Another Squeezebox Replacement Thread

Michael yes I'd like that sometime.

Hi All, I'm looking for a way to play higher quality subscription radio. I tried with my computer but its XP and there are problems with qulaity and reliability (pauses pops etc). I enjoyed MOG quality but it was replaced by BEATs and the problems with MOG are still there (frops in and out). Any thoughts on hardware?

Hi Cruz,

I didn't realize that the audiophile community was reluctant to adopt Sonos. I assumed they were about on par with Squeezebox. Have you found a significant sonic difference between the two?

The lack of high-resolution capabilities may become more of an issue in the future, but I don't see it as a deal-breaker for now.

I haven't really had any problems with the Squeezebox software. It took a little effort to get it installed on my enterprise-grade distribution of Linux (this is NOT what most people run at home), although that actually went fairly smoothly. I've been running it for a decade 24/7 and it's always been very stable.

I'm just thinking that if I eventually move away from the Squeezeboxes, then I want to move to a next-generation system, not a contemporary of the Squeezebox. I'm talking about sophisticated AI-capable software that sees what you listen to and what's in your private music collection and hooks you up with Pandora and such to expose you to additional music. I'm looking for a high-resolution streaming system that can take advantage of my wired ethernet. And I'm looking for something that can fit well with whatever environment it's in, whether it's a top-of-the-line sounding unit that's connected to my big rig, or a wireless waterproof boombox for the deck. And it needs to be happy accessing over a terabyte of FLAC files on my Linux server.

When someone comes out with that, then I'm selling the Squeezeboxes. I just don't think Sonos is there yet.

Mapmap, I'm in Baltimore (city). We should hook up sometime. You're one of the people on Audiogon whose posts I generally agree with. (Scary, I know.)

Michael

There appears to be a general reluctance by the audiophile community to adopt Sonos since the demise of Squeezebox, but having used both for periods of years, the Sonos operating system and connected environment is head and shoulders above Squeezebox. The limiting factor is that only does 16/44, but there are companies that mod the Sonos connect to enable 24 bit if needed. I use a Sonos connect with a Vortexbox to store my music. After years of constant tinkering and software glitches with Squeezbox, I love the simplicity and reliability of Sonos and its every bit as good from a audio standpoint (at 16/44).

Hi Michael.

Yes baltimore county since 1988.

Listening to plex on amazon fire tv via toslink out to my family room system as I type on the ipod controller. Sounding very good!

Plex and android are a good combo. We'll be seeing a lot of hardware options for plex over the next few years i suspect .

Hi Mapman,

We seem to be on similar courses. (And I think you also live in Maryland, if I'm not mistaken.) I've been using the Squeezebox line for the past decade (4 Squeezebox Classics, 1 transporter, and 2 Squeezebox Radios), never with any hitches. My Linux server runs both Plex Media Server and Logitech Media Server (both pointed to the same files). I can stream videos with the Plex Media Server to an Amazon TV or my Oppo Blu-Ray player, and I use the Squeezeboxes for the audio (even though I could use Plex here, as well).

I'm not convinced that Tablet to DAC is where we ultimately want to head. I think that in a computer audiophile sense that we should see the tablet as a means for controlling which music is played and where. Kind of like a super-duper remote control. But I think that the actual processing and data flows shouldn't be constrained to all go through the tablet. In other words, I think we'll be better off eliminating the middle man as if the tablet has to both receive the data and retransmit it, then you've effectively cut into your available wireless bandwidth.

The real question I have is whether someone will actually come up with a product that's head and shoulders better than the Squeezebox line. I'm not sure if we're there yet. Maybe the real future (at least for Geeks) will be in a bunch of little Rasperry Pi's that we configure ourselves to act like Squeezeboxes wherever we want them.

Michael