Squeezebox Touch with an Oppo BDP-105

I've tweaked my Touch a lot! I think most agree the analog
outputs can be easily bettered with an external DAC (I use a
NAD M51).

So just get an optical and a coax cable and run it into your
Oppo - see which you like better.

Here are the tweaks I've applied:
1. linear power supply - made the most difference. I use a
DIY AMB O11 supply. I also compared it to the iFi iUSB
(which can power the Touch) which is very good. John Swenson
also designed a Touch supply which is meant to be excellent
and cheap to construct.

2. Triode EDO applet mentioned above - this thing is great
and allows you to disable the analog outputs as well as
enabling 192 output over USB

3. A good coax cable. I always prefer coax to optical. The
1.5m thing is really a rule of thumb. It's premised on the
reduction of signal reflections along the transmission line
but this is difficult to control without measurement
equipment, and it's wholly dependent on the impedance
matching of the Touch to the receiving DAC. So what one
person says is best is really what's best for their
particular DAC. That being said, I've tried several coax
cables for the Touch using different DACs and found the
Wireworld Starlight 6 consistently a very good match. It's
also not that expensive.

4. Aftermarket USB-S/PDIF converter - made a nice
improvement as well. I use the iFi iLink + iUSB. The iLink
gave the bulk of the improvement and the iUSB I would say is
optional overall.

5. I've also tried the Touch Toolbox and didn't like version
3 that much, so have removed it. Soundcheck also recommended
the expensive Meicord ethernet cable but I don't notice much
difference with it. I also tried the Squeezebooster inline
choke but it only makes a very minor change.

So...try the EDO plugin (it's free), try optical and coax
into your Oppo...consider a new power supply and actually
you should test going straight into the Oppo using USB as
according to this spreadsheet it works with the EDO plugin
(then the iUSB + Gemini cable would be a more compelling
upgrade later)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?
key=0AqiK6WHnz5FHdEtlalVRb29pX3N2WXhfMlAzNmFMZnc#gid=0

Loftarasa,

After reading your post, I went and removed TT 3.0 and reinstalled the EDO app. I've been meaning to try it anyway, since I jut got a different pre amp.

When going from the TT 3.0 to the EDO app, in my system, the stage got wider, but I lost some depth and the vocals are more recessed. I'm gonna run it like this for a while and see, but I think I'll ultimately go back to using TT 3.0.

All we're ultimately doing is tweaking the priorities of the threads to get the sound that we like. Apparently, TT 3.0 and EDO use different priority settings for the different threads, hence the change in the character of the music, along with the improvements that we get by killing unneeded things like wireless and analogue outs.

A little while back, I happened across a thread by a guy that took the time to isolate the interrupts controlling the threads that affect the character of the music. You could make changes on the fly to A/B the effects of the changes, then write the changes that you liked into the config files. For the life of me, I can't find the thread now.

Isn't a shame that you can't do the same with a CD player? I really like my SBT.

I think it was Dynobot / Dynaudiorules -- I apply his switches to turn off samba and wifi but the thread priority changes were very hard to find a sweet spot on so I left those out.

https://sites.google.com/site/computeraudioorg/squeezebox-touch-tweaks

There you go. That was it. I found it to be a bit of a PITA too. No need to mess with them, really, with TT 3.0 and EDO, which are pretty much tweaked as it is.

I've continued to listen using EDO and I'm finding that the image is also a bit less defined. I'm going to listen more tonight, but think I'm going to go back to using TT 3.0, when I feel like reinstalling it.

Fair enough. Did you try the direct USB out using EDO to the Oppo?