Squeezebox Touch or Airport Express or Apple T.V

[paulsue38]

I currently have my music system in the front room comprising Roksan Kandy amp, Caspian Tuner, Cambridge Audio CD player and Rega Turntable. In this room I also have a Sony T.V linked to a home plug via ethernet.
In my computer room I have P.C, Sky router and Lacie Network Space 2 (2TB) I have I.Tunes and Spotify (not Premium at the moment but will upgrade) on the P.C. The router has a Home plug attached (to Sony T.V mentioned above)
I want to delve into streaming and plan to use the home plug and ethernet cable in my music room to connect to a device. I also have an I.Phone that I could use to control a device via an appropriate app. Question is which device?
Priority for me is Access to I.Tunes (Lossless), Access to Spotify and of course excellent sound quality.
Any suggestions about the most appropriate device would be very welcome!
Best wishes
Paul

 

[dogspangle]

Hi

My personal experience is that my Squeezebox Touch, receiving bit-perfect flacs completely outshines my Apple TV2, playing lossless or wav formats. All files are streamed wirelessly from a PC, several rooms away from my hifi. I hope to further improve the quality, however when I introduce a NAS over ethernet. IMHO the SBT beats the ATV2 for sound quality, not sure about the Airport though.

Good luck.

Regards

 

[paulsue38]

Many thanks I probably will go down this route.

Best wishes

Paul

 

[Anonymous]

I'm looking for similar advice around the same subject although my primary concern is around ease of use - changing the input on the Amp can sometimes be too arduous for Mrs...

I have just got a Synology DS411 slim (ordered) and will be looking to transfer my existing iTunes library (c. 25gb compressed256k) onto it - hopefully using Match to bring down 'best quality'. I am not too concerned about lossless etc. I selected this for being small and to all intents smart in that it can do iTunes Server, Squeezebox etc., along with normal file hosting and sharing.

The core requirement is to be able to access and browse iTunes audio and video from "any" device in the house and simply put "to play cd's". Key users are Mrs B & the kids.

Where I am struggling is to decide between the Squeezebox Touch and Apple TV3 - the latter seems quite simplistic and will also (I think) enable movies to be played directly from the iPad onto the TV - but this is a subset of the content on the NAS. I also assume that the Apple TV3 will be able to link to the iTunes server. What does the SBT offer that the ATV3 doesn't? Both are similarly prices £100 vs £140 (Amazon deal).

Any views welcomed - although I suspect I will end up having to buy both to see which works best for me, and also integrates effectively with the Harmony One remote which I'm going to have to get programmed to make life easy...

I also have a Pure Sensia in the kitchen which I need to be able to hook up to the NAS for audio.

For the record, other key kit is:

Yamaha RX-V1065 (which is not DLNA / networked) + iPod Dock

Sony 32" Freesat TV

Sony BluRay player

Sky HD

Ipad 2

2x iPhones which can act as controllers & the Harmony 1

 

[amcluesent]

>changing the input on the Amp can sometimes be too arduous for Mrs..<

It's well proven that the ladies can only cope with Sonos gear. Why risk anything else?

 

[Paul.]

>changing the input on the Amp can sometimes be too arduous for Mrs..<

It's well proven that the ladies can only cope with Sonos gear. Why risk anything else?

Hollie can cope quite nicely with the action buttons on my Harmony One remote... I think thats why they called it the Harmony since it stopped her complaining about all the remotes!