stop-spinning;603599 Wrote: > I've finally decided to stop using a CD Player and move across to music > server convenience. > > Without modding, can I get really high quality sound from using a > Squeezebox Duet fed to a good quality DAC? > > Theoretically - spinning a CD as a transport is poor compared to a hard > disk (or solid state) - so in effect I should be improving the transport > compared to ANY CD Player. > > My MAIN concern and worry is down to the quality of the digital out > (both coax and optical) providing a good quality feed to the very best > DACs available. Do I have a viable concern here? > > One dealer told me that, in their tests, the Squeezebox digital outs > where much better sounding than the Sonos digital outs - has anyone > else got any views on this?
If all you care about is sound quality, your best bet would be to get the Touch and mod it with Soundcheck's toolbox. That'll get you into the high-end audio territory (assuming that you'll be using above average DAC). Duet will force you to stay in the mid fi territory, as its digital transport is audibly inferior to that of a Touch. Anything you can do on your digital transport (i.e. Touch) to minimize the work that this mini computer has to do, will result in better sound quality. Thus many of us feel it's important to disable wi fi on the Touch, and also disable analog and USB outputs, as well as kill the screen. Doing that makes the player quieter, and improves the perceived sound quality. Finally, all non-native file formats (basically all except AIFF) should be converted to PCM on the PC (the Squeezebox server), NOT on the Touch itself. If you do all of the above, you'll achieve sound quality that can match many thousand dollars worth digital players, be it CD players, SACD players, or digital streaming players, such as Logitech Transporter, Linn Majik and Linn Akurate. All that for a meagre $300! -- magiccarpetride ------------------------------------------------------------------------ magiccarpetride's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=37863 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=84903 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
