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January 30, 2009 - 12:50pm
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Slim Devices Transporter?
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Being that I'm a dedicated user of four Slim Devices' products (a Transporter, two SqueezeBoxes and one Duet) one could say that I'm just a tad biased when it comes to discussing these units. However, I try and give you a fair and reasonable assessment of the pros and cons of these units and the Transporter in particular.
Pros:
All units - one's entire music library at one's fingertips, never having to file away one's CD's after an extended listening session. Flexible system allowing playback of many different digital audio file formats. Digital output can be fed into an external DAC, allowing one to upgrade the sound simply by upgrading one's external DAC.
Future proof in that as CD's go the way of other older physical media and digital downloads become the future of music distribution, the Slim Devices' units will be able to play one's downloaded music.
Transporter - Very high sound quality from built-in DAC. Balanced & unbalanced outputs. Ability to play high resolution digital files (up to 96kHz/24bit) without downsampling and up to 192kHz/24bit (with downsampling).
Cons:
One needs a computer with lots of storage to run SqueezeCenter, the server software that all Slim Devices units need to operate.
One must rip all of one's CDs onto a hard drive.
Network problems become music playback problems.
Although one may have one's entire music library at one's fingertips, this only includes the music itself and not the artwork and liner notes.
If one is a classical music or opera buff one will soon find out that the music library and file tagging system currently being used is woefully inadquate for one's needs. Hopefully this situation will improve as these units and other music servers become more mainstream.
I know that it's a lot to swallow at one time but making the plunge into a music server based system should not be done lightly. I suggest that you check out the Slim Devices Forum at Slim Devices Forum for more information and to ask any questions you might have.
I have a Transporter, SB3 and a Duett.
The TP is, IMO, one of the best DACs I have heard at any price (AyreC5, EMM labs are among the few I've recently heard).
On sound alone I would buy it over anything else b/c I think it sounds as good and is less money.
Once you factor in convenience it is a hands down winner, IMO.
I am a computer klutz but I found it pretty easy to get up to speed.
I did already have a wireless home network for my laptop and I was familiar with Itunes cause my kid uses it, but I was no expert.
There is a guy on the slim forum selling his new TP for 1450 so you might see if that is still around.
That would be a bargain.
TP also has a loop function now so you could hook up a DRC.
500GB external hard drives can be had for less than 100.00 now so storage is cheap.
Been a while since I have priced them as well.
1 TB for $100.00
And here's an external
Holy Moly!
RG
Yes, I saw an external 500GB for 79.00 recently.
Computer based audio gets cheaper by the day.
Gentlemen,
I agree that the cost of hard drives is getting lower daily but that still does not address the other "cons" on my list:
While to those of us who are already committed to and using a music server system some of these issues may seem to that big of a deal but to someone who is still using the traditional physical media, i.e. CD/SACD/LP/etc., based system some of these other issues can most certainly be "deal breakers" and they should not be overlooked in one's glee over cheap hard drives.
So true! I don't think there ever was a classical album which I didn't have to re-tag...
One has to put a Cd into and take out of the CDP every time, but one has to ripo only once. Which makes ripping a pro, not a con IMHO
Artwork shows up on the controller remote or on an Itouch or Iphone with the Ipeng software. Also it shows the songs and other data. Only some bio data may be lacking, so that is only a very minor con.
Classsical music does require some re tagging but , to me , is still easier than having to file and re file Cds everytime I listen.
For me the cons of CDPs far outweigh the cons of ripped music.
As they do for me as well but that's not to say that the land of music servers is all milk and honey. I was merely trying to point out that for many people the situation may well be reversed, i.e. the cons of music servers outweighing the cons of CDPs. I also know that the manufacturers and lots of people in the media are trying hard to push the concept of music and media servers to the public but, again, that doesn't mean that the world of music servers is not without it's problems and drawbacks.
The one thing I do I know is that from an audiophile perspective the sound quality of music servers are, at the very least, the equal of CD players and music servers are far more future proof, in fact, they are the future of music storage and listening. To me it's a "no brainer", which why I'm busy ripping the remainder of CD collection onto my hard drive as I'm writing this.
I've been using dbpoweramp rather than the EAC/FLAC combo for ripping of late since dppoweramp is faster and more powerful. $35 well spent. I highly recommend picking up a copy of the reference edition, an essential tool for anyone with a computer based music system.
cool, thanks for the dbpoweramp heads up , JF
I sometimes forget my media server journey was pre paved by needing itunes for my kid.
That prompted me to get dsl. A year later when he was 12 we were fighting over computer time so I bought a macbook, but then I needed a router to go wireless.
So I had all that going a year or so before the slim plunge. By that time I didn't have such a learning curve.
That's one of the things that still are holding me back.
Kal
I fail to see how this is so dramatically different than the diverse ways folks go about organizing their physical media. It is also fairly easy to do at the time of ripping so that 're-tagging' should be unnecessary.
RG
Still not easy as dbpoweramp getting the info automatically from allmusic correctly the first time... for most popular music titles, the process is remarkably easy & fluid. That process of correctly formatting each track at the time of ripping can get daunting, especially when there are 32 tracks or something (operas) and you need to get busy with accent symbols and letters from eastern European countries!
The funny thing about the whole tagging business is that the redbook CD specifications have always contained the ability for a CD to contain a simple text file, as in CD-Text. This specifcation was put in with the intention that CD players would then have a display which showed things like artist, album and song title but this feature was not used by most of the record companies and so it has fallen to the wayside. If this feature had become common place (it is still enabled on the occasional CD and is used on SACDs) than all CD's would come pre-tagged, so to speak.
Just another fine example of the music business dropping the ball.
Yep, i do believe that more directly addresses the OP's first and last question, but what about the middle question?
RG
I can't answer that part because I haven't heard any of these players. Frankly I wouldn't even consider ever buying another CD player now that I have the Transporter and several SqueezeBoxes. To the OP I recommend getting either a Transporter or a SqueezeBox with an external DAC rather than spending one's money on an outdated product, i.e. a CD player.
Yes, I do firmly believe that ALL CD players, even the newest models, are quickly becoming obsolete. Like it or not, computer based storage and playback is the future of music and other media, just as downloading a file rather buying a CD is the future of music distribution. Audiophiles are quite fortunate that the Transporter sounds so good and that the SqueezeBox/external DAC combo is so versatile.
Now it's time for the software developers to get to work on making meta-data more powerful and move beyond those extremely lame iTunes and the like user interfaces. For the record, I don't use iTunes for my music library instead I use SqueezeCenter as my music library management software with a program call "Moose" as my music library front end (or user interface). Moose is light years faster than SC but it's still very far from perfect and Moose is only a front end, i.e. it doesn't "manage" one's music library, one still needs SC for that.
Veering far off-topic...
Have you head the boombox yet?
I did, and thought it was very good for what it is.
s.
I am a little concerned about the term "future proof" - for me this mean the standards need to be fixed, and the media of storage (in this case a hard drive on a network) has to be reasonably archival. In the world of files and formats, and computer equipment and data stability this isn't a given.
A lot of people felt that way with photography and are now finding 10-15 year old photos archives unreadable due to changing formats, deterioration of physical media or corruption of data.
Standards need to be maintained, and the media of storage (be it hard drive, polycarbonate disc, vinyl, tape or other media) needs proper conservation - and the trend has been towards less archival rather than more.
While I am a big fan of networks music (I have a SB2 that I rely upon), we really don't have a "future proof" solution to music storage yet, as we do not have fixed standards or archival servers/harddrives etc ... yet.
So while I think that networked music playback offers tremendous possibilities, I am a little more cautious about declaring this solution to be immune to the changes in the future. (I don't want to inflame, but it does ring of "perfect sound forever" of the CD, but this time it is the archival nature of the files we're ripping and buying.)