[BobRex]

I'm putting this in Central because I don't want to start a fight in Square.....

Maybe it's my age (I'll be 49 in May), but I don't understand the whys of downloading all of my music onto a server.  And I really don't understand why I'd then want to transmit the datastream via Wi-Fi.  I spent years getting RF out of my system, why do I want to inject it back in?  Please don't tell me it's ease-of-use, I don't see anything difficult in loading a cd, or more liklely placing an lp onto my turntable.  There isn't any sonic benefit that I can see, esp. since I'd have to buy a server and probably a PC.

Maybe I don't see it because I spend all day on a computer and don't want to do the same when I get home...but I'm serious here, why???

[miklorsmith]

1)  Pure data from hard drive instead of real-time, optical read
2)  Convenience - it's true.  Anyone who's converted will agree
3)  No piles of CDs, covers, albums, jackets laying around
4)  Cheap cost for relative sound quality
5)  Files + backups = guaranteed lifetime ownership.  Make a book full of travel discs.  Lose the discs?  Oh well, no biggie

[woodsyi]

I recently had a wireless network bugaboo which took 2 days to debug.  Basically I reset the router to factory setting and worked my way through.  Anyway, those 2 days I put CDs in my transport to listen.  Then I realized I really missed my playlist on my SB or PC/Foobar.  You don't know what you are missing until you've had it.

Somehow, spinning vinyl is different.  I expect the tedium and enjoy the spinning process and the analog sound. 

[miklorsmith]

I have 2 SBs.  I had a party and cranked 'em both up, synchronized.  Lots of folks at the party thought it was cool I could have two stereos playing the same thing on different floors.

Before the party, I set a long playlist on random and let it rip.  I didn't have to think about tunes the whole night.

[chadh]

Before I had a squeezebox, I had a multi-disc CD player from Rotel.  And before that I had a single disc NAD player.  The jump from the NAD to the Rotel was astounding, simply because of the increase in the amount of music I, and my family , played.  If you've decided "I want to sit down and listen to an album," I agree with you that it's no big hassle to put on a CD or an LP.  But it's the rest of the time that convenience matters.  I know, for example, that when we had a single disc CD player, my wife would NEVER put on music.  When we got the multi disc player, my wife would suddenly find it convenient to load up five discs and know there was something good to hear at any time of the day.  That meant my children were listening to music throughout the day, and it meant the TV was much less likely to be on at any time of the day.

Moving to the squeezebox has made things that much better.  And I don't even bother with the whole play-list creation thing.  I just put on an album, and them move around as I see fit.  And I get to keep a back-up drive with all my music on it at work, and so have my complete collection of music in both at the office and at home.

The wi-fi issue is potentially valid.  I'm now using my squeezebox at home via ethernet cable because I kept getting some pretty obnoxious wireless interference.  But most others have little or no problems with that.  And I suspect that using a long ethernet cable between PC and music player is less likely to create signal loss or distortion problems than long speaker cables or interconnects.

Only one real problem, as I see it.  I now no longer have the liner notes at hand when I want to check up on something that's playing.

Chad

[PhilNYC]

Please don't tell me it's ease-of-use, I don't see anything difficult in loading a cd, or more liklely placing an lp onto my turntable.  There isn't any sonic benefit that I can see, esp. since I'd have to buy a server and probably a PC.

What about random mixes and playlists (and not limiting these to the 1.2 hours that can fit on a CD-R)?

[nathanm]

I'm with you BobRex, it's a whole lot of fooling around presumably in the interest of convenience, but it takes a lot of inconvenience to get there.  Probably best to stick with the conventional ways.  Although I do own a Squeezebox I still haven't digitized most of my collection.  It's like doing clerical work.  The convenience is a mixed blessing in itself, you are losing a percentage of the tactile experience.  Oh, and the Squeezebox interface can drive you nuts with its delayed unresponsiveness.  I like things to happen when I push buttons, with the SB it's more like a question than a command.  I want a remote control that's pressure sensitive and can tell how angry the user is.

[PaulFolbrecht]

I've been there, and found it easy to go back.

1) I have always listened to discs straight-through, 98% of the time; I have no real interest in playlists.
2) I LIKE having CDs about as I OFTEN like to look at the notes, etc., or just the cover while I'm listening.
3) I missed SACD.  SACD, done well, still has advantages over redbook. 

[Doublej]

IMHO the benefit is not from putting CDs onto a computer, but rather being able to access Internet audio streams from around the world and listening to a particular type of music via Pandora.
 

[Soundbitten]

IMHO the benefit is not from putting CDs onto a computer, but rather being able to access Internet audio streams from around the world and listening to a particular type of music via Pandora.
 

Is this like listening to a radio station or can you choose the songs you want to hear ?

[Double Ugly]

Maybe it's my age (I'll be 49 in May)

I'm 45.

There isn't any sonic benefit that I can see, esp. since I'd have to buy a server and probably a PC.

You can't and won't "see" any sonic benefit, but you can hear it.  IME, the benefit is to achieve or exceed the sonic capabilities of pretty much any 'conventional' set-up available at any price.  I've heard full DCS stacks and EMM Labs equipment in very nice systems, and I wouldn't trade the convenience or (most importantly) sonic quality I get from my modified Transporter in a straight-up trade for any digital equipment I've heard.

FWIW, I sold most of the equipment I had before going w/ Slim Devices, and at last count, I was still in the black.  Given that I improved the sound of my system AND have a little extra change in my pocket, I have trouble seeing the downside.

[SOM]

> 3)  No piles of CDs, covers, albums, jackets laying around

That's a benefit??? I *like* my piles of CD's, covers, albums, and jackets!

I'm 47 and believe this a technological leap that I probably won't make. I have officially become "old school"!

[TomS]

There isn't any sonic benefit that I can see, ...

I also beg to differ on that one.  With my Bolder SB2 there clearly is a benefit to my ears.  I've also been able to hear the Empirical I2S setup Marbles has and it is VERY different and much more pleasant to listen to than even the best CD's.

[zybar]

There isn't any sonic benefit that I can see, ...

I also beg to differ on that one.  With my Bolder SB2 there clearly is a benefit to my ears.  I've also been able to hear the Empirical I2S setup Marbles has and it is VERY different and much more pleasant to listen to than even the best CD's.

I initially made my switch to the Bolder modified SB2 because it sounded better than my conventional setup.  The fact that it was cheaper AND had a higher useability factor were the icing on the cake.

I "may" drag my Bolder SB2 + Ultimate II PS down to my buddie's house next week and compare it to his new EMM Labs player (list price of $10k).  I am not sure if it will best the EMM Labs player, but I don't expect it be shamed either.

George

[JEaton]

In no particular order:

• Potential sonic benefits of removing the transport from the equation.  No mechanical disc spinning, no laser.  Tweaks to discs and transports such as mats, pens, pebbles, sandbags, vibration isolation become completely moot once you've extracted the data to hard disk.
• Convenience.  Changing a CD isn't at all difficult, but playing one or two tracks from one CD, a couple tracks from another, then tracks from another, is so much of a pain in the butt that most people just listen to complete CDs.
• Random play.  Never in a million years did I think I'd enjoy playing tracks randomly from the entire collection, or from a selected genre.  I've been amazed at how enjoyable it can be and how you hear obscure tracks completely differently and even rediscover music that you haven't heard in months or years.  The larger your collection of music, the more likely it is that you have _many_ discs that you practically never listen to.  Random play changes that, and in a very good way.
• Centralized music storage.  I have four audio systems in my home - the main system, one in my home office, a bedroom system, and a system in my garage workshp where I spend a fair amount of time puttering about.  I don't need to carry CDs to each system, don't have to worry where I laid a particular CD, don't have go searching to find another.

Probably half of my CD collection has never been played in a CD player.  Now I buy CDs, rip them to the music server, and put them on a shelf.  I can still pull them out to view the artwork or read the liner notes any time I like.

[slugworth]

I'm pushing 50 and have gone over to pc music. I grew up with vinyl as a teenager , but nothing high end. I've always wondered do vinyl guys usually listen to entire albums? I find that regardless of genre few albums have even one entire side that care to listen to. If I want to listen to songs 1, 3, 5 on side one then 2 & 3 on side 2, I have to get my lazy butt up at least 4 times to listen to 20 minutes of music. Kinda spoils the mood for me.

[totoro]

A few more points, in addition to the above:
1. No need to worry about scratching cds, once they're burnt (of course, you _do_ need a backup strategy).
2. In addition to random playlists, you can use musicip to make playlists based on "seed" pieces which you use. The resulting playlists are generated using an "acoustic fingerprint" and some kind of distance metric, and can be _really_ interesting. You can end up hearing pieces which you hadn't listened to in years, and which you turn out to like better than you remembered.
3. You can do room correction for free. Using the squeezebox, you can use the inguz convolver,to do convolving, and the inguzeq plugin as a front end (I think it's possible to do something similar with brutefir as the convolver on linux). As of now, the inguz stuff is free, versus several K to do this with deqx or tact.
4. If you use a laptop or pda as your remote, you can browse using artwork, which is really very nice.

[BobRex]

Do vinyl guys listen all the way through?  This one does.  Never had 45s, so playing a single song and then switching records never happens; I at least play a complete side. And I think that's the problem.  I listen to 99% vinyl and I'm not about to digitize my stuff.  I don't ipod (can't stand anything in or over my ear.)  The cds I do play at home tend to be classical symphonies, so I don't see a playlist coming anytime soon.  Beyond that, cds are mostly for the car.

I'm not anti-technology, hell, I used to design ICs and now I run the largest electric utility automated meter reading system in the country (1.4 million meters and going) so technology is my friend.  It's ironic, considering I use almost all tubes and lps.

[tigzstudio]

I have a few questions for those with squeezebox setups....


1.) Does the interface annoy you?  Because I like to look and see what album I want to listen to without much trouble, is there a way to say control what you    hear through the Squeezebox with your laptop computer?   e.g ITUNES album flipper etc...

In my case I would use my macbook pro with external HD storing music.


2.)  Also, can you use wavform instead of FLAC or mp3?  I would want the purest there is.

[miklorsmith]

The computer interface is OK, perfectly functional but not terribly intelligent.

.wav streams are no problem, even over wireless.

Music management can be challenging when you have a really big collection but it's workable.