Squeezebox Duo Review

[Zubkabera]

Has this been reviewed by WHFSV team if no any plans in near future?

Anyone bought this and have compared it with older version 3 , any improvements on sound compare to older version? and does it support NAS now? I head reports about extremely slow response from remote has anyone experienced that?

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Zubkabera"]Has this been reviewed by WHFSV team [/quote]

It gets the 5 star treatment in the July issue. The opinion of the WHFS&V team echo's other reviews elswhere in that, for the money, its about as good as audio wifi gets. Amazon is currently selling it for £249.99.

Now if only it could do video as well..............

 

[John Duncan]

[quote user="david1997"]Now if only it could do video as well.............. [/quote]

It does, except they called it AppleTV

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="JohnDuncan"]It does, except they called it AppleTV [/quote]

.....and where are all the plaudits for that piece of kit?

 

[John Duncan]

Well they both get three-and-a-half stars on Amazon (from Real People) if that's any help.

 

[professorhat]

Are you insinuating the WHF team are robots?

 

[John Duncan]

No, I'm insinuating that a number of people who have paid actual money for stuff, together with magazine reviews, will give you a balanced view on how a product is to live with.

 

[professorhat]

I know mate, only kidding! I'm in a silly Friday mood today

 

[Anonymous]

Even allowing for POETS day I think it would be hard for me to wax lyrical about le product mac. Amazon - or similar, reviews can be a bit pro Mac/anti Mac and not product subjective. I run both a mac and pc plus own an ipod but I bought into the product not the ethos. In my local Apple store it can sometimes be a case of 'pass the sick bag'!!

 

[fr0g]

[quote user="JohnDuncan"]Well they both get three-and-a-half stars on Amazon (from Real People) if that's any help.[/quote]

Amazon reviews should be looked at singly, rather than as an average. One low mark for the Duet is from someone who hasn't got one, and complains if it plays DRM or not? and another from someone who bought it to play 24/96 files that he'd downloaded without checking to see if they worked (which they don't) first..a rtfm 1 star.
The rest mark it down for lack of ease-of-setup - which is only a one time pain.
Personally I think it's a brilliant device, let down only by a plasticky feel to the player itself, which actually tips over under the weight of the cables.
Also I hope they do introduce a version that will cope with 24/96, as I reckon that's the future of high-end audio. The transporter does this, but at quite a price.

 

[John Duncan]

Agreed. I think there is a place for something in between the squeezeboxes and the transporter which uses audiophile DACs, handles 24/96 and DRM, and costs 400 quid. A Cambridge Audio 640N Network Player, for example.

 

[fr0g]

[quote user="JohnDuncan"]Agreed. I think there is a place for something in between the squeezeboxes and the transporter which uses audiophile DACs, handles 24/96 and DRM, and costs 400 quid. A Cambridge Audio 640N Network Player, for example.[/quote]

If Cambridge did release such a thing, (ie a HDD-less network player), then I would hope that £400 would get you better than 640 equivalent sound.

There is plenty of room for Logitech to release an audiophile player with the squeezebox functionality at around £400-£800 that would blow away any similar priced CD players.
The Duet, when you take account that the player itself is only a £100 is a veritable bargain. You couldn't get a CD player to come close at anywhere near that price.

 

[Anonymous]

Hiya

So sorry that I didn't respond to this at the time, but I'm sitting here listening to a FLAC 24 file (David Rhodes - Bittersweet, downloaded from the excellent Bowers & Wilkins site) on my Duo (bought last January).

I have my Duo fed from a NAS with 3Gb of storage. I generally play FLAC 24 or straight WAV files, giving my lovely (& plastic) little black box as little as possible but organise and stream the music (in the case of WAV) or process (convert to 48kHz from 98kHz) in the case of FLAC 24 to before feeding into my separate DAC (chord dac64).

OK, I've targeted the Duo for replacement with either a Transporter or similar, but having heard a friend's I'm in no rush to do this.

Paul