Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Music Storage

If you use the digital out on the Squeeze Box Duet there should be no worries about signal to noise ratio. Also, the Squeeze Box Duet shines when it comes to streaming audio from the web.

I installed the Squeeze Box classic a couple of weeks ago and love it. I choose the classic mainly due to price. All my music is stored in FLAC format on a 1TB USB hard drive connected to an older laptop which runs the Squeeze Center server. Before this I tried Denon's IPOD external connector which also streamed audio, but had constant drop outs using either TWONKY,TVERSITY or MS Media server software. The Squeezebox software runs without a hitch even on a busy laptop.
I use the Squeezebox's built in Burr/Brown DAC and connect to my Denon 1909 AVR using analog in pure direct mode and the sound is fantastic. I tried the digital also, but prefer the Squeezeboox's DAC over the Denon's. If your receiver has better DACs then digital would probably be the way to go (for Audyssey, better bass mgt. etc...).

The main advantage of the Duet is that you can see and navigate through your music library with the screen on the remote. With a classic, you have to be close enough to read the LCD panel on the squeezebox itself. It's lettering is pretty big but I'm obviously getting older (stupid flashing birthday cake icon) and it's now a serious squinting process to see it from the kitchen.

While I throw in another vote for the Squeezebox (my favorite indoor toy) I'll also ask if you might already own a PS3 or an XBox. They will play music from a USB connected hard drive or accept streaming music from a PC. Along with the Squeezebox in the living room, I use the PS3 in the TV room to play flac files stored on my PC using TVersity as a free music server program.

I have both a PS3 and an Xbox 360. I don't really like the Xbox 360 turning everything into Dolby Digital. The PS3 still doesn't play lossless WMA files, which is most of my music collection. Also, it outputs in such a way that I can't apply modes such as Dolby Pro Logic IIx to take advantage of all of my speakers.

It's not for everybody and I'm not sure of the second part as I rarely use PLII modes but TVersity will take non native formats like WMA and automatically convert them on the fly to get them to your PS3, Xbox, receiver, etc. in something it does understand.

Even if it doesn't audibly affect sound quality, I'm trying to avoid transcoding where I can. Still, it could be fun to play around with. I think I tried TVersity once a long time ago. I'm sure it's come a long way.

Have you guys experienced any loss in sound quality as a result of streaming music? That was my main worry and why I went with WDTV, along with the cost factor.

CAM, you do know that your 3808 will stream music from your PC as long as you share the media player. WMA lossless or FLAC, does not have a lower SQ than CD, at least not in my experience.

Jay, I did know that, I was just unsure whether or not there would be any loss in sound quality.

I was just pointing that out as I am now wondering why you bought the WDTV, I trust it wasn't just for music streaming.

As long as you keep the compression to a minimum you won't loose sound quality. As has been stated before, the bare minimum is 128K. I would stay with 256K or higher, preferably a lossless format, which is why I went with FLAC for my streaming and when I want to load up my wife's iPod I just compress the songs at that time, although I have started a second 256K library to mirror the FLAC library of songs, but isn't growing very fast, not a high priority for me.