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Sound Quality or Convenience?

OK, asking this question to audiophiles might seem inane, but I have read enough threads (not to mention For Sale ads!) that make me think that we sometimes feel ok sacrificing sound at the altar of convenience.

Would like to hear your experiences, along with perhaps some theoretical quantification... such as how much SQ can be let go for how much convenience, etc. For those who chose this path, was it a keeper or did you want that SQ so much you went back to it?

My own is a probably a familiar one: Maggie 3.6, which were not just visually er, challenging, but also required a lot of work to yield that magic. I gave up on the magic in favor of much easier speakers, and then did it again a couple of years later. I now own Zu Druids, which are as diametrically opposite to Maggies os one can get. They look and sound great (to my ears, this is NOT repeat NOT a Zu thread) and are easy to work with in terms of space, weight and amplification.
kck
boa2's avatar
boa2
1,551 posts
 
Mitch4t,
A Squeezebox is a unit that you connect to your system that you can operate remotely in order to read/select/play (it has its own DAC) music files stored on a hard drive. You can read about it here .
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
a squeeze box is a remote......there are so many great components available, convenience is paramount....the greatest part of my thorens td147 is the autolift.
kenyonbm
141 posts
 
I have been using a Squeezebox for about 6 months, mostly for Internet Radio on my 2nd system. I have found great, commercial-free classical feeds from all over the world. The only problem is that the announcers speak 100 different languages.

I did try a side by side comparison of a hard drive copy of a cd and the cd, using both the toslink and the 75 ohm digital out and the DAC in my CDP. I found the direct cd sound more open and preferred it.

So, to answer your original question, I found the convenience to be not as important as SQ.

This may be because, for me, changing the cd is no big deal, so any lose of SQ was not worth it. Also loading all those CDs takes a lot of time and disc space.

The biggest reason the SqueezeBox did not remain in my main system is that I didn't like the added complication and cables etc. I love the SB and it lives happily on my second system with my turntable and CD changer.

I also tried a TacT 2.2s and liked what it did for the sound. It made a real improvement. In the end I returned it because it was so distracting and complicated my rig.

For me simplicity and ease of use are a big part of convienience and the overall quality of the experiance.
kck OP
184 posts
 
Kenyonbm, spoken with the self-contradiction of a true audiophile! Not raggin' on you, just amused that I am not the only one. Hope I didn't misunderstand though.

Score so far is 5:1 in favor of convenience (kenyonbm counted once in each).
rackon
301 posts
 
Oh dear, here's another vote for convenience.

Sold my Maggies for the much easier to place and position Alon Vs, and I just sold my beloved Herron VTSP-1 preamp which I will replace with the Herron VTSP-2...and I swear it's not because the 2 has remote control, HT by-pass and polarity switch - honest!
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