Experiences with SlimDevices Squeezebox.

Redkiwi:

Great to hear of your positive experience. it fits with mine. I'm running my Squeezebox into a Genesis Digital Lens and then into an Apogee Big Ben. Then I'm using a TacT RCS 2.0s and dCS Purcell and Delius. The sound of the squeezebox in this manner is nearly as good as CD sound from a modified Wadia 270se.

There are still some minor bugs that the SlimDevices folks are trying to work out. For example, sometimes my channels reverse for no good reason.

Harry

I also use a Squeezebox driving an external DAC (conrad johnson DA2-B) and the sound I get is most certainly cleaner and more resolving than with any of the transports I've tried. The digital PCM output is excellent quality and drives the DAC beautifully. The analog output is reasonable, but isn't really up to par with the current offering of mid-priced CD players on the market. For $200 however, its quite a value as a CDP replacement in a low to midrange system, and an astonomical value when compared to the price of a quality transport.

For reference, all of my music was extracted from CD using Exact Audio Copy and then encoded into FLAC format for storage. The combination provides a perfect copy of the CD audio and uses about half the space of the raw WAV or AIFF files.

Finally put a decent DAC on the Squeezebox, a Northstar Model 192 DAC. I am thinking of perhaps putting a MSB Network card in the Squeezebox next. The MSB netwok card upsamples and reclocks inside the transport and then has an I2S output via RJ45 and ethernet cable. Similarly the Northstar Model 192 has an I2S input via RJ45 connector. I am selling my CD player and modifying a TEAC VRDS transport and then it will be 'game on' between the Squeezebox and the TEAC. It should be fun. The Northstar is sounding better and better every day as it runs in.

I haven't any idea what an AIFF file is Harry, so I will look it up. Any reason why you use it? Is it an equivalent to FLAC?

I am TOTALLY sold on the Squeezebox. The convenience makes a big difference to my music listening. Perhaps the biggest thing is that it results in me listening to a lot bigger range of music in my collection - simply because I do not have to go over to my CD rack and figure out what to play next. Staying in the listening seat, listening to the current track and wandering around 10,000 tracks to cue up what I will listen to next is just magic. Adding three of four albums into a playlist and then shuffling them up and hitting play is great too.

Redkiwi:

Squeezebox is AMAZING!! AIFF is a totally uncompressed format supported by iTunes and Squeezebox similar to a .wav file. You probably won't be able to tell the difference between AIFF and FLAC, although to my ear...I liked AIFF better.

I'm running my squeezebox through a digital lens and apogee big ben....and then to a dCS purcell upsampler...and a dCS delius dac. Overkill you say?? You should hear the sound. It rivals my modified Wadia 270se.

There are still a few minor bugs wth the squeezebox. I occasionally notice that the channels are reversed. They are working on this.

It will be interesting to see how the new Apple Airport Express...with it's digital output and direct wireless link to iTunes compares. We'll see if it is sonically infereior.

Keep in touch.
Harry

I found the hardwired connection to be better than the WiFi - it sounded like less jitter