Hi, I use an audio synthesis dax decade with my squeezebox. I must first point out that I'm extremely happy with the replay however a few weeks ago I invited some friends round to have a listen to the squeezebox and compare it to a couple of dedicated transports. The other transports were from dpa and Arcam both of which were judged (subjectively) to be better than the squeezebox by all present. Not a very scientific test I know but I agreed with the consensus and to my ears it wasn't a small margin. Now in the ultimate scheme of things a squeezebox / dac combo will blow a lot cd players away even some seriously expensive ones however I believe that it's jitter performance - especially with flac's is less than great. I say this because my dac (the aforementioned dax decade) has 2 methods of locking onto the digital signal - one which can lock onto low quality / high jitter signals and one that will lock onto better quality / low jitter signals. This is denoted by the display of lock or xlock in the dac's display. Without fail if I play flacs I only get a lock however if I play mp3's either native or transcoded from flacs I get the higher quality xlock. What's going on, I'm not sure but it seems to me that there is more performance within the squeezebox than is currently accessible. I'm currently looking into the possibility of improving the clock within the squeezebox which may help things. Of course for 200 quid it's a fantastic bit of kit but I don't think it's going to replace a true high end transport just yet. For me however the convenience of having my entire music library on hand far outweigh what at the end of the day is a 30%ish difference in quality. Cheers
Julian. -----Original Message----- From: Michael Peters [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 25 February 2005 19:14 To: Slim Devices Discussion Subject: Re: [slim] Bit-correct digital out on Squeezebox? On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 16:34:03 +0100, Steinar Bjaerum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > I am thinking about playing an uncompressed WAV, recording the signal at the > digital output and comparing the recording with the original WAV. > > Be careful when you are doing so - a lot of sound cards will resample digital input. AC97 cards do, for example (or so I've been told) I believe M-Audio Audiophile 2496 does not, I don't know about their other models. Again, that is what I've been told. I have not done any testing myself, mp3 at 192VBR is good enough for me (though I do archive lossless in flac). -- http://mpeters.us/ _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
