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Squeezebox replacement ideas

Knipester said:
I disagree but your entitled to your own opinion. I’ve personally owned a auralic mini, Aries Femto & currently aries G1. I’ve also owned several squeezeboxes including the touch. The minis performance jumps when you add a linear power supply.
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As does the SBT.
 
I found battery power helped using my Touch, too.

I use optical out into a Benchmark DAC so galvanic isolation and digital interface input jitter is taken care of, I can't really see any direct mechanism at work.

It's either something indirect, like RFI or mains-borne noise, or just expectation bias. I know which one you think it is @Julf (wink). For the ~£20 a battery pack and cable cost me, I didn't think too hard about it.
https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?105197-All-day-battery-power-for-Touch-%A324
 
My experience was the SB Classic was marginally better than the SB 2. The SB Touch was a big upgrade on the Classic and then the Pi with Allo DAC was even better.

Moving onto the Nova Fidelity X40 I have now, was the biggest jump up however.
 
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Are we comparing streamers now or streamers with outboard DACs? Took my other SBT/wall wart to a hifi friend and we compared it with a 700+ euro streamer/DAC with a special PSU. There was a difference but was it worth 500 euros? Same with a friends Linn stuff at my home, better sound, but I didn't have to pick up my jaw from the floor. My own gear even sounded better after that session, probably because I stirred the plugs and got rid of old oxidation. :)
 
I’m always surprised when people describe their changes as ‘big jumps up’ or ‘night and day differences’. Despite listening to a wide range of CA transports etc I’ve never yet heard big differences. They are always minor and they are not necessarily improvements. And they are never perfect.The Pi combos have always given satisfaction and have allowed me to enjoy the music. I have a friend who has gone through some of the most eye-wateringly expensive gear you can imagine but has always come back to the trusty inexpensive source he has used for the last few years. After the initial excitement of the purchase and the premature swallowing of a salesman’s guff he seems to return to a sedate reality where he realises there isn’t really that much or even anything in it. He then settles down to enjoy his original buy and wonders what he saw in the overpriced bling that he lusted after in the first place.
 
Here’s what I have done. I run LmS house with 2sbt, one classic and a duo.

Another SBT in kitchen died.

Solution:
1. Continue to Run LMS on a pc or server or nas somewhere in house.
2. Enabke Airplay bridge app plug in on LMS
3. Install squeezepad on iPad
4. Install IPeng on iPhone.
5. Above two devices can now serve as independents mobile FLAC streamers to any LMS or AirPlay device on same network.

Edit. Any BTooth devices can also be streamed to easily with this set up.
The play to and play from permutations are numerous.

The world is moving towards more and more software-defined solutions as sources then middleware, leaving endpoint listening devices not needing wholesale change/update.
 
Ok. I finally got my Bluesound set up. For years I have been using my Squeezebox Touch with an old Audio Alchemy XDP, DTI & Power 2. It is based on an old Philips Dac 7 chip. I believe this is a 1bit / Bitstream chip.

Now that is being replaced by a Bluesound Node 2i. It has a new 32 bit Burr Brown dac and let me just say that it sounds a lot different!
I do miss the black background and laid backness of my old setup. However the new setup has more details and upfront sound. Maybe I will get used to it...If not I will install the old dac again even though it is only 16bit.
I only have about 10 albums in High Res so not that big of a deal.
Does the Node 2i have any sort of break in period? Will the sound change in the future?

Edit:
Just for fun I tried turning the power lead around at the power plug end that goes into the wall and I must be crazy, but I think I can hear a difference?!
 
kristoffer said:
Just for fun I tried turning the power lead around at the power plug end that goes into the wall and I must be crazy, but I think I can hear a difference?!
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I regularly turn all plugs and sometimes use contact spray too. It's like an upgrade every time :)
 
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