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Still a Touch formidable after all these years….

DonMarks said:
The touch might go toe to toe with a Bluesound node, which is impressive in its own right, however ease of use cannot be underestimated. Been using a node as a player and as a transport for some years, and the plug and play nature of the device is a huge plus in my book.
Same reason i haven’t bothered with any Pi devices as such.
Would like to compare the node to streamers higher up the ladder like Cambridge Audio or Innuos, but funds don’t allow that atm
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I’m curious about this Bluesound thingy and at some point may try. A couple of questions:

With the Bluesound, can I make a single playlist containing music from different sources - Soundcloud, Bandcamp, flac and mp3 files on my hard drive, YouTube, Spotify and Qobuz?

Is there a size limit on my music library?
 
mandryka said:
I’m curious about this Bluesound thingy and at some point may try. A couple of questions:

With the Bluesound, can I make a single playlist containing music from different sources - Soundcloud, Bandcamp, flac and mp3 files on my hard drive, YouTube, Spotify and Qobuz?

Is there a size limit on my music library?
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Don’t want to derail thread, however I don’t know, as it is used only with Spotify and Radio Paradise.
 
Robn said:
Very happy with mine, but do wish I could persuade my 2012 Macbook Pro with Catalina to run LMS so that I don't need to use the windows laptop and maintain 2 music libraries. Can't blame the SBT for that though.
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That's possible; I have it running on a Late 2012 Mac-mini Catalina (which, to be fair, is a terrible OS (imo):eek:)

ronnie
 
firedog said:
Still have two of them, but don't use them much.
It's a great piece of kit, but today it's more worthwhile to buy a RPi with a 7inch touchscreen/case and install piCorePlayer OS. Gives you a perfect emulation of the touch with about double the screen size.
Even w/out an add on DAC HAT or external DAC is sounds good. With one, sounds great, and costs less than the original Touch.
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I have this but prefer the Touch.
 
Best VFM piece of hi-fi ever.

When I bought a pair of KiiThrees I used a SBT as a “stop gap” until I could get a “proper hi-fi” streamer.
Ultimately, it was so good I used it for years. Everytime I sat down to listen I kept concluding “it can’t sound better than this”. And all that with the internal DAC. Crazy value. It saw off my LP12/ARO/Klyde/Armageddon. Seriously.
 
Comparing my SBTs and the RPi 3+ with a 7" touch screen and DAC hat which I use as a music server, I do think that the good old SBT still has quite a few benefits such as the fact that it's a robust and compact all-in-one solution ready to integrate into any audio system with an IR remote and 4 different ouputs (USB, Toslink, Coax and analogue). The screen may be small but it is of decent quality qnd works flawlessly after 10 years... while the capacitive touch screen of the Pi is not behaving perfectly (it has developped an offset and sensitivity is somewhat random). The auto dimming feature is also much appreciated at night.

Clearly, as a server, the RPi is a much better solution (full LMS, etc) but these days there are devices on which to run LMS (file servers/NAS, some internet boxes, laptops, old PC, etc...)
 
The Touch was a fantastic, game-changing, ground-breaking product for sure. Not many companies to this day have the expertise to write server software, player software and develop the reasonably priced hardware to suit as well as the ethos that the server software should run on any number of widely available platforms, rather than on some preposterously overpriced and overengineered bit of hifi.
 
SteveH said:
Best VFM piece of hi-fi ever.

When I bought a pair of KiiThrees I used a SBT as a “stop gap” until I could get a “proper hi-fi” streamer.
Ultimately, it was so good I used it for years. Everytime I sat down to listen I kept concluding “it can’t sound better than this”. And all that with the internal DAC. Crazy value. It saw off my LP12/ARO/Klyde/Armageddon. Seriously.
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That's more-or-less what happened to me with the equivalent R.Pi + piCorePlayer + DAC set-up from which I have heard no reason to "upgrade".

This is the core of a problem the audio industry may perceive with the SBT. It lays bare the truth that the audible difference between it and a £25,000 high-end streamer is so small that for many spending £25,000 on going to live music events instead looks like the veritable "no-brainer".
 
John Phillips said:
That's more-or-less what happened to me with the equivalent R.Pi + piCorePlayer + DAC set-up from which I have heard no reason to "upgrade".

This is the core of a problem the audio industry may perceive with the SBT. It lays bare the truth that the audible difference between it and a £25,000 high-end streamer is so small that for many spending £25,000 on going to live music events instead looks like the veritable "no-brainer".
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Couldn’t agree more though M thoroughly enjoying Bronski on Vvinyl at the moment. The Touch is looking neglected.
 
I have to admit that the reason I moved on from the SBT wasn't the SBT but the increasingly flaky server-side LMS or whatever it was called that particular month. What I miss most is the screen, though - I liked seeing the album art. Node 2i is better in terms of being more modern and with a (IME) more stable ecosystem. But I am surprised nobody has seen the possibilities of a modern version of the SBT, but with a lightweight file system (per Bluesound, say).
 
LMS has definitely not been flaky here, think I'm on about 2 years without a hitch maybe longer. I run it on Nuc that was meant for me to use with Roon, but I prefer LMS and the cost to run LMS.
 
3 years on LMS without any issues here. Still developing. Nightlys for the more adventurous and the Stable stream for the rest of us.
 
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