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Duet to Touch for next upgrade?

Current 2 channel system:
Marantz sr6005
Bryston 2bst
Lite Audio dac 60 upgraded
Gallo 3.1
Squeezebox duet
Also used for HT with additional equipt.
Have been seriously considering upgrading to a seperate preamp but have now turned my thinking to getting a sb touch. The thought is that I should start with the best source and work up from there.
Reading here and elsewhere seems to indicate that the touch is much better than the duet in all areas and that with the Soundcheck toolbox tweaks it is even better. Originally I had thought it was just the dac in the touch but now I seem to be seeing that there is much more to it.
Is the touch the right first step for the biggest bang for buck?
Thanks
Steve
scoly1
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,675 posts
 
Pre-amp generally has a huge effect on sound so trying different ones is a good place to look for sound improvements in the areas of tonality, noise levels, detail/resolution, imaging, soundstage, overall musicality, smoothness, etc.

Also note that SB Touch (and I suspect Duet as well) has volume control onboard so pre-amp is not needed for that. Squeezebox with volume control could be used directly as the source into a power amp accordingly then I believe assuming that is your only source (source switching is the other prime function of a pre-amp in addition to volume control) or power amp has multiple phono level inputs as is sometime the case.
smholl
190 posts
 
I would not use the volume control in the Duet. It is a digital volume control and you will lose bit resolution.
I have tried it and it sounds terrible.
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
Agree w Smholl. Anyone have any thoughts on diffs btwn Duet and Touch we used w/o DAC?
singleendedsingle
664 posts
 
There's more improvement if you add an external dac to the SB touch, which is able to play hi res files (96khz) tracks. The digital output of the Duet is limited to 48k, it would not provide the same level of audio quality the touch provides.
afranta
180 posts
 
I just replaced my Duet with a Touch and agree that with an external DAC and analog volume control, there's no discernible difference in sound quality between them. (The Touch's analog out, however, is far superior to the Duet's.) With my Duet, though, every software update brought a new set of glitches. No such problems with the Touch so far.
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