[zybar]

I’m 50, went SB and am now back to using a CDP.

Convenience, cost, access to internet audio streaming channels, and sound quality from modded SB’s are all no-brainer advantages and cannot be denied.  (BTW the sound quality advantages come from the superior ability of the PC to read a disc over CDPs.)

Shoot-out reviews with high-end CDP’s won’t happen as those vendors have too much to lose and would give up their financial support to the reviewing organizations.

I went back to CDP because of the setup and maintenance frustrations:

1.)   Everyone says it’s easy (that irked me to no end), but only for an IT guy or a young geek.  I’m an engineer but can barely keep my PC running between viruses, my incompetence, and sharing the home network.  It was only by the grace of a fellow ACer who spent hours with me over the phone that I got it to work the first time. 
2.)   Kept having home network issues, tried a wired connection (make sure you read the SB instructions and get the right cable), but still had issues.
3.)   My modded SB would get a headache with some of the internet streaming channels that would take the whole thing down.
4.)   Once I got into a SB menu and it took days to “find my way out”.
5.)   It would take weeks for me to fumble into a solution and was never quite sure how it happened in the first place or how I eventually “fixed” it.
6.)   With SB only, you must rip to listen, even if it’s a disc you’d only rarely want to listen to.  Not that big a deal, but it makes navigation that much tougher as the collection would get to be 3 or 4 times as big.  So IMO the smaller drives in the Olives aren’t as much of a limitation as would first appear.
7.)   I hated being days without music and not knowing if I could ever get it back.

I’ll go back to a music server as soon as they become friendly enough while keeping sound quality up and cost down.  Olive should be close to what I want, but recent support horror stories and the need for internet/home network connection for streaming has kept me away.  Stock prices for the Olives are OK, but to get the sound quality I crave the cost/reliability of mods make me worry.  Being able to use the Olive as a CDP takes care of frustration #6.

So sadly I spent the same to give up internet streaming, sound quality, and convenience of SB to go with a used CDP because I dreaded not knowing when the next glitch would pop up and if I’d get my music back.

Sorry to hear about all the probems JLM.

What cdp did you go back to?

George

[Daygloworange]

Shoot-out reviews with high-end CDP’s won’t happen as those vendors have too much to lose and would give up their financial support to the reviewing organizations.

Stereophile reviewed the SlimDevices Transporter in the Feb 2007 issue. Writer Wes Phillips had it up against his Ayre C5-xe CDP and Musical Fidelity X-DAC v3. In his estimation, it compared very favorably. He comments that the Transporter is pretty darn near perfect as a transport.

John Atkinson measured the Transporter and found it specs very well. He comments that the Transporter offers state of the art D/A converter performance. He surmises that these guys (SlimDevices) are fast becoming a center of high end audio design.

I read very similar findings in UHF magazine with the SB 3, before I took the plunge into the SB 3. I will admit though, even if the SB 3 was not as good as my previous CDP's, the sheer versatility and convenience would have sold me on it. The fact that it (easily)sonically surpasses my previous CDP's already with stage 1 mods, and with more mods available, is a total bonus.

In summary, I think that Stereophile and UHF recognize that this is the new wave of transports, and has very solid merit in the audiophile community, and both agree that these transports need to be taken seriously.

Cheers

[Double Ugly]

In summary, I think that Stereophile and UHF recognize that this is the new wave of transports, and has very solid merit in the audiophile community, and both agree that these transports need to be taken seriously.

I believe you're right, but I also believe the real revelation for them and many others is yet to come.

IMO, it'll happen if/when the first of 'them' tries a highly-modified SB or Transporter as a player.  IME, using a stock version was nice, but as you know from your "stage 1 mods", properly applied modifications make a big difference.  The difference between "stage 1" and Ultimate is a 'night and day' thing to me, and I'm not the only one here whose jaw dropped at the improvement wrought from connecting a well-modified SB or Transporter directly to the amp(s).  I loved my DAC (still own it), and felt I had as good or better digital cable as is available, but it was as though my system came alive when I removed them for the last time.

All that said, I doubt Wayne or Anthony at Aberdeen/Maui Mods will be hearing from 'them' anytime soon, because that's not what 'they' do.  Consequently, we'll likely have to wait until someone builds a device the equal of our highly modified SBs and Transports.  'Course, the price will be several times what we've paid for our players + modifications, but so be it.

[miklorsmith]

Thanks for your honesty, JLM.  True discourse is the heart of this forum.  While I love my SB, I can't claim it was simple to get running and even once skipping along the water, mine has not been gremlin free.  I don't remember whether it's been covered elsewhere in this thread, but I do not recommend switching over to the SB without keeping the ability to play CDPs.  In fact, when I had my amplifier comparison a few weeks back I was in the middle of a month-long angerfest about "server" problems.  One day not that long ago, everything started working again.  I have no idea why, and Slim Devices was not able to figure it out either.

So, I love the SB but it's a complicated beast.  While it has mostly worked great, it IS a black box and to a large degree a leap of faith.

[Daygloworange]

Double Ugly,

Yeah, the mods are a big deal. I have the full analog (minus the Bybees mod). I currently have an older Bolder Rev1 PS on loan to me. It's up a level from my modded Elpac PS on the SB 3. Detail retrieval is astonishing. My decision is made, and I'll be doing the full bore Bolder mods to my SB 3. Gold Bybees and Ultimate PS, the whole nine yards feeding a modded Burson Buffer, so I can run additional outs to my sub.

I think you're right about the reviewers not reviewing the modded units. But that's no biggie, as audiophiles will google around and quickly find out for themselves.

Just for the record, I have had no server problems at all. No dropouts either. Nothing, nadda, squat.

I'm all smiles.  

Cheers

[miklorsmith]

I have a funny feeling there's going to be some "official" writing done about SB projects in the not-so-distant future.   

[Double Ugly]

Just for the record, I have had no server problems at all. No dropouts either. Nothing, nadda, squat.

I didn't until I recently "upgraded" to 6.5.1.  Now I have occasional freeze-ups, and sometimes right half of the Transporter screen goes blank.     I didn't keep a copy of 6.5.0 because I'm (at least) borderline stupid, but as soon as I can find a copy on the Slim Devices site, I'll download it.

If someone here can provide me w/ a link to the OSX version of what I seek, I'd be most appreciative.

I have a funny feeling there's going to be some "official" writing done about SB projects in the not-so-distant future.   

I think that's great, Mike, I truly do.  But for the record, my references to "them" and "they" were meant for the Stereophiles and TASs of the world.  That should in no way minimize the impact a well-respected and widely-read webzine like 6moons can have, but the print magazines are still lagging the fight IMHO.

Regards,

-Jim

[jrebman]

My decision is made, and I'll be doing the full bore Bolder mods to my SB 3. Gold Bybees and Ultimate PS, the whole nine yards feeding a modded Burson Buffer, so I can run additional outs to my sub.

DayGlow,

I'm right there with you although I'm building a tweaky Welborne supply right now to see how much better than the Bolder modded Elpac will be.

Also, as a first step, I'm trying a Y-cable out of the SB going to my amp on one side and to a digital EQ on the other to feed my sub before I add any additional potential noise sources to the system.  Gregg Straley is currently making this custom Y-cable for me and he's trying some new tricks with this cable that if they prove to be good, will soon be offered on his site.

Today I'll be sitting down with a new, dedicated Infrant server and starting the process of configuring it for SlimServer so I won't have to run anything off my main computer.  Much better fault tolerance, more reliability, and best of all, I won't have to have the PC running to listen.

Gotta love these guys like Wayne, Vinnie, Gregg, et al who really go the extra mile to give their customers incredible service and wwill usually at least entertain the idea of custom jobs.  Don't know where my system would be without guys like this.

[Steve Eddy]

So sadly I spent the same to give up internet streaming, sound quality, and convenience of SB to go with a used CDP because I dreaded not knowing when the next glitch would pop up and if I’d get my music back.

I was considering the SB until I finally realized that it had no hard drive and used the computer as the music server.

Now I'm looking at the little Vantec Avox jukebox.

You buy the unit without a hard drive (can find it for as little as $85), and then get whatever size 2.5" IDE drive you want and install it. To the computer, the Avox is just a USB hard drive. You just copy your music, video or other files over to the drive. You then control the Avox via the remote and it displays the menu on a regular TV monitor.

se

[totoro]

That the sb _doesn't_ have its own storage and _doesn't_ require a tv  in order to listen to music are two of its biggest benefits, IMHO. Disks get cheaper all the time, I can use whatever backup strategy I want. etc, etc, and I don't have or want a tv in my listening room. Having the processing on the computer allows you to have plugins that do really non-trivial stuff. I'm an inguz user, and wouldn't want to think about giving up room correction at this point. If I want that level of room correction, my only other choice would be to splash out on some tact gear, as far as I can see.

Has anyone here tried the sonos? I got the sb primarily 'coz it was cheaper (and I still didn't know if I would dive into this whole-heartedly). I wonder if the sonos has less glitches than slimserver. I've actually never run into anyone, online or in real life who's tried the sonos. Does it actually sound worse? I'd be willing to bet that the general user experience is less fiddly with the sonos.  And, of course, it has the cool remote.

But then again, a cheap laptop makes a pretty full-featured remote for the sb
 

[bpape]

Agreed.  I love not having to have a hard drive in my listening room nor a TV - but have the flexibility to do the laptop thing if I choose.  I also like not being limited to 1 hard drive - not to mention being able to stream my entire music collection over the web to a work PC or wherever I am.

I guess it's all in priorities.  I'm not even close to having my collection fully ripped yet and I'm already pushing a 400GB drive capacity pretty hard.  Having just one disk to me is a serious drawback. 

Bryan

[totoro]

I've heard people on the slim forum say that you _can_ use multiple disks with slimserver. I haven't looked into it because I'm only at 180g now, and it looks like it'll take me a couple years to fill a 500g drive. If you need to use multiple drives, I'm sure someone there can help you do it.

Does it seem to you as if sonos has kind of disappeared, as well?

[Steve Eddy]

That the sb _doesn't_ have its own storage and _doesn't_ require a tv  in order to listen to music are two of its biggest benefits, IMHO.

No, it doesn't require a TV monitor to listen to music. Instead it requires a computer and, for all intents and purposes, a computer monitor to do that.

se

[Steve Eddy]

Agreed.  I love not having to have a hard drive in my listening room nor a TV - but have the flexibility to do the laptop thing if I choose.  I also like not being limited to 1 hard drive - not to mention being able to stream my entire music collection over the web to a work PC or wherever I am.

I guess it's all in priorities.  I'm not even close to having my collection fully ripped yet and I'm already pushing a 400GB drive capacity pretty hard.  Having just one disk to me is a serious drawback.

Well nothing's going to be everything to everyone.

Mostly I was speaking to JLM's complexity issues.

se

[bpape]

Actually, you only need the monitor when you're doing the ripping.  Monitor or TV matters not to me - don't want either when listening if I don't choose.  The PC - yes - but not in the same room.  Plus, I can run 8 different SB's off the same PC - sync'd or playing different things without having to have the music on 8 different drives.

Yes - the setup can be a bit more complex than some other solutions but once it's set up, it's a piece of cake to use.  My wife works from home a lot of days and while she's working, she'll swap out CD's to rip for me.  She's hardly a geek - but she is a good PC user.  The hardest thing to set up is EAC->FLAC and getting the structure set up the way you want.

The one advantage I see to the individual HD based systems is that it takes the network out of the equation - but as I said, that also limits internet radio, streaming to remote locations etc. so it's kind of a tradeoff.

Bryan

[zybar]

I've heard people on the slim forum say that you _can_ use multiple disks with slimserver. I haven't looked into it because I'm only at 180g now, and it looks like it'll take me a couple years to fill a 500g drive. If you need to use multiple drives, I'm sure someone there can help you do it.

Does it seem to you as if sonos has kind of disappeared, as well?

I am currently using four different HD's with no issues. 

George

[Steve Eddy]

The one advantage I see to the individual HD based systems is that it takes the network out of the equation - but as I said, that also limits internet radio, streaming to remote locations etc. so it's kind of a tradeoff.

Yeah, though it ultimately depends on what one's goals are. I like keeping things simple so for me, something like the Avox will be the better solution.

se

[Double Ugly]

Yeah, though it ultimately depends on what one's goals are. I like keeping things simple so for me, something like the Avox will be the better solution.

Given your comments, I agree. 

The computer/HDD-driven audio market is exploding, and the options over the next several years will make most of these type discussions moot IMO.  Till then, all we can do is find what best suits our individual needs and hope the sonic quality of the chosen product meets with our approval.

[Daygloworange]

Also, as a first step, I'm trying a Y-cable out of the SB going to my amp on one side and to a digital EQ on the other to feed my sub before I add any additional potential noise sources to the system.  Gregg Straley is currently making this custom Y-cable for me and he's trying some new tricks with this cable that if they prove to be good, will soon be offered on his site.

jrebman,

Keep me updated on this Y cable thing. I'm running my SB 3 straight into my amp at the moment(but without my sub). I like this the best so far, just not enough gain. I'd love to eliminate the need for a pre-amp.The Burson Buffer discrete op-amp(while I had it only briefly) seemed to be a good way of boosting the output of the modded SB to get back the gain you lose with the mods. I don't think the modded SB can properly drive a Y cable setup to feed both amp and subwoofer plate amp.

 Is there going to be a gain stage in this Y cable setup you speak of?

Cheers

[jrebman]

I don't think the modded SB can properly drive a Y cable setup to feed both amp and subwoofer plate amp.

 Is there going to be a gain stage in this Y cable setup you speak of?

Not a gain stage, but some buffereing in the form of a summing amp in the input section of the R-DES digital EQ.  At least that's my educated guess as to what's in there as it has an input impedance of 100k.  That, and an amp with a 100k input impedance and which reaches full output with 1 v in, is what makes me think this should work

I don't know what the input voltage requirement for the R-DES is as it doesn't appear to be a published spec, but overall with a total load of 50k, the SB should be happy.  I say Should be, as this is all really an experiment, and I'm hoping the plate amp has sufficient gain for whatever signal will be coming out of the R-DES.  It's a small room, so that too is working in my favor.

I'm still keeping an eye on Wayne's buffering experiments to see what he comes up withthough.

I'm still waiting for my Y-cable and my drivers to come back from Planet10, so not much to test with at the moment.

-- Jim