Squeze Box Question

I would say let's slow down on saying a hard drive equals or exceeds the world's best transports. I just took the plunge into PC audio and am having trouble equaling the performance of my 15 year old $100 DVD player as a transport into my high end DAC. Now I am doing it all, ripping with EAC to wav, using Media Monkey with the right plug ins, using a high end RME sound card, ASIO drivers you name it. But right now I would give the edge to the old crappy DVD player. I will say I have some tweaks to do to my PC setup, so I won't say it is fully optimized, but right now PC audio is NOT delivering 100% of an old fashioned transport. We are about 95% of the way there, maybe with my final tweaks we can get 100-110% like people claim.

Three things must happen well for good sound regardless of technology:

1. Read all the bits correctly (source/transport)
2. clock them so they get converted to analog at the right time (clock, usually on transport but sometimes on DAC, particularly DACs that upsample)
3. convert them to analog (DAC)

Using a computer as a source can provide very good results usually for 1 but 2. can be rocky depending. 3. seldom ever takes place on the computer TTBOMK.

With a Squeezebox or Roku or similar network player, 1 occurs on the server, 2 is performed by the network player and 3 by either the internal or an external DAC, depending. Then some DACs may also upsample and re-clock as well.

Building a music server has literally breathed new life into my enjoyment of music. For me, this is more about the music than the equipment. In other words, I won't argue about which methodology sounds better. All I know is that I now listen to my music EVERY night. I don't even consider turning on the TV. I'm not even into my music DVD concerts as much as I used to be. I turn off the lights and sit in my chair with access to more than 5,000 songs from my library. I can listen to any song in any order. I have been listening to songs and albums that I haven't listened to in years. I can select the "jewels" from old CDs that I’ve nearly forgotten about and play them along side my brand new tunes. This is absolutely the coolest thing I've done with my music. Building a music server/library has been great fun too. It takes a while, and I’m not nearly finished ripping my CDs, but it is a process that, like “tweaking”, allows a physical interface with the music. I haven't even mentioned the possibilities of internet radio….

Once you set up your server, you'll know what I mean. You should definitely strive for the highest fidelity possible though. Use good ripping software (I still recommend EAC), rip in lossless (I recommend .flac), utilize a good DAC if you can swing it, and also use a really good digital cable between the DAC and Squeezebox.

2chnlben,

You nailed it. I feel the same way about my music server. There is a lot more to it than just top notch sound reproduction. It's about new and flexible ways to enable maximum enjoyment of music!

Those hesitant to join the club due to reservations about digital versus analog sound quality or whatever are missing out on a great thing. Stop complaining about digital, figure out how to get it right and JUST DO IT!

I enjoy it for the internet radio aspects..........I listen almost exclusively to classical....... the number of radio stations available to me is astounding and the sound quality is pretty darn good as well..........