via digital coax and it sounds great.

The Squeezebox is a very popular product these days. There are a number of other products around that are similar (Roku Labs Soundbridge, PRISMIQ MediaPlayer, Apple's Airport Express, and a bunch of devices from folks like Linksys and D-Link), but Slim Devices seems to be the dominant player. I think that PRISMIQ is actually discontinuing their MediaPlayer. I've considered picking up a Soundbridge since it's a bit less expensive than the Squeezebox (the M500 is available for $150 and the M1000 for $200, both with support for wired and wireless), but I haven't decided yet. Slim Devices definitely seems to be the most on the ball about providing good software support (I'm not a huge fan of SlimServer's interface, but it's effective and they've been good about improving it steadily) and they've done some good things with the hardware (adding good quality DAC's to the Squeezebox 2 and moving to a fancier shell with the Squeezebox 3).

I'm not sure that you can get access to a remote music library unless you have VPN access to the remote site or you have the remote site providing a streaming Internet channel that the Squeezebox can tune into, but the forum that mzpro5 mentioned could give a more definitive answer.

The specs on the Squeezebox are very impressive. I’ve wanted to be able to browse and listen to my digital files on my “Hi-fi” system for a while. I even connected my laptop to the 990 via the USB port but the sound quality of that configuration doesn’t quite cut it. If the sound quality of the Squeezebox would approach CD quality, with one of the lossless formats, it would be worth $300. Has anyone done an A B comparison between the Squeezebox and a CD player?

I would think you could achieve this by using a static IP or dynamic DNS. I may have to check one of these babies out. It would take quite a while to convert everything onto the hard drive though, but once that was done it would be awesome.

Can you have different playlists or libraries on the same device (like one for jazz, and another for 80's hair bands)?

The biggest issue (for either a laptop through the 990's USB port or a Squeezebox) is going to be the source data - raw WAV, lossless compression (such as FLAC), or some various levels of lossy compression via MP3, AAC, or WMA. The software handling playback on a laptop and the 990's USB signal path would also factor in, as would the SlimServer software and Squeezebox hardware if that was your delivery method.

I've read a number of discussions regarding comparisons between CD playback and the various lossless and lossy means of moving data to a hard drive. If I do pick up a SoundBridge (or some other similar device), I plan to conduct some tests of my own. I have tried the output of my iPod Nano's headphone jack through my 990, and that was definitely a step down in sound quality from the original CD - but I haven't tried bypassing the iPod's headphone output (need a docking cradle for that) and I've been told that the direct analog output (without the headphone amp in the signal path) is a bit better. Some folks say that anything above about a 200kbps bit rate will yield near-CD quality, but I'm a bit dubious of that personally. To really approach CD quality, I'd lean toward lossless compression (like FLAC) or even simply using the raw data (in WAV format). Storing everything as WAV files would be space-intensive, but it would let you pretty readily generate lossy compression copies for use with portable players.

You can define separate playlists that all draw from the same library and then select a desired playlist depending on what you want to listen to, much like iTunes uses the combination of a central library and multiple playlists. (In fact, recent versions of the SlimServer software can interface with iTunes and use its playlists.)

I have a 30 gig 3rd gen iPod with over 3000 songs ripped at 224kbps and have it hooked up to my 990 via analog connection through the docking cradle. I can definitely hear a difference on a head-to-head comparison litening to the same song on the iPod and thru my CD player and the 224 is not CD quality but pretty good. I especially like it for when people are over or party's where it is more background sound but also like to listen when I am cleaning house. For serious listening though I still choose the CD.

The version of Slimserver I am using (6.2.1) interfaces directly with iTunes so any playlists or genre's you have on iTunes immediatley goes to Slimserver, makes it paretty convenient.