Squeezebox

[bottleneck]

ruddy bollocks

was messing with firewalls, anti spam, anti virus on my laptop and now I can't use my laptop as a remote control for my pc with slimserver.

The only problem with HDD media is that you need to know your onions to get the maximum out of it.

I'd never go back to CD's now though, never never

In fact, I havent even spun any vinyl in at least 6 months..

 

[COOLGUY]

bottleneck
I know happened to me too.
if you click "disable firewall" it might start working, it did in my case

 

[julian2002]

chris,
i may be about mk on saturday - if you want i could pop over and have a look for you.

coolguy,
i'd agree with your sentiment that due to price the squeezebox's analogue outputs aren;t 'the best' however the inherent low jitter nature of the device means that native quality is pretty damn good. put it through a dac and it's more than capable of holding it's own against a lot of high end transports (and with a few tweaks it surpasses many). if you are going to stick it in a bedroom mini system and feed it mp3's then you'll not be hearing it's full potential. it's like putting diesel in an aston martin and then complaining that it runs rough and smokes a lot. have you actually heard one? or are you just making assumptions based on price and internet 'wisdom'?

 

[Dev]

If anyone's still in doubt. 48% of teenagers didn't buy any CDs in 2007.

 

[COOLGUY]

julian
I agree..my problem is I just sold my good dac, as I wanted to get some cash for a better analogue preamp
so for some time I wont have a dac put after the squeezebox
the dollar is so week I just may give it a try...If I manage to get one from the US directly.
no I have not heard one. Couldnt get hold of anybody who has it
some of my worry re the analogue output is based on price... if things that cost 2000 USd have mediocre analogue output stages how can you trust something for 300 usd.
But if Im wrong, I will only be glad.... It was a pain to experiment with a 10m long optical cable between PC and living room hifi..
wifi and ethernet would be helpful
It is true however that domestic ICT networks can be a pain
I just thought, what about the security encryption I have.
I dont want my neigbours to acces my wifi , so there is a password authentication set up.
that means encryption and I do wonder what squeezebox will do with that..
I will be annoyed if I will have to make the choice

1 either to disable the password protection and have less security

2 or not to be able to use the squeezebox via wifi as it wont be able to cope with encryption...
no mention about this aspect in the user manual I downloaded.
Anyone has a clue if squeezb can cope with encrypted wifi?

 

[SteveC]

Maybe you are not aware of the website www.slimdevices.com where you can quickly find information like http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_squeezebox.html that tells you the types of encryption SBs can use.

 

[DavidF]

at the end of the day all i'm interested in is enjoying the music however this comes in many flavours, just as some enjoy tweaking the hardware (as i have done in the past) others enjoy the history of the bands they listen to and / or the relationships between them. whatever floats your boat.

true enough

as for dumbing down music i really think this is at best a misunderstanding and at worst misguided rhetoric.

maybe....

hdd audio done properly has zero disadvantage over physical media

possibly.....

(except perhaps simons point about being able to just bung in a cd and listen if you've just bought it - although waiting 10 minutes to rip it is not really that much of a hardship - especially as i've spent that long searching my cd collection looking for a single disk that i was after).
one american mag recently ran a feature on audio servers and came to the conclusion that they were BETTER than most high end cd players (absolute sound). mainly due to bit perfect ripping and the necessity for ram buffers due to networking protocols. i'd also add that a network transport has zero moving parts so isn;t introducing the vibration inherent in spinning a disk at high velocity into your hi-fi rack and thence your microphonic valves,
etc...

...so its by definition BETTER han a cd player then??




sorry, only kiddiing....

before moving to hdd audio i auditioned a number of cd players , naim cdx2, cec 51 dx combo, moon audio and others, they all sounded great and would have been good for the circa 3k i was willing to spend. then on a whim i bought a squeezebox and dax-2 this was just as good for under 1k. then when the sb2 was realeased i had one of the first ones in the country - and a free pony too - in the near 3 years i've had it i've not once thought of changing it.

good

as for listening to music being spontaneous i don;t understand your problem,

...perhpts misunderstood what you were describing.

Lists are cool for many thing in life but I don't see the need to list music.

(BUT if it works for you......)

you can be just as spontaneous with hdd audio - more so even as the ability to browse and change your mind is far easier than with physical audio,

Hey, I jsut grab the remote......move to another track....not diff!

Changing cd also, not an issue!

Again perhapts I misunderand??

but sometimes it's nice to run with a theme - say the works of a particular composer or producer or year.

Fine, if that interests you.

you may even discover that a piece of music you liked on an otherwise lacklustre album was due to the input of a particular industry luminary,

Yep, that might be good

Interesting, granted.

or that certain songs you like have common writers etc.

good for trivial pursuits





again,only kidding

knowledge is always good

( edit; Is this info you could goodle for on the computer?)

giving you more ability to try new music in conidence. with hdd audio you have the choice and THATS what it's about.

mebbe....

it may be a little daunting to set up if you are not confident with computers or whatnot (no shame in that) but there are a number of turnkey solutions out there and any competant 'pc doctor' from the local paper could set one up in about 1/2 an hour and would charge maybe £30 or so.

right.....

the thing i object to really is the idea that hdd audio is somehow inferior to physical audio either because it's easier to use (and therefore has less worth) or worse that it somehow pollutes the music

no,

not at all

The impression I have is that here is little, if anything between the two options for sonic value.

Its just that, like I say , if i were to spend money it would not be to gain the benefits you describe above (though some ARE quite ineteresting).

- this last one really gets my back up

it wasn't meant to

- it shouldn;t though as those who use this argument are usually woefully misinformed about network transport, lossless compression and should perhaps do a little investigation before speaking.

sorry if i'm on a rant but i'm feeling a bit evangelical this evening.

I've long since concluded that hifi means different things to differen people, Julian.

Maybe thats the moral of the story!

 

[lAmBoY]

Nope, the moral is.....bits are bits. Bits on a CD, Bits on a HDD, both the same. Its getting those bits to come out of speakers, thats the challenge. I think the squeezers are having a good stab at it. The CDP will go away in erm about 20 years, and unlikely they will enjoy the following that vinyl decks have.

 

[DavidF]

Nope, the moral is.....bits are bits. Bits on a CD, Bits on a HDD, both the same. Its getting those bits to come out of speakers, thats the challenge.
.

There I DO agree.

I think the squeezers are having a good stab at it. The CDP will go away in erm about 20 years, and unlikely they will enjoy the following that vinyl decks have.

I'd better keep the old Thorens dusted off....

 

[julian2002]

most of the information would be sourced from the net (other than that embedded in the id3 tags for each song) so googling for it is possible however access via a plugin would be much easier and more focussed and therefore more likely to be done - just to see.

hdd audio is still in it's infancy, it could be easier to setup, out of the box sound quality could be better however with a lot of major players now entering the market (without lumping the server, drives and everything else into one box) it's about to go ballistic. there is still the tendancy toward proprietory or non standard protocols but once all that is sorted out it'll be great. at present i believe slim devices have got it spot on - a killer product (digital output) with a low price that works using equipment most already have (a pc).
i'd like to see a pure network transport using the squeezebox protocols (or upnp and a upnp plugin for slimserver / squeezebox) that was full width and has a good psu built in. that would be the only thing that'd make me put my hand in my pocket.

 

[bottleneck]

I agree, HDD is just getting silly-cheap. Looking at terrabyte external HD's for well under a hundred quid on ebay!

Also, check out new WiFi squeezebox remote. Neat to not have to point it anything, just wifi to your pc to control the playing music.

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/speakers_audio/wireless_music_systems/devices/3817&cl=us,en

album art on screen also ala Sonos.

A couple of hundred right now, but reckon that will drop too.

I THINK this is for the squeezebox and not a seperate device in it's own right, but I could be wrong havent studied it inside out.


Jules - yes please! would appreciate any help with laptop. I have posh new coffee machine, so I can pay you in cappuccinos...

Cheers

 

[shrink]

or you could buy a cheap PDA with wifi and use a java based browser to access slimserver and get album art and control your playback. I suspect you could do that quite cheaply.

and most PDA's can be programmed to act as quite powerfull remote controls via IR for standard equipment.

 

[COOLGUY]

Maybe you are not aware of the website www.slimdevices.com where you can quickly find information like http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_squeezebox.html that tells you the types of encryption SBs can use.

need not be so bloody sarcastic...
but thanks I did not notice that
I am giving a serious thought to buying and trying.
I will try to get the guy who bought my lavry dac to come by and do a comparison... SB on its own vs optical out + Lavry

Those of you who use this with an external DAC:
how do you rate this product with its own analogue output versus
optical + DAC? Is it decent, on its own?
2. Did anybody compare sound when WIFI is used versus ethernet, is there any significant difference?
thanks

 

[bottleneck]

I think it's internal dac is pretty good, and have compared with some £2k DACs.

You've got the choice with the SB, and that's a good thing.

Apparently when you lower the volume control on the SB the sound isn't quite as good (a friend reckons anyway), but not a problem if you use a pre-amp or have a volume control elsewhere.

I just use the SB's volume control, and damn any audiophile hoobywooby.

 

[SteveC]

need not be so bloody sarcastic...
...

You don't need to be rude and swear at people trying to help you ... I've no idea what you have or have not seen. Maybe no-one will bother next time.

 

[COOLGUY]

You don't need to be rude and swear at people trying to help you ... I've no idea what you have or have not seen. Maybe no-one will bother next time.

now I dont get you. I am not a native english speaker.
Where in my post did I swear or was rude?
I thanked you for your information in my post.
I thought "bloody" was no longer a swareword...

sorry if I was offensive in any way this was not inteded.

 

[DavidF]

I thought "bloody" was no longer a swareword...
.

its not terribly bad but does still have its meaninhg

(you would probably have got away with the "f " word better.. these days )



t:


I'm only voicing my thoughts here as you are right in many ways, the English language is generally used abused (IMO).

eg "gutted" (= dissappointed....I think)

...was at one time very unnacceptable

Now (V. regrettably) in quite common use.

 

[bottleneck]

I dont think anyone was rude for what it's worth. Fun/jokiness/sarcasm doesnt come across in text too well IMO.

Lets all be friends

 

[SteveC]

Apology accepted!

In answer to your question 2, the wireless/wired question makes no difference to the continuous sound quality in my set-ups, and I can't see any reason for why it would. If you already have wireless network problems then of course the devices are not immune to data drop-outs or interference from devices on the same frequency band, but in that case the sound simply stops. (One can also watch a display of buffer fullness on the SB if one is trying to fix things e.g. by repositioning antennae.)

 

[davidcotton]

First post in ages but thought that I'd post about Ipeng. Its a neat (and free!)app for the slimcentre 7 (newest version of slim software) that lets the user browse using an ipod touch or iphone. Go over to www.slimdevices.com and do a search or go to www.penguinlovesmusic.de for more details. Allows for things like browsing by album art, start album playing by touching album cover and a few more bits and pieces.