Duet to Touch for next upgrade?

Mapman- Under "normal" audiophile rules (an oxymoron if ever I wrote one) I'd agree, but my HP amp (Ray Samuels Hornet) also has a DAC and since it's just for occassional night use, I'm gonna keep it small and simple. Thx for the advice tho, and you are probably correct about a successor for the Touch.

Lots of great information. Appreciate the suggestions. Really have enjoyed the dac60 and for now plan to keep it in the system.
For now will keep the duet and research a pre.
Steve

If I already had Duet and looking to upgrade I would get the DAC right first then move up to latest and greatest player device.

Touch is about due for a successor soon I would think and I would expect that to up the ante still at this stage.

The Touch's analog out, however, is far superior to the Duet's

Thx, that's what i was looking for, I'm using the Duet as a source for my bedroom headphone system.

I just replaced my Duet with a Touch and agree that with an external DAC and analog volume control, there's no discernible difference in sound quality between them. (The Touch's analog out, however, is far superior to the Duet's.) With my Duet, though, every software update brought a new set of glitches. No such problems with the Touch so far.

There's more improvement if you add an external dac to the SB touch, which is able to play hi res files (96khz) tracks. The digital output of the Duet is limited to 48k, it would not provide the same level of audio quality the touch provides.

Agree w Smholl. Anyone have any thoughts on diffs btwn Duet and Touch we used w/o DAC?

I would not use the volume control in the Duet. It is a digital volume control and you will lose bit resolution.
I have tried it and it sounds terrible.

Pre-amp generally has a huge effect on sound so trying different ones is a good place to look for sound improvements in the areas of tonality, noise levels, detail/resolution, imaging, soundstage, overall musicality, smoothness, etc.

Also note that SB Touch (and I suspect Duet as well) has volume control onboard so pre-amp is not needed for that. Squeezebox with volume control could be used directly as the source into a power amp accordingly then I believe assuming that is your only source (source switching is the other prime function of a pre-amp in addition to volume control) or power amp has multiple phono level inputs as is sometime the case.

Thanks. Your response seems to be the consensus based on the responses from other sites.

Since I will probably continue to use the dac60 if I get a new pre will there be any real benefit? I use the marantz in direct mode for stereo so I guess the main influence it has is with the volume pot. How much effect does that have?
Thanks again,
Steve

Hmm, not sure that I would look to a Touch as a significant sound upgrade if I already had a Duet + a good external DAC.

The reason I think this is that with the same external DACs, I did not notice a significant sound change at all moving to Touch from Roku Soundbridge, which I would expect to be a bigger change. The move to the touch was justified from both a performance and reliability and usability perspective in that the Roku SOundbridge was an older device that was no longer actively supported or sold. I never have had an issue with sound quality of either ROku or Touch running through the same DAC and system.

What are your goals in making a change? Knowing what kind of sound you are shooting for would help.