Squeeze Box Love'n'hate

So manu weakpoints I am all ears before I buy.Wish thee wasn't such a price diff between SB3 and Transporter (which is a sexy looking devil and might be worth two $1K or one $2K DAC in sound quality.But have sneaking suspicion I am going to have to get mini or laptop Mac before I go there.Makes sense.Make CD-R's and HD back up as well as download.Want to get rid oif many lousy sounding Red Book CD's from first 10 to 15 years of CD's and now HD cheapness makes up for lack of good consumer taping system.Hope I don't crash HD and lose it since CD-R's only last for a while.
Chazz

Regalmal: I also have problems with Slimserver and my squeezebox about from 2-1 years ago where flac would stutter either wired or wireless.... Slimserver and the firmware has really improved since than and been really stable for me over the last 5 months. I also had to upgrade the firmware on my router which helped tremendously, and I dumped my old Dlink router which was non-stop problems.

Chazzbo: You can get some CD-R's that last 300 years now, you just need to look for archival quality. They use a different dye and cost a little more. I would recommend buying another external HD and then keeping it disconnected when not backing up to protect the drive.

I'm a Mac guy and a Squeezebox guy. I have a Bolder modded SB3 and before that was running an SB1. I have them hardwired and have never experienced any of the problems described.

I will never go back to a traditional disc player.

I am also a Mac Guy. Bought Squeezeboxes ~7 months ago. Had no major issues that were not solved by consulting Squeezebox bulletin board (primarily firmware updates) until I unplugged everything other than my router when I went on a 2 week vacation.

When I returned last month, Squeezenetwork became very sporadic, Slimserver worked OK. I tried resetting firmware, they did not work. I finally in desperation just plugged and unplugged the router ( A Linksys WRT54G). This seemed to have improved things, but they are not perfect.

The mysteries of networking, I guess.

Upstateaudio, that is exactly whet is so frustrating about the SB. If you turn on your CDP and it doesn't work it's back to the store with it. But with computers the dealer would laugh at you. And don't get me started on software makers. Computers don't work everytime. I've been through everything from the machine language on a old Motorola microprocessor, Apple IIEs, DOS, to pretty much every version of Windows and it is still the same, computers are too complex to work all of the time. And just when they start settling down a new OS or microprocessor comes out and we start out all over again.

I know, I know, Apple is perfect. But ply an Apple user with a couple of drinks and even they will admit to problems. May the God of Mac strike them dead.

I want to listen to music, not spend 15 frustraing minutes getting the player to work. Having said that, I still love my SB...most of the time.