erland;664936 Wrote: > While I sometimes share your doubts regarding Squeezebox future I also > have to say that currently the only competitors I can see with a more > clear future is: > - Sonos > - Apple > > Apple is focused more at usability and simplicity than high-end audio > so in my mind it means that if you want something that supports high > end audio and you want to be reasonable sure it will work also in the > future, your choices are Squeezebox or Sonos or some new competitor we > aren't aware of yet. > > There are of course HiFi manufacturers, but those tend to be focused a > bit too much on the audio quality for my personal taste so they are > missing other features of the system, like smart playlists, usability > and support for premium streaming services. > > I think there are several of other competitors out there but none of > them has so far showed a strategy to indicate we can be sure they are > still in the music streaming business two years in the future. > > In my mind, the Squeezebox hardware is great so at the moment I don't > really see a need for something else on the hardware side, at least not > as long as you are willing to run a local server on a computer. > > The lacking side of the Squeezebox hardware is more related to people > interested in players with built-in speakers or built-in server. > > My guess is that when Logitech decides to stop selling Squeezeboxes, > they will need to maintain and support mysqueezebox.com for at least > 1-2 years after that, else they will somehow have to handle the fact > that they recently have sold players to customers that no longer works > even if they are still under warranty.
MMm- I looked at Sonos, and so far as I can tell, they are absolutely limited to 16/44.1K music sources (i.e. CD quality, nothing higher.) The same problem applies to Apple's streaming solutions, at least right now. The Apple TV2+ could be a contender, but who knows where Apple will go with that? The Logitech competition for the Apple TV2 failed rather miserably, despite the support from Amazon and Google. Not laser focused like the Squeezebox Touch is. Not sure what Meridian Soolos is limited to. There are solutions for the Mac that work up to 24/192, and work very well. (i.e. Pure Music) But, those solutions are neither simple to setup or to operate. I think were the competition for the Squeezebox may show up is in the Blu-ray players. Already players like Oppo have audiophile quality sound, and support streaming media. And more and more integrated amps and receivers are gaining either Airlplay or DNLA capabilities, or both. None of them have the focus on doing one or two things really well that the Touch does though. If Logictech discontinues the Squeezebox line, it will be a shame, but it won't be long till replacements appear, probably with Squeezeslave and Squeezeplayer enhanced to support all the audiophile basics like Bit Perfect playback, automatic switching for sample rate/bit depth, etc. -Paul -- paul.raulerson ------------------------------------------------------------------------ paul.raulerson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=50346 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=91090 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
