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iPad or sueezebox Touch

S

Sovereign

pfm Member
Was was loking at buying a squeezebox touch to store my music on and connect to my DAC but i'm thinking for another £150 I can can get an iPad which does a million things more.

My question is are there any audio reasons why a squeezebox would be better.

I know the only connector the iPad has is that 'flat & wide' iphone/iPad connector. Russ Andrews does sell some high spec cables that are suitable.

Any Thoughts?
 
You can't store your music on an SB Touch, it has no storage facility, it does however have a usb and SD card and wireless connectivity to your computer, all of which allow you to play music files. I think they sound great when used with a good stereo. Much better than the HDTV I was using previously.

Sorry don't know anything about the iPad thingy.
 
I currently have a squeezebox touch connected to my Naim Dac via co-ax which I control with an ipad.

To the best of my knowledge I didn't think you could get a digital feed out of the iPad into a dac.

Am I wrong?
 
I haven't really ventured into computer audio but got some advice from friends who have gone this route. The iPad is mainly used as a big "fancy" remote control to select songs on iTunes stored in external hard discs(if one has a large music library). A Mac Mini is ideal to be used as an interface for this application as the iPad can connect to the Mac Mini.
 
Russ Andrews sell cables that go from a 'mac' conector to RCA surely the RCA plugs go into the back of the DAC??
Do we know how good the quality data is that comes out of an iPad has anyone tried this?
 
If you attach your iPad to your system through a cable then your iPad becomes cumbersome and far less useful.

Which means you'll need to get a second generation AppleTV or Airport Express for output.

Instead for a little more you can get a first generation AppleTV from ebay or wherever you may source one and store far more music than an iPad ever could.

If you still want an iPad, you could use that to control your AppleTV.
 
cansav said:
If you attach your iPad to your system through a cable then your iPad becomes cumbersome and far less useful.

Which means you'll need to get a second generation AppleTV or Airport Express for output.

Instead for a little more you can get a first generation AppleTV from ebay or wherever you may source one and store far more music than an iPad ever could.

If you still want an iPad, you could use that to control your AppleTV.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I was thinking. Get a gen1 Apple TV, connect a DAC, and control it with an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch if the mood should strike you.
 
Sovereign said:
Was was loking at buying a squeezebox touch to store my music on and connect to my DAC but i'm thinking for another £150 I can can get an iPad which does a million things more.

My question is are there any audio reasons why a squeezebox would be better.

I know the only connector the iPad has is that 'flat & wide' iphone/iPad connector. Russ Andrews does sell some high spec cables that are suitable.

Any Thoughts?
Click to expand...

You cannot store much hi-res music on an iPad. I have a 32GB model, and manage about 45 albums of 16bit 44khz accurate rip/downgraded 96khz

You would need a computer to store/manage your music, why not use that as the music source for your DAC, and load a selection of your favs. on the iPad and play them through quality headphones. I have Senhieser HD650s and the iPad drives them amazingly well. (iPad sounds better than my iPhone 4, must have a better DAC/amp)

The cables that Russ Andrews sells are Line Out, not Digital. You could use the line out via an amp, for better portable sound (headphone), or a camera interface, then a DAC/amp, for possibly even better sq.

I am happy with the sound from the headphone out, having tried a headphone amp.

Paul
 
Use the ipad as the control box (via the web server) for the touch - rather like the ipeng application for iphone. Put the music on a pc or NAS (ie qnap 210 etc) .

Works ok for me, although I use a netbook.
 
The SB Touch is designed for music and gives quality sound output, playing files natively up to 24/96 and for higher res it downsamples the files (halves the bit rate: 176 to 88; 192 to 96). It also plays just about every audio format known to man.

It isn't a portable device - you attach it to your sound system and either you sit near it to use the touch screen, or you use the included remote, or you use a laptop, iPhone/iPodTouch, or iPad to control it. You can get an SB Touch for $250 on ebay. Attached by it's digital out to a DAC it can give true audiophile level performance (way better than most PC soundcards, even the "good" ones), but understand it works better (more smoothly, faster) when using an external PC/MAC for the server software (you could attach your external drive there) and not it's internal server software.

The iPad isn't optimized for playing music, and I don't think you can get true hi-res out of it (i.e., not downsampled to "standard" res). It has the huge advantage of being portable, although in the setup you seem to be describing you would sort of be cancelling the portability factor. And it does other things not related to music.

So the products aren't really in the same category. Decide which feature set meets your needs. If you have already have a PC/MAC you can use as a server and output to your DAC, the iPad would be a killer interface; on the other hand you would probably get better sound and true hi-res from the SB Touch.
 
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