AFAIK there are 2 things to keep in check in order to get fine sync with
software players: i. the amount of data each player receives from the
server, and number of checkpoints they go through, ii. the time takes to
process this data and turn it to audio (or send it to a DAC)

The server setting you are discussing relate, I think, to point one. I
have to admit I've never played much with it in my sync experiments. 
One thing I did muck with, to great effect, were squeezelite options for
the alsa stack (the "-a x:x:x:x" options), and this pertains to point
two.

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?97046-Announce-Squeezelite-a-small-headless-squeezeplay-emulator-for-linux-(alsa-only)&p=736003&viewfull=1#post736003
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?98220-How-does-synch-work-(squeezlite-2x-SB)

In my experience the recipe is completely hardware+software dependent;
even when using a "real-time" flavour of linux in order to keep the beat
as steady as possible. If you're trying to sync 2 soft players today, I
believe the 2 should be perfect soft+hardware clones for a start. I
think you could reach okay accuracy and reliability; but perfect
requires either a deterministic system (as were the old ip3k players) or
leaving a lot of headroom in the right places (as Logi did w/ the later
player generation, as communitysqueeze does today.)

The guys developing the communitysqueeze software and hardware stack
seem to be hard at work. They are my only hope of seeing a new player
generation capable of perfect sync. In the meantime, I rely on my SB3s
and a pile of spares.
With hardware players you will effortlessly reach perfect sync and
perfect reliability. Looking at what goes on on ebay, I'd say there is
no risk in buying a pair of pre-owned hardware players, in anticipation
of the communitysqueeze player availability: I would bet there will
still be takers for your players when you want to make room for the
newer ones. 
I don't believe the Communitysqueeze project has set the target of
achieving perfect sync with older players like SB3 or Touch. But I
wouldn't rule out a good surprise on this front ;)

One last note about sync quality: it is perceptual; Room to room sync is
relatively easy to achieve, same room sync is quite difficult,
left-right channel sync (as with a pair of Radios) is a feat of magic.



4 SB 3 • iPeng (iPhone + iPad) • SqueezeLite • Squeezebox Server 7.6.2
(Debian 6.0)  with plugins: CD Player, WaveInput by bpa • IRBlaster by
Gwendesign (Felix) • Server Power Control by Gordon Harris • Smart Mix
by Michael Herger • PowerSave by Jason Holtzapple • Song Info, Song
Lyrics by Erland Isaksson • Just Covers by Tom Kalmijn • WeatherTime by
Martin Rehfeld • Local Player, BBC iPlayer, SwitchPlayer by Triode •
Auto Dim Display, SaverSwitcher, ContextMenu by Peter Watkins.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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