ralphpnj;570636 Wrote: > As we await the Stereophile and TAS reviews perhaps we can amuse > ourselves with a little guessing game of what each review might > contain. I'll go first. > > Stereophile: > > 1) They will give the Touch a favorable review and say that it is big > step up from the SB Classic. > > 2) They will state that while the Touch's DAC is very good it is no > match for good quality external DAC. > > 3) Finally they will conclude that for $300 the Touch is very good buy > especially for exploring the world of high resolution downloads and > vinyl rips but (there's always a "but") sound quality of the Touch, > even when coupled with a high end external DAC, cannot compare with > that of some mega-buck CD transport and external DAC. > > What would you except, Stereophile cannot bite the hand that feeds > them. > > Now I hope that I'm completely wrong but I won't be keeping my hopes > up.
Okay so I finally received my copy of the October Stereophile, the one with the Squeezebox Touch on the cover, and I instantly read through Kal Rubinson's first rate and very thorough review. But the real question is just how accurate were my predictions quoted above. 1) I was almost right on the money although there was no mention of or comparison with the Squeezebox Classic. 2) Completely nailed it. 3) Again I almost nailed it except that instead of a mega-buck CD transport and external DAC you will need a mega-buck SACD player to better the Touch. Now my real question is why does Stereophile keep pushing the almost dead SACD format? I understand the fascination with vinyl since there was and still is a huge amount of very good vinyl available but there has never been nor will there ever be a huge amount of music available on SACD. On the other hand, there is still a chance for high resolution downloads to become popular enough so that a wide range music (besides the standard audiophile dreck - think HP's Super Disc List but try not to get sick) will become available download. If my understanding of present day digital recording is correct, just about every new recording or remastering is done in high resolution, i.e. 24 bit and 96 kHz or above, so the files can quite easily be made available for download with a minimum amount of work on the part of the record company. For the sake of fairness I should mention that Kal does say that the Touch plus a good external DAC is the equal of, if not outright better than, a CD transport and external DAC or just a CD player. Another bit of confusion on my part is why does Stereophile, the self appointed gate keeper of high quality audio, not raise more of stink about the poor sound quality of most, if not all, internet audio streams??? 192kbps mp3 is most definitely not high quality audio. The bandwidth is available and now it's time for internet audio streams to take the next step up to flac or other lossless format streaming. -- ralphpnj Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels -> Snatch -> The Transporter -> Transporter 2 (oops) -> Touch 'Last.fm' (http://www.last.fm/user/jazzfann/) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ralphpnj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10827 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=81346 _______________________________________________ Touch mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
