I really like this new product announcement, but there are some things I wish they would improve on.
The good: They have had an obvious needed for a hand-held controller with a visual screen for quite a while. They have delivered on that nicely with the new SB Controller. The Duet is perfectly priced for those of us that want to add more devices to other rooms. Its much better priced than the Sonos in that regard, and is catching up on ease of use. The Duet compliments rather than replaces the SB3. I cant understand those who think the SB3 has been made obsolete. The SB3 is still the right choice when you want a VDU, but if not then go Duet. Needs improvement I think they should have enabled the embedded DAC within the controller so that we could use it for a headphone, or similar. To leave it to the community of developers is more reflective of the start-up roots of SD than of the professional capabilities of Logitech and their very well engineered Harmony line of universal remotes. The price of the SB Controller is a little steep because of all the hidden hardware inside, so it does bite to have to pay for something that doesnt yet work, made worse by the fact that Slim isnt responsible for making it work the community is. Id rather buy the DAC from the community then, rather than pay for it now. Lets hope the Harmony guys pitch in to help out. At this early stage of the acquisition, I wasnt expecting a Harmony remote controller to work for these devices, because product plans have long lead times, but I do hope that the guys at Logitech are working on Harmony to support Slim Devices in the future. They will need to provide support both to keep up with the competition and to get the full benefits of the merger synergies. The Wolfson DAC is a disappointment for those of us that like audiophile sound but prefer the convenience of digital streaming. I use an external DAC in my studio, but also wanted to extend my Squeeze devices to other rooms, so I was hoping for an upgrade in the DAC for standalone use. I think most of us were hoping for an upgrade in the DAC that at least included support for 24x96kHz. There are only about 5 major DAC manufacturers, and if you look at the prices for their circuits they are not expensive. So for the high price of the controller, Slim could have easily upgraded the quality of the DAC. Unlike their other devices, SD didnt even bother to name what Wolfson DAC they are using, perhaps because they know its nothing to brag about? Heres a list of Wolfson DACs, followed by a price list from Analog Devices so you can see how little DAC circuits really cost: http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/productListings/dacs/ http://www.analog.com/en/subCat/0,2879,765%255F796%255F0%255F%255F0%255F,00.html Slim Devices has an open source business model that appeals to people that want to extend their system and get the most out of it. I would guess that a lot of their customers have ripped their CDs using lossless FLAC, which isnt an effortless exercise. Thus wed like to get the most out of our digital recordings and the DAC is the weak link right now. So for me thats the biggest disappointment since it seems they may be targeting a different customer than us streaming audiophiles. -- BetterDAC ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BetterDAC's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=14931 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=41813
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