Upgrade the Squeebox or get a Transporter?

Good luck, Mitch. Let me know what you think after you break it all in. Not to spend any more of your money, but relevaltion audio has a very nice power cable (umbilical) upgrade to the Channel island power supply for $99 + shipping. It goes from the power upply to the squeezebox. The umbilical that comes with the power supply is pretty flimsy. Okay, I'll stop now, lol.

I'm going with the new power supply and external DAC....if I ever decide to upgrade anything else, I should be able to sell off the parts individually with no hassle.

Thanks Cerrot you've been a huge help on this.

mitch

Mitch,

The outboard power supply is a must have. It is night & day and if you have an FM tuner in your system, the wallwart that comes with the Squeeze Box may degrade the FM signal (actually, in my kit, it did add interferance). (I also upgraded the umbilacal from the power supply to the SB). Ncarv is absolutely correct that you could get a dac with multiple inputs and it would give you a bit of versatility, if not for now, definately down the road. I purchased a Benchmark DAC 1 (no USB) and used the additional inputs for my Masterlink, which was a nice upgrade in the Masterlink's sound. (I still have an input free as well-it has 3) Keep in mind, as technology changes in the future, as we all know it will, you can always sell the outboard DAC and, well, upgrade (again). The Squeezebox had to set you back $200+, depending on how/where you got it, so you would lose that investment if you went with the transporter--not to mention, at $2,000 for the Transporter, your stuck with that internal dac for a while. I picked up a Musical Fidelity xDAC V3 for my PC, used, for, like $500 tops (I went with the outboard power supply - X PSU V3 (and upgraded umbilical) - on that as well, but you may not think necessary, or you can always add it down the line. There are quite a bit of used Dacs on audiogon that may hold you over until you see what's what. I see you have an AR CD Player--any chance that has digital inputs? If so, there is your outboard dac!

One factor to be considered . . . a DAC with multiple inputs could also be used with another source, as well as the SB.
Bolder Audio claims their modded SB sounds better than the Transporter.

You have a tough question to answer. If I had never yet invested in any of this, I would probably give the Transporter a hard look. But I have the Red Wine Audio full modded sb2 and a TAD DAC so I am very happy. From what I have read, the modded squeezebox may outperform the stock Transporter but of course it doesn't have all of the bells and whistles.