Any info on sqeezebox slim devices?

It's just a Dell WinCE PDA with 802.11B wireless built in. I access the handheld skin for slimserver through Internet Explorer on the Dell PDA. Basically, it gives you a PDA formatted version of the same slimserver shell that runs on your PC. You can even pull up album cover art. Telcanto makes another handheld skin that is supposed to be better than the slim skin. I have not gotten around to trying it because I put too much into modding my SB2 and can't afford the $53.00. Just kidding, I just haven't got around to downloading and installing it.

Prpixel, do you rip as an Image + Cue Sheet or as separate tracks? I'm close to buying a SB3 and was of the feeling that an Image rip would be better because it preserves the integrity of the original CD. In cases of many classical and jazz CDs this is important as the gaps are not always silent. But then I heard that Slimserver can play back sequential tracks in a way that "restores" that gap integrity, I'll call it. If that's the case I'd rather do track rips because it would save several steps. I use EAC and it does not place image rips into Genre/Artist/Title subdirectories the way it does for track rips.

Second, what was the decision maker in going with the Bolder mod versus Red Wine?

I rip my CD's using Windows Media Player 10. The ripping format is WMA lossless. I just insert the CD and let WMP rip away. I did buy a high quality CD drive and I set my rip speed to 2X. I played around with EAC and foobar but found them too much of a pain in the Butt. I compared rips from EAC and WMP and I was hard pressed to hear a difference. And, when I did hear a difference it would be very subtle. I guess this is where EAC's superior ripping was making its self known. Occasionally, WMP 10 has a problem ripping a certain track, so I clean the CD and re-rip. This has cured the problem every time so far. So, if you want the ultimate rip, then go with EAC. I am happy with giving up 2-3% for the ease of use of WMP 10. In addition, WMP 10 labels all the tracks for me. It’s very rare that I have to edit them. And, when you have 1000’s of CD’s, you can see where this becomes an issue.

As far as playing back classical or jazz CD's on the Squeezebox, there is no break in the music as long as you play the entire CD. Now, if you add a few tracks from a classical CD to a play list there will be a very slight gap between the tracks. I don't use play lists so I don't have a problem with this.

Why did I choose Bolder over Redwine? I spoke to both Wayne and Vinnie before making my decision. They both offer great mods and great customer service. And, they are both very knowledgeable and polite on the phone. It was a tough choice but the deciding factor was that the Redwine mod uses a battery supply. I have s sleep disorder that requires me to sleep with the TV or stereo on. I sleep 16-20 hours a day. So, this would mean about 2-3 battery changes a year on the Redwine mod. I just did not want to be bothered with battery changes.

Wow, Prpixel, sorry to hear about your condition. I can see where that would drive how you do certain things. I very much appreciate the detailed response. I've posted on AA as well, and it seems that in fact Slimserver should have no problem with FLAC tracks and gaps, as it were. So I'm not going to eat up a lot of time trying to get too geeky with this. I too have a killer CD drive (a Plextor Premium) set aside just for this job. With that, EAC, and 700 GB worth of storage I think I can finally start this thing.

With 700GB of storage you should be able to store about 2800-3000 CD's. Remember to backup occasionally. You don't want to loose all that time spent ripping.

Good luck and happy ripping,