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Squeezbox Touch vs CD player with dac

kristoffer

kristoffer

Danish Hi Fi NERD
OK. I have moved over to a SB Duet ( tomorrow a touch ) from my Cd player ( classic No. 1b. with a CD pro Philips drive)
After some time I feel that maybe the sound from the cd player was the better sounding after all...
Compared to the CD the Duet has a slight "veil" between you and the music. On the hand the soundstage is wider and the bass is deeper with the SB.
My dac is a Audio Alchemy XDE. My SB vol. is set at fixed.
I hope the touch changes this and the last "veil" is removed.
Who here on PFM has abandoned their cdplayer for a SB touch? :D
And also what did you have before?
 
Ditto, but my reason was to clear 800 cd's out of the way and into the loft (more room for records !).

I have no problem at all with the sound quality either direct through the analogue o/p or through an external dac, and I really like internet radio that the cd player wasn't very good at.
 
I went from a Naim CD5/Hicap to a SB Touch/Keces Dac.I won't be buying any more CD's that's for sure.And with spotify premium i can nearly listen to what i want.Not quite decided what to do with 2,000 cd;s,thou.Have a sneaky feeling they ain't worth twopence these days.:eek:
 
What to do with the CDs is indeed the problem, don't think I can bin them for legal reasons - anybody got any ideas? P.S. I use a netbook and MDAC - superb combo
 
Had a Slim Devices Squeezebox 3 that I ran side by side with a Primare CD player for a while, then a Musical Fidelity CD player and then a Meridian 508. Replaced the SB3 with a Duet and still kept the Meridian, replaced the Duet with a Touch and sold the Meridian. I now use an old Pioneer stable platter CD as a transport into the same DAC that the Touch is plugged into.
Over 1000 cd's are in boxes in my loft gathering dust and they'll probably stay there for years as I couldn't bring myself to part with them as they're part of my life. I can still remember my dad throwing box after box of 'old' 78's and 45's (all mint and in sleeves according to dad - Elvis, Fats Domino, Sinatra, Count Bassie, Beatles, Stones etc) onto a bonfire when I was about 10 as he'd bought a tape recorder and recorded them all onto a few cassette tapes so he 'didn't need them any more'. Makes me want to cry every time I think about it.
 
Who here on PFM has abandoned their cdplayer for a SB touch? :D
And also what did you have before?[/QUOTE]


Me too!
CDS3 to (ultimately) a Touch/MDAC.

Went through the Duet, but thought that this was, as you say "veiled" - in fact the Duet is, by a long way, my least favorite Squeezebox.

Touch on its own doesn't do it though - needs the DAC.

Good Luck

Ian
 
kristoffer said:
OK. I have moved over to a SB Duet ( tomorrow a touch ) from my Cd player ( classic No. 1b. with a CD pro Philips drive)
After some time I feel that maybe the sound from the cd player was the better sounding after all...
Compared to the CD the Duet has a slight "veil" between you and the music. On the hand the soundstage is wider and the bass is deeper with the SB.
My dac is a Audio Alchemy XDE. My SB vol. is set at fixed.
I hope the touch changes this and the last "veil" is removed.
Who here on PFM has abandoned their cdplayer for a SB touch? :D
And also what did you have before?
Click to expand...

Yes, but the Touch will almost certainly have a superior internal dac/output stage to the rather old time DDE, so ditch the dac.

Th SBT is properly engineered to work straight from the box.
 
Robert said:
Yes, but the Touch will almost certainly have a superior internal dac/output stage to the rather old time DDE, so ditch the dac.

Th SBT is properly engineered to work straight from the box.
Click to expand...

Sorry my dac is actually a Audio Alchemy XDP / DTI :)
 
Robert said:
Yes, but the Touch will almost certainly have a superior internal dac/output stage to the rather old time DDE, so ditch the dac.

Th SBT is properly engineered to work straight from the box.
Click to expand...

That sounds like your suggesting the SBT DAC is the worlds best :D ?
 
graham-r said:
That sounds like your suggesting the SBT DAC is the worlds best :D ?
Click to expand...

I hope not, the AKM 4420 used in the Touch is a relatively modest device - AKM produce many DACs which they claim offer better performance, I'm sure they wouldn't have bothered if the 4420 was as good as it could be!
 
Whilst not having ditched the CD player, it must be months since I actually used it. It's a Meridian 206, and the SBT is far more convenient. As to an external DAC, I find the SBT's standard DAC perfectly good enough for transparency, so haven't bothered with anything external.

S.
 
Me too. Cd player not literally ditched but seldom used. If I had not had a dac already when i got my SBT I'm not sure I would have bought one after
 
Usage= 95% SBT/V-DAC/linear power supply and 5% Naim CD5/Hicap. However, the CDP still sounds better.

Wish I could get Spotify streaming from iPhone to SBT sounding better. I use this setup quite a bit, but it sounds awful lots of the time.
 
Why are you streaming spotify from iPhone to sbt as opposed to streaming via my squeezebox.com? Are you sure you are using max quality. Most people (inc myself)seem to find spotify frighteningly good.
 
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