Well, I had a pretty rocky start with my Touch since I was unable to play anything out of my iTunes library due to a bug in the way Apple Lossless files are detected but with Phil's help I am running witha workaround now. I wanted to post my impressions of the Touch from a sound quality perspective.
I have my Touch optically connected (glass toslink, don't EVER use plastic toslink if you want good sound quality!!) to a Pioneer Elite SC-25 receiver which drives a pair of Klipsch Forte IIs (custom crossovers) and a HSU VTF-3 Mk3 sub. I have the Touch's analog outputs connected to an Audio-DG C-2C headphone amp that drives my AKG K701 headphones. Prior to the Touch I had a Squeezebox 2 connected the same way. The first thing I noticed was the lack of what I would call edginess or sibilance with vocals. Patricia Barber's 'Touch of Trash' (no pun intended) always had a fatiguing sibilance I could never get rid off dispite the myriad of components I have had thru my system. With the Touch, the sibilance actually sounds likelike and non-fatiguing. I think this is so due to the more full bodied sound you get from the Touch. Instruments sound fleshed out, rounder and complete. They stand out in the soundscape and are not homogenized like they were with the SB2. There are 2 other things that are exceptional with the Touch. First, imaging and soundstaging are first rate. For the first time with a digital streaming product it is impossible to coorelate the sound as coming directly from each speaker. The soundstage is slightly above and way left and right of each speaker but the center imaging (I don't have a center channle speaker) is perfect. I am going to guess that this is due to the nearly lack of jitter in the digital output of the Touch. It is spectacular to finally be set free from the confines of the width of the two speakers but retain pinpoint instrument placement. Secondly, frequency extremes are ... more extreme. Listening to some old Neil Diamond songs I hear some odd low frequency thumps here and there that could be from the analog tape transfer or some studio noise during the recording. Whatever it is, it was glossed over with the SB2 but the Touch reveals such things easily. In the upper range, cymbals are likelike with that 'ping' and shimmer you get when hitting a cymbal lightly with a drumstick (check out E.S.T or Keith Jarrett jazz albums). With the SB2 there was way less body and far more sizzle which made it sound very artificial in comparison. At this point I am thrilled with the Touch and I would delete my initial posting I made of the Touch if I could (although SBS 7.5 is still broken for ALAC as far as I know). If the Touch doesn't make Product Of The Year by Stereophile or Absolute Sound then I will lose complete faith in the audio press. Im my opinion it is by far the best money I have spent for a piece of audio equipment in ages, maybe ever. I do not work for Logitech and have not been told by anyone to praise the Touch for any reason. I just want to try and right the wrong I made ititially about the Touch. Ed -- AudioFrog ------------------------------------------------------------------------ AudioFrog's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9568 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=77649 _______________________________________________ Touch mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
