Squeezebox

No.

One of my cousins doesn't drive atall.

I think he'll be 30 ish now, though not sure.

Interetsing , Grandpa was VERY conservation minded, back in the 70s.

Jeremy seems to have down a similar route, though his brother does drive.

 

I have 260 albums stored uncompressed on iTunes all linked into the system and have done for years. I still hardly ever bother to use it. Only ever for long term background music.

Why doesn't that surprise me. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Without being rude, try using your hifi for listening to music - that's it's raison d'etre after all. You will then find the tweaking really is a rather unrewarding past time.

 

My dear chap, why doesn't your reaction surprise ME?

we'll have to agree to disagree, i think Mike!

not at all

oh but I do

I just get a lot of fun out of extracting (IMO of course!!) more and more sonic information out of it......to me it might even be a little boring if it stayed sounding the same all the time.

Its a question of experimening with masses etc etc.

Why do climbers climb mountains?

Because they are there!

as above

 

How very sad. Music lovers will understand my point. It seems you don't. Heyho must dash.

 

You have own special way of expressing yourself Mike.....

I'm not!

(edit; think you must have misundstood something Mike!)

...what a pretty unpleasant thing to say!

re read my note above, perhpats?

bye.



Mike, I don't blame you for not fully undestanding my hobby....but SUCH an antaganistic, anti-reaction is a little hard to fathom, and frankly a little hard to beleive.....

 

Having owned a SONOS system for 3 months now I wouldnt go back. Unlike every other Digital music system on the market it has its own very elegant hand held WiFi controller. Cover art, playlists are all accessable from the controller.
I use iTunes and RIP with Apple Lossless. As my iTunes Music folder is on a 1Tb NAS my iMAC can be switched off when I listen.
My main listening room has a SONOS ZP80 connected by Toslink Wireworld Supernova 5+ into my Reimyo DAP-777, and to be frank it sounds almost as good as the Wadia 861b that I recently sold. I have a Cyrus CDXt transport for more serious digital listening.
Where the SONOS scores is ease of use. The handheld controller is one of the most intuative devices I have used. It has a large fulkl colour screen, and the load time on tracks is sub second.
Convenience over quality ... maybe, but when you really want to LISTEN to music surely, like me, you reach for vinyl.

 

Ah!!!

Sanity prevails at last!!







sorry, only kidding....

 

All the advantages of the Sonos system over the Squeezebox one (nice wifi controller with cover art etc), and a better navigation system (i.e. more than two lines per page display) can be had for the SB now with the Duet remote. Well, I say now, I think it will be available at the beginning of March!

I have had an SB3 (with a decent linear PSU and a NOS DAC) for a good while now and have never looked back. Infact more often than not, any new CD's go straight to the PC for ripping and never make it to the CD player!

 

Yes, it's the same with me. In fact I'm thinking of selling my CD players while they are still worth more than cassette players.

 

hmmm....

...it'll be interesting to see what the £££ of really **** hot (high end) cd players does....

 

well i havent used my cd player in about 4 months. In fact its not even physically connected to the system any more. As the others have said. if i get a new CD its put into the laptop, ripped and added to the squeezebox.

 

Yeah but hey.....

Isn't there a loss of audio quality in the transfer to the computer....then the subsequent replay FROM the computer??

 

Thats one of the things I don't like the idea of. If I get a CD, I want to stick it in and play it. If someone brings a CD over I want to simply listen to it. I don't want to have to rip it first.

Having seens Robs system last weekend I think a dedicated laptop with CD drive and an Airport express seems better.

What is the smallest laptop with a CD drive built in?

 

Not sure what the smallest is but a regular Macbook is quite dinky and powerful enough to do much more besides audio.

Airport Express is impressive and dead cheap.
I had a moment of panic yesterday when streamed music sounded terribly bass light compared to the CD but then I realised I had left the bass EQ on in iTunes.......
Close as dammit now.

Pop a little utility called Airfoil on your computer and you can stream sound from any application over AE so users of Winamp or MediaPlayer for example need not feel left out.

 

Not good enough imo.....or for me at least

I'm looking for the optimum source

Thats what hifi IS surely??

 

There's optimum and there's maximum. And there's hi and hi-est.

 

But I didn't say which was better

By 'close' I meant that after a couple of days listening to an unfamiliar product I cannot reliably tell the stream from the CD.
That situation may change but that's the position at the moment.

Is that good enough?
Yes IMO because you can obsess over what are often miniscule differences and lose the plot as many audiophiles do.
Having done just that for many years I have no intention of retreading that particular road.

You know what they say about ex smokers

 

......no good going on the attack, mate.

i'm just saying as far as I am concerned its what comes out of the speakers thats all important to me.

I don't see the need to get stressed about putting a cd into a cdplayer.

Good Lord we're not talking about replacing/turning vinyl every 15 mins.....although i'd still be happy to do that.

(where is that "loosing the plot"???)


.

 

Lol, I don't think Rob is going on the attack! Hes just adding his 2cents

I don't think there is really much in it for the quality of streaming music from a PC source to a good DAC, or playing directly from CD.

As you know David I'm in agreement that I don't want to change from CD, but for me its purely because I'm a creature of habit. I have to say I find it kind of odd that your point of contention is the very small difference in quality (if it does exist at all) when your CD source is a slightly modded mid-range Arcam. I could understand that kind of argument more coming from someone with £8k invested in a DCS player because of their heavy financial investment! Please don't feel that I'm bashing your kit because I'm not meaning to, I completely respect what you use and I think someone with £8k invested in a CD player is rather nuts. However, the levels of difference in CD or computer streaming are so small I wouldn't have expected it to be the point of contention for you, with the kit you use, or anyone with sensibly priced kit really.

If you fancy coming down for an afternoon (or longer if you like) I'd happily do an A/B comparison between my laptop and soundcard vs. a pretty damn good transport in to the same DAC. You would be surprised how small the differences are! i.e. to the point I'm hard pressed to say there are any. Bring some feet and cables too if you want...

 

No attack David, and I'm not arguing that anyone should give up their CDs in favour of a server solution.
I simply believe that both options are equally valid and can sound just as good. There are far bigger obstacles to good sound than whether your stream comes via laser or file.