Squeezebox - blown away!

Gusboll

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Unless my ear-lugs have undergone a coincidental transformation, after a week or so with the new Squeezebox Touch I am astonished at the sound quality pouring out of my PMCs. Compared to my CD8x, all the detail, resolution and dynamics are all still there, but with added bass clout which retains its tightness. I'm having a thrilling revisiting of my (now) c. 1800 albums.

And £135! Loving it. Interested to hear if other Cyrus fans are getting on with it. Oh and it can hook up your Spotify playlists and gives access to hundreds of internet radio stations. Early contender for 2012 Readers Award?

Currently listening to: Guided By Voices - Mag Earwig
 

Gusboll

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amcluesent said:
> Early contender for 2012 Readers Award?<

Doubt if, Logitech don't advertise in WHF... ;)

Hmm, you're assuming that I meant a WHF Award. In any case, (unless the editorial team can confirm otherwise) I think you'll find that the WHF readers award exists for a reason, i.e. it is a readers award and so advertising has f.a. to do with it. ;)

Currently listening to: Motorhead - Overkill
 
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Anonymous

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Despite all the glowing reports, WHF did not even mention it in their "10 ways to stream music" leading article. Hmmmm. The UPGRADE to Naim's products to allow Apple Lossless, 24/192 etc. costs what I paid for the Touch.
 

AlmaataKZ

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I think the touch remains an outstanding product for sound quality, ease of use, looks, versatality and value for money. highly recommended and a must to be considered as a modern source.
 

Clare Newsome

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amcluesent said:
> Early contender for 2012 Readers Award?<

Doubt if, Logitech don't advertise in WHF... ;)

For starters, advertising has nothing to do with Awards or ratings - take Rega as just one example; they win five-star after five-star and Awards aplenty, but never advertise. So please stop with that tired old cliche (even with the wink).

Secondly, Logitech has won Awards for the past five or so years, every year - for itts Harmony remotes and portable iPod docks.

Finally, yes the Squeezebox is a great product - we highly rate it. But in our comparative tests, we prefer the Sonos alternatives for the job - in our opinion it's a slightly slicker, more stable and scalable streaming solution.

But we know many disagree - and yes, would make great Readers Award winner, if enough people translate their enthusiasm into nominations and votes (all free)
 

NigelF

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I have been a WHF reader for over 15 years and never doubted any review, all my hifi purchases in the past has been based on WHF reviews and demos offcours :) .

But I too acknowledge sometime I am puzzled when products are awarded or supertests are done and we have a surprised winner or a product not mentioned at all, take the e.g. of Awards 2011 best desktop speakers awards went to Frankenspiel FS-1 which is an unknown name and nowhere can be bought untill a hastily link to website was available.

Last year EB2 were knocked out because there was availability issue so there seems to be some obvious contradictions:roll:

I was also surprised when I picked up the latest issue and realised in supertest SQB Touch was missing, IMO its a bargain and brilliant product worth better then Cyrus stream x which I personalyl demoed it's inteface is very sluggish and just for sending digital signal to a DAC or AMP with integrated DAC too expensive. And let me tell you I am a Cyrus fan & at this very moment listening to brilliant XPD QX via SQB touch offcours:) .

If you are sending the signal via optical to a DAC or AMP with integrated DAC then SQ is less important for steamer as long is it sends bit perfect signal to DAC.
 

daveg56

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I completely agree with the sentiment here. I also bought a SB Touch during the recent sales for £135. Currently streaming lossless FLAC over wifi from my laptop running SBS without any issue but the next step is to get a NAS and wiring it in.

The Touch is really outstanding! I have A/B'ed between it's analog output and thru the DAC on my Opus CD player. To be honest I'd be struggling to hear any difference and I have pretty transparent speakers.

It's completely blown me away, value for money it can't be beaten, the UI is great and the server software is robust. I'm now considering getting a second SBT for the dining room.

This was my first step into streaming, and as they say it's 'released my music!'

Highly recommended.
 

acalex

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daveg56 said:
I completely agree with the sentiment here. I also bought a SB Touch during the recent sales for £135. Currently streaming lossless FLAC over wifi from my laptop running SBS without any issue but the next step is to get a NAS and wiring it in.

The Touch is really outstanding! I have A/B'ed between it's analog output and thru the DAC on my Opus CD player. To be honest I'd be struggling to hear any difference and I have pretty transparent speakers.

It's completely blown me away, value for money it can't be beaten, the UI is great and the server software is robust. I'm now considering getting a second SBT for the dining room.

This was my first step into streaming, and as they say it's 'released my music!'

Highly recommended.

I tend to agree with you! I actually decided to just get rid of the rDAC and to stream directly from SB touch to the ampli for now. I must say SQ of the SBT is better than PC +rDAC. I still have to try the SB through the rDAC...not sure it will bring any bigger improvement though. I might pass it through the MDAC or the DAC Magic Plus, which I am thinking will replace my rDAC. For now I am very happy with SQ of SBT. Just installing the Ready NAS now (got tody the 2TB harddisk).
 
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Anonymous

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I'm gonna have to try the SB Touch (running FLAC from laptop) fed into the Wadia essentially replacing the Wadia transport to see if I can tell any difference. Should be interesting!! Very impressed so far using it in the second hifi replacing the Meridian 206B
 

acalex

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Dr Lodge said:
I'm gonna have to try the SB Touch (running FLAC from laptop) fed into the Wadia essentially replacing the Wadia transport to see if I can tell any difference. Should be interesting!! Very impressed so far using it in the second hifi replacing the Meridian 206B

Yes, this would definitely be an interesting test! Do you have the "out of the box" version of the SBT or you changed settings using the Toolbox 3.0?
 
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Anonymous

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Its out of the box currently, although I did convert my original WMA lossless files to FLAC '0' which is one of the suggestions I think - guess they're just bigger files so need less CPU to convert to PCM or whatever.
 

smuggs

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how can what hifi even put the squeezebox series in the same slot as sonos one is £100-£200 one is £200-£500

so when do there streaming prizes or awards there is no best streaming under £200 and under £500 nd then Over £1000.

duet you get everything for £150 (granted a dac is needed to make oit sound good).

sonos you need min is a £200 controller or a smart phone so how they say its better its a total differant level.

im saying this because i would of for sonos if the price was equal.

like i would of gone for ma rs range if the same as the br range.
 

The_Lhc

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smuggs said:
sonos you need min is a £200 controller or a smart phone so how they say its better its a total differant level.

Leaving aside that quite a lot of people have smart phones, you can also control Sonos using the desktop controller, so strictly speaking you don't need either or those things.
 

smuggs

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i have an iphone with ipeng then i have a laptop with 130gb of flac music and i have bt hub what sonos stuff do i need if i forget the controller and what will the cost be if its under £200 i may leave logitech if not i would consider it a step up in leagues and squeezebox is still the £200 sub king.
 

The_Lhc

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smuggs said:
i have an iphone with ipeng then i have a laptop with 130gb of flac music and i have bt hub what sonos stuff do i need if i forget the controller

To plug into your existing amp a ZP90/CONNECT (they've been re-branding, sigh). Assuming you can wire the ZP to your router, if not a Zonebridge will be required.

and what will the cost be if its under £200

£269 for the ZP90 (I think, you might find it slightly cheaper but not much). The ZB is £39 if you can't get it thrown in for nothing (they're giving them away with the PLAY:3 at the moment).

i may leave logitech if not i would consider it a step up in leagues and squeezebox is still the £200 sub king.

If it's just for one room I wouldn't bother.
 

smuggs

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thanks its just for one room but you have opened my eyes that for £270 i am up and running so i may flog mine logitech next year and add about £170. i have had 4 drops in 9months 3 being less than 5mins. 1 dropout for 20 odd mins while i was showing a friend i was gutted. i have heard sonos cant drop out as it creates a mess inside your house/flat.
 

acalex

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Just finished installing everything on the NAS...amazing how many things you can do with this small nice object! :)

Best purchase ever so far for 140 eur! NAS is super silent, everything is very fast...also got the Squeezebox controller which is not too bad at all!
 

smuggs

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acalex what nas did you go for at £140 that seems very good value, what size sata disks did you go for?

i have heard that laptops are way better to run squeezebox until you upgrade the ram in the nas's.

be insterested to hear your thoughts
 

acalex

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smuggs said:
acalex what nas did you go for at £140 that seems very good value, what size sata disks did you go for?

i have heard that laptops are way better to run squeezebox until you upgrade the ram in the nas's.

be insterested to hear your thoughts

Well, I went for the Netgear Ready Nas 2 Ultra. It has 2 bays for a total of 4Tb max (2x2Tb), a CPU of 1.8GHz and 1Gb Ram. It is super fast, super silent and very easy to config.

Regarding price it was a bit of luck cz I actually got 50% off normal price which is usually almost 200GBP on Amazon UK. I bought on the .fr website site since I am in Belgium, but I don't think they would ship to UK.

I actually find way better the NAS than the pc for streaming music. Just make sure you wire both your NAS and your SBT to your router with quality ethernet cables (min cat 5e which is shielded) and you are ready to go.

Regarding disk space, I actually bought for now just one disk, a Samsung SATA II 2 TB which is more than enough for now. I have mainly FLAC 0 compression (16/44) and 24/96 files. Few 320Kbps MP3 only. So far so good...very good!
 

smuggs

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sounds good i have 120gb roughly of flac files but i did compresson level 5. i have about 250 cds but some i have ripped and lost or borrow ect so i would not be able to rip then. i used that eac software. should i not do level 5 in future or is that ok.

i have priced your nas and 2tb sata disc and im not getting much change out of £300 so a bit out my league. my major error was 16months ago spending £479.99 on a accer laptop which just sits next to amp and router under my stairs. It is lighting fast but i would love a nas.

can you load vlc player on nas's or do they have hdmi out or are just to feed the network with the files and your other kit has to sort the rest. either way sounds likt your setup is good and well thought out.
 

acalex

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smuggs said:
sounds good i have 120gb roughly of flac files but i did compresson level 5. i have about 250 cds but some i have ripped and lost or borrow ect so i would not be able to rip then. i used that eac software. should i not do level 5 in future or is that ok.

i have priced your nas and 2tb sata disc and im not getting much change out of £300 so a bit out my league. my major error was 16months ago spending £479.99 on a accer laptop which just sits next to amp and router under my stairs. It is lighting fast but i would love a nas.

can you load vlc player on nas's or do they have hdmi out or are just to feed the network with the files and your other kit has to sort the rest. either way sounds likt your setup is good and well thought out.

Well, if you want a good NAS which will be replacing a pc you need to spend some money. I took quite some time to understand what was the best product for that specific role and then waited until I could find a great deal on the web. So I got the Ready Nas 2 Ultra for 140 eur + 100 eur for a SATA II HD, + 6 euro for a cat 6 ethernet cable and 80 eur for Squeezebox controller which I do think is quite ok after having upgraded the software.

Basically you put all your music on your NAS, load the Squeezebox server on it as well and point the Squeezebox touch towards the NAS. In this way you don't need your pc anymore. My SBT is connected directly to the amp but I am thinking about replacing my rDAC with an Audiolab M-DAC (por the phono input) so I might use the SB through a separate DAC in the near future.
As a suggestion, I would reccomend you to wait until you can afford a suitable NAS instead of getting something cheaper which won't work as you were expecting...!
 

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