Squeezebox Touch-tips, tricks & tweaks

falconcry72

fibi1 wrote: »

good post

reported.

heiney9

Steve, you only need one other thing.

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

The wallwart that comes with the Touch is of the switching type and it IS a weak link. We all have the Welborne Labs unit and there is a difference. For true high end performance it is $$$ very well spent.

H9

steveinaz

I've been researchng that, they're discounted right now too. Once I'm certain that the SB stays, I'll pick one up.

steveinaz

ripping......and ripping.....and ripping.....an.............

steveinaz

Touch will be here Wednesday. Anyone run their USB HDD directly into the touch?

heiney9

steveinaz wrote: »

Touch will be here Wednesday. Anyone run their USB HDD directly into the touch?

I have never gotten it to work, and you don't have anywhere near the flexibility of features. It's slow, cumbersome and a poor compared to doing it with a proper PC. The USB was really added as a convenience for a thumb drive/jump drive if someone brought some music over,etc. It was never intended or marketed to run a full HD and manage your music. There is a guy on here doing that, but since he is new to the SQB I doubt he realizes how much better (and it's a lot better) it is to run it from a PC rather than the USB.

I wouldn't even consider it Steve.

H9

steveinaz

Surprising, you'd think a direct connection/dedicated USB drive would simplify things. Hmm.

heiney9

steveinaz wrote: »

Surprising, you'd think a direct connection/dedicated USB drive would simplify things. Hmm.

Yes, but the processing power needed would push the price to probably double or more as well as the physical size of the unit. See the Logitech Transporter at over $1K for something like that, or some of there other very expensive (comparatively) all in one units.

It is strictly designed as an excellent wireless interphase between a PC and your audio rig to manage a music database.

How would you get your music on the HD? You'd have to unhook it all the time, etc. How would you re-tag stuff?

H9

steveinaz

True. It looks as though (from researching) the following will will "help" with successful implementation:

1. USB HDD that is self powered
2. Fat32/Fat16 formatting
3. Use only 1 partition
4. Remove any software that isn't media from drive
5. You'll still be limited to 100 playlists

My particular drive (Western Digital MyBook) meets all of the above (Fat32). I may try it for **** n grins--not a big deal either way.

heiney9

steveinaz wrote: »

I may try it for **** n grins--not a big deal either way.

Sure, explore all it has to offer. I never did get it to work properly with a thumb drive. My brother tried it with an HD once and it was not too good. I think you'll find as your library increases it becomes less and less of an option. Everytime you add new music you have to have the drive scanned so the SQB software can update the song library. It takes FOREVER if you do it from the USB directly from the Touch using a HD. Literally hours if you have a sizeable catalog of music. So it's not just the streaming part of the equation.

H9

steveinaz

Next questions; this pup comes today, so I'm trying to do some final prep:

1. Where do I find the option to have *.flac files converted to PCM at the server (sent wirelessly as Wav/PCM).

2. Secondly---MySqueezebox---Is the purpose of the web interface strictly for internet music; or otherwise non-local music sources?

3. Finally---Logitech media Server (AKA SB Server)---are there any critical settings I should be checking/changing to optimize fidelity? In my case, I will be going wireless to the touch, then digitally into my DAC.

Rip update; I'm about 35% thru my CD library. man this is a slow process. Thank god I only have about 325 CD's. I'm also thinning the herd a bit--something I've been meaning to do for a long time--If it hasn't been listened to in the last 5 years, it ain't getting ripped...LOL.

heiney9

Why do you want to do that Steve? If you send WAV files they have no ID3 tags which means you will see no information on screen. WAV files don't support ID3 tags, never have and probably never will.

What is the fascination with WAV files for people?

H9

heiney9

Properly ripped FLAC files are indentical to a WAV file, but are much easier to manage both with ID3 content and size. Why take the time to rip to FLAC just to convert back to WAV? AM I missing something here? Why make it so complicated?

H9

heiney9

steveinaz wrote: »

Rip update; I'm about 35% thur my CD library. man this is a slow process.

My brother is approaching owning 10,000 cds. It has taken him 6-7 years, running (as he buys new cd's weekly). His initial ripping session when he started this 6-7 years ago was about 2 years to add what he'd already owned. An extreme case for sure, but yes, it takes some time in the beginning. We even thought of a business opportunity to charge people who didn;t have the time to rip their cds for them. In fact we have a friend who paid someone to do it for him.

H9

steveinaz

Maybe I'm not saying it correctly---I want the flac files "unzipped" on the fly by the server, rather than putting the load on TinySB on the touch to do the decoding. I've heard that this can be a better option to reduce "horsepower" required by the touch.

Wav isn't the right term, PCM is probably more correct.

Better explanation here:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=82624.20

heiney9

steveinaz wrote: »

Maybe I'm not saying it correctly---I want the flac files "unzipped" on the fly by the server, rather than putting the load on TinySB on the touch. I've heard that this can be a better option to reduce "horsepower" required by the touch.

Never heard that before, never had an issue. Where did you read this? And yes, you were saying it incorrectly. :cheesygrin::razz: WAV files have nothing to do with it. Converting at the SQB is not an issue and the "load" is minimal and should affect nothing. I've never had a hiccup or drop-out that wasn't a glitch in my wireless router. I do know DKG999 was running several as in about 6 wireless devices at one time and he did get the SQB to "bog" down as well as the other devices.

Otherwise, it's never been an issue.

H9

steveinaz

It may be one of those tweaks that is much ado about nothing--I don't know. Seems to make sense that your server would have more resources/power to do the decoding than the touch--but again it seems kind of controversial among audiophiles. It's discussed quite a bit on a number of forums, most notably at the squeezebox forum under the "Audiophiles" topic header. I know it would be a "robbing peter to pay paul" scenario, as what you save in processing power, you likely give up in wireless bandwidth.

Scroll down that link I posted to the 7th post on that page, a guy gives the settings if you want to try it. Some say it sounds better (streaming PCM), some say horse-hockey, sound familiar?

Would this be akin to "rolling bytes" in Squeezebox land? LOL

heiney9

Lol Steve, I see. To be honest I "set it and forget it", a long time ago. The external PS will make a bigger difference I'm sure. Feel free to experiment and report your findings. I am all for improving something. I know some have gone to the complete extreme by disabling the lcd display and other extreme tweaks. I suppose now that we can run this with smart phones the display is less important, but I will never be that "invasive" to the unit and I still like the display and can read it from across the room.

H9

steveinaz

Ok Brock, you talked me into this anti-christ of fidelity; your reputation and credibility are on the line. This thing better sound good. The only other persons' advice I have taken was Sean (Zero)--on the Carbon 7's--He scored seriously high on that call, and I realized that he has some good ears on that rather large head.

But, NO PRESSURE man....LOL

steveinaz

I think I'll leave well enough alone. We'll run'er stock for a week or 2, and I'll post a review.

heiney9

No pressure on me, I am as anal as they come and I research and as am skeptical as they come. I am particular about my main rig and I'm here to tell you, properly implemented being fed properly ripped files and it's superb.

Ask

Ricardo, DKG999 (Doug), SCompRacer (Rich) we are all somewhat snobby audiophiles and the SQB really delivers when two area's are taken care of 1) a high end dac 2) a proper linear PS.

I am not worried in the least

Also give it a listen with the internal dac's, not too shabby but not like using a real audiophile type dac.

H9

SCompRacer

heiney9 wrote: »

......we are all somewhat snobby audiophiles .....

I'd like to clarify that I resigned a couple years back and just became an audio enthusiast. I think Ricardo turned his card in too. Or offered to....:cheesygrin:

Steve, in all fairness to both sides of the argument, there are some recording engineers that claim they can hear the difference between flac expanded and wav files. Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast Records fame is one of them. I say good listening to anyone that can, and anyone that can't tell the difference.

Oh, BTW, this was all a massive plot engineered by Brock to assimilate you into the Touch.:cheesygrin:

steveinaz

I think my wife is more excited than I am, she likes her electronic "doohickies."

Me: Honey, this thing will store all our CD's in a single component.
Her: But it's so small, how would they fit?
Me: Well of course they won't physically go in there....pffffttt
Her: That's not what I meant dickhead, how does it manage to play all our CD's?
Me: Oh, my bad. Well, we'll stream them thru our wireless broadband from the hard drive.
Her: Oh...cool. The whole library, at the click of a remote?
Me: yes ma'am.
Her: you ARE gettin some tonight.
Me: Wicked; I score TWICE.

SCompRacer

LOL

My wife loves her smart phone. When she found about the Sqeeze app for it, I lost the total control of my system. She does use it now, more than ever before. She constantly finds something she wants on her ipod. After showing her MediaMonkey, she learned that Itunes really does suck. MM allows us to rip lame mp3 on the fly to any device.

steveinaz

Funny you should mention that, Bev is already bugging me to figure out how to convert flac to mp3 for her phone. She has a Verizon Droid.

heiney9

SCompRacer wrote: »

I'd like to clarify that I resigned a couple years back and just became an audio enthusiast. I think Ricardo turned his card in too. Or offered to....:cheesygrin:



Oh, BTW, this was all a massive plot engineered by Brock to assimilate you into the Touch.:cheesygrin:

Ok, let's go with "discerning listener's", rather than "snobby audiophile"

Hey, I LOVE this product, how it interphases, and what it's done to increase my listening habits and get more enjoyment from my rig.

heiney9

Steve,

When does the linear power supply arrive? :razz::cheesygrin:

H9

steveinaz

Even taking into account the severely limited audio in youtube, I'm impressed nonetheless with the quiet background and tonality of the videos featuring Touch's as sources in high-end systems. Looks promising. I'm far more picky than my rather modest equipment would indicate.

steveinaz

heiney9 wrote: »

Steve,

When does the linear power supply arrive? :razz::cheesygrin:

H9

I'm in the process of increasing my Christmas stocking size/weight capacity; and pampering my lovely wife. Stay tuned....baby steps man, baby steps.

heiney9

steveinaz wrote: »

I'm far more picky than my rather modest equipment would indicate.

Join the club............that's me as well.

H9