| Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
June 27, 2008 - 7:04am
#1
Difference in Sound Quality between Squeezebox Duet and Classic?
| Loudspeakers Amplification Digital Sources | |
Analog Sources Accessories Featured | |
Music Columns Retired Columns | |
Show Reports | |
Features Latest News Community | |
Resources Subscriptions |
© 2024 StereophileAVTech Media Americas Inc., USA
All rights reserved
I've only heard the original SB so I can't comment on the differences in sound quality. The SB sounded "OK", not bad but not good or great either.
The "only" thing the soundcard needs to do is send a bit perfect low jitter digital output to the SB. There are lots of forums htat deal expressly with the issue of getting a good clean digital output using players such as Foobar and ASIO drivers. You should have little trouble getting a solid digital signal to your SB.
Have fun!
Thanks for the info. Is it possible to get better than "OK" sound from my laptop to my stereo system without spending more than $500? I would like to be able to stream HD flac, but the Squeezebox maxes out at 48kHz, while the Transporter, at $2,000, is beyond my budget.
All the Slim Devices networked music players (Transporter, Squeezebox, Duet) receive their content over a TCP/IP network (wired or wireless). Their SqueezeCenter software is hosted on another box on your network (PC, Mac, NAS) and serves music files from your library to networked players. The sound card at the PC/Mac is not involved.
[Edit]I see that Elk chimed in while I was typing my first response. The concerns he addresses involve USB connectivity between the PC and external DAC, not the TCP/IP protocol used by Slim Devices players. If you're interested in playback of higer res files, have a look at the Olive Melody No 2. It can handle 24-bit/96kHz FLAC and costs $600 which is closer to your budget.
Have you come across any reviews of the Olive Melody No. 2? I've looked online, but haven't found any reviews. The Olive website also doesn't offer much in the way of specifications. It boasts "flawless decoding and decoding of lossless audio format" but that's about it.
There might be a problem. Olive announced their new players around the beginning of April, but I haven't seen any reviews since. I agree it would be hard to choose their products without detailed specs or a review you can trust. If you should choose to try them out, make sure you get a firm ship date first.
Yes, I read that some customers had estimated ship dates that were consistently delayed. If the Olive Melody doesn't pan out, is the Squeezebox still the best budget solution to play digital music on my stereo system?
Olive has a good reputation for customer service and their earlier units are very good. I would not hesitate to buy one of their newer units.
When I indicate that he SB sound is "OK", I don't mean that it sounds bad. It sounds like a good quality $200-300 CD player. This is actually quite good, but not "impressive".
The SB interface is very nice also. I wouldn't hesitate to get a SB. If you want to upgrade the sound later you can always add separate DAC that takes a digital signal from the SB and decodes it to produce better sound than the SB.
The Transporter is great, but it is pricey.