celo wrote: > I keep coming back asking this question. > > Is there anything better than SBT currently? The technology has improved > a lot so there must be something better, right? No? > > I didnt do a big changes/tries but I couldnt really tell any > difference between SBT, Allo Digione, Raspberry Pi or Macbook. All > connected to my DAC. They all sounded the same/similar. Nothing to give > up SBT. Sometimes I think people just say they heard difference to say > it because they had a new unit to try:) > > As I said, my upgrades if you can call it that were all small. If buy > a network streamer from say Aurender, SoTM, Sonore, Auralic, Bluesound > or similar brands, would I really hear a difference? > > I am not sure, so wanted to see if someone could answer with a > experience upgrading from the SBT? > > Thanks!
Its all opinion. But we at my house are now up to over a dozen SB clients, and I have had extended intimate listening and underhood time with all the major players for well over a decade now: SB3, Touch, Receiver, and TP. While I remain fully committed to the ecosystem, I am not a blind fanboy, and am willing to point out the flaws as well. The Slimserver/LMS architecture is still the best in my book. It can handle most file formats, has great Internet radio support, and does a better overall job than Roon, iTunes or any of the others. Community support and iPeng has kept it current. It has a broad compatibilty with clients of all kinds. And the formats and sampling rates it does not support in my opinion are not meaningfully superior sounding. 96/24 audio resolution is already better than most systems can fully reproduce. By todays computing standards it is a very light resource footprint, and most of the remaining issues with it are client networking ones. Most machines can host it. It is close to a universal audio streaming app. And its free. Keep it and its clients in a modern ethernet environment, and it is fast and trouble free 99% of the time. The SB3 is a fair digital front end and an ok player. It was hampered by a cheap and very dirty power supply. It takes a lot of digital reprocessing/reclocking to make it sound good as a digital head end, but it is doable. It is fine for a casual or bedroom system. But the Touch and TP are clearly better machines. The Touch is a very good digital head end and a decent player. Its receiver, filtering and conversion sections are good, but its output stage is definitely midfi caliber. As in harmonically thin and tonally unnuanced. At the price point, they did all they could. But as a digital head end feeding a better dac with a good output stage it is still a good option for many systems. Throw on the digital pass-through app, and you can play 192khz media through one. Still not bad for a decade old product. And it still presents a pretty face. Just picked up a clean spare one for $70 last month. The TP is an outstanding digital head end and converter section, even by todays standards. That is where its designers spent the budget. And that is why it was such a measurement champ with the audio rags. Its failing is a mediocre (but not bad) analog output stage. Just not up to snuff with the big boys. The analog stage is where the big bucks go in better audio equipment. High quality output stages are expensive. And that is why you can now pick up OEM TPs for under $400. It is overall still a very good player. But as the digital head end to a really first-class DAC with a serious output stage, the TP is as good as anything out there even today. It is capped at 96/24 and stumbles on some FLAC codings. But as I said, the differences going to higher sampling rates or to DSD are not all that meaningful. I have one feeding a fairly expensive two-chassis DAC in what could be termed a high end system. And the TP in that role has yet to be unseated by a series of more recent higher end clients in repeated auditions. It is still that good. Thats my opinion and YMMV. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ sgmlaw's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13995 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=110060
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