Experiences with SlimDevices Squeezebox.

All right, Harry, the same question goes for U24: it's still $250... I'm not trying to tell that quality is always pro rata to a price, but the price gap between more-less seriuos DAC and these devices is surprisingly big, and usually it doesn't happen with no reason...

Dmitrydr:

Agree with you on this. Not always, but often the quality of internal components correlates with price. By the way, I'm not using the internal dac in ANY of thes units. I'm simply running USB in and digital out. The digital signal then hits a Genesis Lens, Apogee Big Ben, TacT RCS 2.0s, another Big Ben, dCS Purcell, dCS Delius and then off to the rest of my system.

Harry

Hi -

I have been running my SqueezeBox on my ethernet network for a month or so. I am using a Bolder Modified Art D/IO I bought here on the 'Gon. I am using the Apple Lossless compression scheme, and am carefully cleaning each CD using various mixes of the popular cleaners =)

I find the sound quite extraordinary, (B&K and Von Schweikerts with most of the usual tweaks). The convenience is beyond killer and certainly way, way beyond what any mechanical CD changer can do. Plus as a dedicated Mac guy it thrills me to have all this very kewl software for free. My CD Player is a Cal Audio Labs 2500 and it isn't seeing a lot of duty in the CD world.

I totally second Dmitrydr: The news here to the old school (which includes everybody but us) is beep beep move over, major paradigm shift coming through.

But all is not perfect - three major beefs I've mailed them about:

#1 - The output jacks suck. Talking physical stuff - they literally do not protrude far enough for me to get my Cardas Lightning to even stay on it (this has an RCA that is huge, plus its a stiff cable)- Harry put it quite delicately - "the quality of the internal components correlates with price."

My thought is to send my new unit (o Wayne at Bolder to put some nice Cardas jacks in it plus do whatever else he can to the digital path. He has asked me, and I have asked the factory several times for schematics but so far no soap - but I got some great tips here.

BTW If one of you is a EE empath I'll give you or your buddy the business instead. Just let me know ASAP

#2 - I get these really nasty pops - can't quite tell if this is at fade up or fade down but its always in the clear between songs. Anyone else experience this? don't know if its the overloaded state of my Mac, the big files or what - a reboot seems to cure it.

#3 - There is no doubt that the server appreciably slows down our network. And the software is very grabby with IP addresses. We are all really lucky that those guys aren't hackers =)

I am also concerned that I am slowing my own machine (not as dramatic as the network slowdown but still) and that worse I am hammering my main drive. I have been seriously considering getting a LaCie Ethernet Disk and putting it in my printer closet. Not cheap but it works with all OS'es. Anyone have an opinion as to whether or not this will help - we both work at home and notice the drag on big up and downloads (DSL)

I have got to say that I have not heard of the Waveterminal before tonight. Sounds like a fine approach and one that I will look into. While the SLIM software is a very cool open source thing, from a day to day perspective it doesn't have anything on iTunes. And since I am already loading all the CDs in though iTunes...

Truth is that little display is cute but with the amount of material I already have here (55Gb of ripped music -remember that is Apple Lossles) for me navigating through the display is useless for anything but set up and genre selection. Whether I do that via Ethernet, USB or WiFi is neither here nor there to me.

Happy to have found this threat and look forward to seeing you all again.

best,
ck

Ckorody:

I'm still loving my waveterminal. I was working through all of the network issues, pop and click issues, network slowdown issues, build quality issues.......and....well, I'm happy as a lark with my Waveterminal. If you don't mind a wired solution, all of these problems will disappear. The waveterminal works perfectly. And I haven't even started up the Waveterminal upgrade path yet.

If you continue with Squeezebox, you probably should find a way to use an external linear 5V power supply as oppossed to the the supplied wall wart. I ran my Sqeezebox of an external B&K Linear that I'm using to power other gear...and there was a definite improvement.

Incidentally, I copied my iTunes music folder to an external 250GB Lacie drive. Works great and saves your primary harddrive.

Good luck,
Harry

Don't know how long they will last but I found a unit for $139 this morning which is about $100 under everyone else on the net

http://www.musiciansbuy.com/EGO_SYSTEMS_WAVETERMINAL_U2A_BLEM.html

ordered mine already