USB Ext Sound Card Vs. Squeebox

This one is totally up to you. I don't think there is a black and white answer. If it were me I would go from the Mac Mini to a USB DAC like the Benchmark DAC1 USB or a Wavelength DAC.

- Chris
Computer Audiophile | Turn Down The Silence
http://www.computeraudiophile.com

I just purchase a Squeezebox. I will test to see if I hear a difference between the suqeezebox wifi versus an external usb sound card. Both of which will be using the same DAC (Ack).

Sqeezebox has a really good digital out, supposedly you will be hard pressed to find a difference between a good cd player as a transport versus the squeezebox + FLAC encoding

I guess most of you don't understand my question.

Anyhow, this is what I found. Using the same DAC and setup, the Squeezebox does not sound as good as the External USB sound card. The overall detail seems to be lacking a bit. I am guessing this is because the Squeezebox is through a wireless network where as the External sound card is using USB 2.0. I'm not sure if this make any sense to anyone but that is what I found.

The difference you hear has little to do with the different technologies. It's the implementation of the technology that makes the difference. By itself the Squeezbox is good to very good, but it has clearly defined (and well documented) shortcomings. There are various mods and upgrades that people claim significantly better the basic product. If you did a comparison of various USB devices you would also find that some sound better than others.