Streaming Lossless Audio - Best Device?

heiney9

I looked at the link and that's a great price for the Duet. It looks like the company selling them only has a limited stock so perhaps they are blowing them out. The unit is sold through Amazon so I'm sure it's legit. But you're right these deals sometimes disappear as fast as they pop up.

H9

Earthy

I have a Duet. Bought it used from someone who could not figure out how to make it work. Took me about 15 minutes. The receiver is hard connected to the network. I agree with some of the amazon reviews that boot time is slow on the remote, but it's super handy if you want to listen to a playlist or a few singles. We have a PC in the same room and the web app is nice. I think once you get used to the interfaces it's a great unit.
I have yet to spend the $ for the iPhone app. Don't really need it (yet).

We have had it for 4 months and use it every day. No issues at all.

markwoll

I have several Duets controllers and receivers, as well as a Boom.
Love them all. I have had few problems with any of them for two years .
The iPhone app iPeng is supposed to be very good.
My latest toy is a Yamaha RX-A2000 receiver.
It is multi-zone and will play flac or wav from my NAS ( using DLNA ) with an on screen display and/or an iPhone app. There is supposed to be an android app but have not seen it yet.
It does most of the things the squeezebox players will, but it is not as flexible.

mark

thejck

I do this on a PC. I use foobar with the wasapi plugin that is supposed to do bit perfect. I then use a plugin called http control with foobar.
With that I can use a web browser on my phone/pda to connect to foobar on my PC and it can browse the playlist and add songs from local/netwrok drives.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I bought a SB Touch a couple weeks back and absolutely love it. Lots of good suggestions in this thread but went with the SB and it's great.

Toolfan66

Hummm I just ordered a stand alone DAC, and H9 has me thinking about this squeezebox touch!!! everything I'm reading about it sounds awesome. I was just going to feed my PC/Laptop to the DAC, well I still will but this SB sounds good to me.. I know it's wireless from your PC (well it can be) but you would have to put a cable from the SB to your DAC Right???

AsSiMiLaTeD

Yes if that's the setup you want, although the DACs in the touch are very good

thejck

TOOLFORLIFEFAN wrote: »

Hummm I just ordered a stand alone DAC, and H9 has me thinking about this squeezebox touch!!! everything I'm reading about it sounds awesome. I was just going to feed my PC/Laptop to the DAC, well I still will but this SB sounds good to me.. I know it's wireless from your PC (well it can be) but you would have to put a cable from the SB to your DAC Right???

i know this is not really the same issue but I used to have my PC hooked wirelessly to my network. When I tried to play FLAC files i would get drop-outs because the wireless network was not able to keep up with the higher bandwidth requirements of the FLAC file.

thejck

TOOLFORLIFEFAN wrote: »

Hummm I just ordered a stand alone DAC, and H9 has me thinking about this squeezebox touch!!! everything I'm reading about it sounds awesome. I was just going to feed my PC/Laptop to the DAC, well I still will but this SB sounds good to me.. I know it's wireless from your PC (well it can be) but you would have to put a cable from the SB to your DAC Right???

I currently use a optical out connection from my very simple and cheap Chaintech AV-710 soundcard to my DAC. I belive I have achieved bit-perfect playback with what I had mentioned earlier but I might be wrong.

Why would you also want to use a squeezebox if you can use your PC?

heiney9

thejck wrote: »

I currently use a optical out connection from my very simple and cheap Chaintech AV-710 soundcard to my DAC. I belive I have achieved bit-perfect playback with what I had mentioned earlier but I might be wrong.

Why would you also want to use a squeezebox if you can use your PC?

The Chaintech AV-710 is a very nice low cost card (now discontinued) if you are looking for a digital output. I have one in an old computer which I used for years for my wired office rig.

Ummmm......my computer is in a completely different part of the house than my main rig. The SB Touch makes perfect sense for those that don't want a PC in the living room/listening room, etc. It also have a Squeeze Radio upstairs in the bedroom and I can stream my entire music catalog to that as well. I functions as a table radio/clock radio, etc and it sounds damn good. I may also eventually get the Squeeze Boom which is a very nice sounding stereo player that sounds better than the Bose Wave Radio for a fraction fo the cost. All these units can run wireless and stream internet radio and anything from your music database from a single computer.

The computer and Squeeze products work together for a very awesome whole house wireless streaming system.

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Squeezebox-Radio-Player-Screen/dp/B002LARRDU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1303998294&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Squeezebox-Network-Player-Internet/dp/B001DJ64D4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1303998325&sr=1-1


My new computer uses the USB for digital output to my dac for the office rig.

H9

P.s. How do you choose songs? Remote? I use the Squeeze Commandar app for my Droid Phone or the remote for the SB Touch from my listening position.

rooftop59

I purchased a squeezebox classic and love it. I always use squeeze commander on my droid phone or my wifes ipad (the app just came our literally days after I paid ten bucks for a different one :-(
This has got to be the bezt addition to my rig in a long time. The internal dacs sound very good (although with the stock ps the bass is not quite as tight and the top end not quite as refined as the denon 2910 I directly compared it to, but its really close and the convenience factor one out for me). Hqvin the ability to pull up any album instantly and adjust volume from anywhere in the house is awesome. I now listen to albums I havent heard in years because they are so easy to access. Bottom line: love.it. Highly recommended.

thejck

heiney9 wrote: »

P.s. How do you choose songs? Remote? I use the Squeeze Commandar app for my Droid Phone or the remote for the SB Touch from my listening position.

I have an abundance of computers in my house. This one also has a radeon 5650 series video card that uses a hdmi output connection to my receiver for all my video needs.
The chanintech card uses optical out to the dac and then to the stereo rig that is separate from my receiver.
Foobar has a plug-in called http control that I use and I can view my play lists and also browse network drives for my music (my music is stored on a separate data server in the basement). This is a web based plug in that I can use a web browser either on my pda or my phone(though my wireless network). There are also various templates including one that was designed for an ipod.

I believe I am achieving bit perfect playback of my flac's using the wasapi plug-in(there is also a kernel streaming plugin) with foobar. However if someone with more experienced ears were to chime in and tell me I was right or wrong would make me feel better.

heiney9

I used Kernel streaming and Media Monkey when I was running the old computer with the Chaintech for my wired office rig. I thought it sounded pretty good. The new computer using the USB with the proper plug-in and asynchronous conversion sounds a lot better to my ears. Same rig just different extraction.

So it's hard to say. PC sound is a bit of trial and error and it sounds like you have it set-up well. Not you, but many people, think it's a plug-n-play type set-up. To get the best possible sound things need to be tweaked along the way to avoid mediocre sound. I used Foobar a long time ago. I much prefer Media Monkey for running my wired office rig.

H9

Toolfan66

thejck wrote: »

Why would you also want to use a squeezebox if you can use your PC?

My PC is in the basement and my 2 channel rig is up stairs, I have the W4S DAC 2 on the way, and this SB might just be the ticket.. I can use my laptop if need be as well. If nothing else it's just another toy to play with..

heiney9

Larry, the SB is the ticket and will integrate perfectly. You will need to eventually add a nice external linear power supply like the Channel Island Audio or Welborne Labs. It makes a difference, especially in a higher end rig.

http://www.ciaudio.com/products/VDCSB

http://www.welbornelabs.com/squeeze.htm

IMO, they are a must for the discerning ear. I did a longterm test with the stock switching PS vs. The Welborne and it is much better.

H9