USB Ext Sound Card Vs. Squeebox

There were no sound difference between wireless and wired except for when my wireless router would drop (thanks to my neighbors cordless phones... changing my wireless channel away from stock and going to 5.8ghz phones solved this problem) Of Course having a Squeezebox without the wireless card will reduce contamination and that will probably make it sound better going wired, but the fact that TCP is a reliable transport that isn't colored by air or copper..(IT humor sorry)

The SB3 is thin sounding stock and not full unless you get a modified powersupply (not just cheap linear ($30-100) powersupply which I did not hear an upgrade) Once I went to my Bolder ultimate powersupply I had body again.

There were no other jitter changes or timing issues. in my comparisions.....so if you have a better DAC and digital cable things are probably different...

I still have a stock SB2 and powersupply to do direct comparisions into my DAC on another input and both can be playing the same song at the same volume level for comparisons.

My Setup
Thecus N5200 Pro Nas (music in FLAC), XP PC running Slimserver and DVR software, Wireless SB3 Bolder Digital mod and Bolder Ultimate powersupply and Bolder power cable, connected via Transparent Reference digital cable to my Theta Gen VIII (which has a Jitter Jail built in for fixing incoming digital inputs) to Theta Citadel amps to Wilson Maxx speakers.

Steve we get the point that you make the Pace Car.. but is it really necessary to tell everyone on every thread that this will fix everything??? I think not... slow down your posts, people do search for answers.

Thanks for sharing.
I was thinking of upgrading the powersuply for the SB3. But I agree with your points.

Forgive my ignorance - i just got a Paradisea for Christmas and wanted to try it with a Squeezebox, Airport Express and straight from a Macbook Pro and was hoping to tap into your expertise - (1) how do you output from iTunes via the USB and (2) what are the best music players (Mac compatible) given the shortcomings of iTunes 7 for high bit rate files? i assume more sophisticated players probably make it easier to output via USB to DAC. thanks in advance.

Lww4k -

Just get a USB cable with the appropriate ends. (I recommend the Belkin Gold USB cable, but any good quality USB cable will work.)

Plug the two devices together. Make sure the DAC is on.
Go to the Audio MIDI SetUp (utility folder) - and select the Paradisea in the pull down menus.(The DAC needs to be on and connected for it to show up in the Setup choices)

Ho to the Wavelength Audio USB DAC site if you need a more detailed blow by blow

http://www.usbdacs dot com/

Push Play in iTunes and off you go.

Be sure you do all of your ripping using Apple Lossless with Error Correction On and the rest of the DSP functions Off. This is all in the Preferences.

Not sure what you mean by "shortcomings". I am not aware of any other Mac compatible music players. iTunes is a Redbook application - if you want to do upsampling it has to take place on your DAC.

If you are sufficiently technical you might take a look at Max which is an Open Source ripping app similar to EAC which is the PC standard and is an alternative to the iTunes ripping software. Do not expect much if any support on this board. There may be some users on the Audio Asylum PC Audio board.

My suggestion is to listen to what you have first. Chances are you will be very pleased once you get all the pieces broken in and dialed up.

Have fun!

Thank you - this is very helpful. I will try this.
I've heard FLAC files are the way to go but not supported by iTunes is major drawback.