Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems SB Touch

So, I'm not that wrong. The only knob I was not sure off, but twisted anyway is the PCM setting in SqueezeBox Server. I turned it off and now the music seems more like that what the G98 produces. The G98 is wired to the G68 with the (3) blue Meridian digital cables (the Touch with one blue cable). And yes, I tried the DTS test and the system is bitperfect. WIFI isn't an issue. By the way, I'm very pleased with the sound now. I use "Squeezecontrol" on a (android)smartphone (it's for free (the app, not the phone!)) and that works fine/perfect.
Are there any hikers who found a android musicplayer for FLAC? I could find about 3, among them "Meridian" (what's in a name!) but neither of them worked (despite of what was announced).
Greetings, Paul.

Of the Android apps, I found the SqueezeCommander to be easy worth the money than the free Squeezedroid and Squeezecontrol.

I searched in the server sttings, but did'nt find it, where do you find the "PCM setting" knob you are referring to? What is it intended to do when you switch it off?

It's in SB Server- Settings- Advanced- File Types where you have the option to specify the stream format for each file format. If you disable PCM for any file type that file type will not be converted to PCM for sending over the network. (PCM uses the highest network bandwidth but minimises processing in the SB client). The default for FLAC files is to stream them as FLAC and decode them in the client which supports FLAC natively, so disabling PCM conversion should not have any effect.

I disabled PCM for FLAC. I only use (AccurateRip)FLAC-files. And I noticed a difference in sound - more in tonal balance with the G98 - now the Touch is decoding instead of the PC. Beside of that imho the soundstage of the Touch is better than that of the G98. And that at a cost of � 215,--!

AccurateRip does not make files sound different, period. It's a form of verfication (i.e. just information that you could try to act on).
You can't ONLY use AccurateRip FLAC files. Unless you have a pretty small "common" library.
Decoding on Server vs SqueezeBox won't change the sound, period. Meridian gets PCM both ways and it's rebuffered (same jitter) in the SqueezeBox either way.

George,
There are those who claim decoding in the server sounds better because the SB cpu is less busy. Look here:
http://soundcheck-audio.blogspot.com/p/squeezebox-touch-great-base-for-network.html
Now rawlander said otherwise... !!
To me it is difficult to point out any improvement, honest. But there IS improvement doing some upsampling (sox).
Regards

George, not for the first time I get the feeling you're pushing your opinion. I truly believe you know a lot more than I of bits and bytes, but if you would have read more carefully than you could have figured out that I am not stupid. I referred to AccurateRip because in one of the replies it was mentioned. And yes I know it's about verification. And I do only use FLAC-files for playback with the Touch. And yes, I did notice a difference in sound. Period. Paul.

The Touch is unreasonably good. However, just disabling PCM stream for FLAC files shouldn't change anything because the default is to stream in FLAC and decode in your SB, so you should have been getting that all along. If the first stream in your list for FLACs is FLAC-native then that's what you'll get regardless of how PCM is set. You can see what you're getting by playing a file and observing what transcoder processes are running on your PC. I think it's best to stream files in original format provided they are native to the SB. My only exception is AAC, where I get mini-dropouts with an AAC stream once every three or four minutes for some reason that I can't fathom, so I transcode on the PC to FLAC - problem sorted. (The next step here is to use VK's work to upsample at the same time).

Having said all this, you noticed a difference and you're happy so that's all that matters.

Surely Streaming PCM over Ethernet between the SqueezeCentre and the Touch leaves that Stream more susceptible to Jitter than the FLAC stream??

Minimizing the amount of Jitter going to the Processor should be a goal of all playback systems.

Therefore, sending FLAC files to the Touch minimizes a potential source of Jitter and should be the preferred option???

I don't think so because it's wrapped up in asynchronous ethernet packets so jitter is meaningless. PCM refers to the method of encoding not the method of rtransmission, AFAIK. So PCM AES/EBU/SPDIF is synchronous; PCM/WAV data sent over the ethernet is not.

Yeah that "Snake Oil" topic has been around for as long as SqueezeBox has been around.