Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Moving to a Streaming Setup (A Bit of a Ramble, Sorry)

Re Squeezebox, it was the first streamer out (ish) made by Slim Devices. It was adopted by audiophiles, who promptly started modding it. They set up a forum and it became a thing. Slim Devices went the extra mile and made Transporter which was/is a real (pretty expensive) audiophile player. Then Logitech bought out Slim Devices and produced newer versions. Logitech are very good with software updates and support and the forum is full of tweaks.

Great product and a little cultish.

I'll leave comments on Sonos to owners but there can't be too much in it sound wise when you add a few tweaks to the mix. It would seem logical that they are both evolving to the same end point.

Tintin

The Touch does 24/96 too, but I seem to remember the Sonos doesn't. Could be wrong though. Don't we have a comparison chart in the wiki (though it may be out of date now)?

Duncan

Comparing digital out the Sonos is supposed to have higher jitter than the Squeezebox, particularly the Touch, but surely use of a DAC that reclocks should negate this advantage.

In practice I have found that there is no discernible difference in sound quality between running digital out from the Sonos, Squeezbox3, G07, or Marantz SA11/2 into the DAC in either a G68 or a Benchmark DAC. The rest of the system at the time included Martin Logan electrostatics with BAT amplification. At the relative prices I thought there should be, indeed hoped there would be, but disregarding expectation bias the results were the same. I am not saying that they are necessarily "actually" the same but any differences aren't noticeable to me when listening for them and certainly not when listening to music. Using the analogue out, however, there was a clear difference in quality with the Sonos being the worst and the Marantz (depending on which filter was selected) the best, although between the G07 and Marantz it came down to preference rather than being necessarily better.

Having got that our of the way I then made my choice from which is the easiest to use for a predominantly classical music collection. The Sonos when controlled by an iPad comes out the winner as I can browse by Composer tag without having to install add-ons or swap Artist and Composer tags.

The big problem with a classical collection is the need to correct the tags when ripping. They are invariably inconsistent even when accessing a number of online databases with dBpoweramp for example. This may be less of a problem in a system where you find you music by typing in a search but is a problem in a system which also allows you to browse by Artist, Album, Composer or Genre etc.

The Sonos doesn't do 24/96 out, although as the majority of my collection is on CD this doesn't really matter to me although it may be important to someone else.

It would be interesting to hear more about re-clocking, without starting getting into the whole of the jitter thing. Re-clocking seems more of a processor job than a DAC typically? I understand the MS600 does it, does the ID40?

Tintin

Re the ID40, yes by the nature of the thing. The ID40 receives asynchronous Ethernet packets for which, by definition, jitter is meaningless. It has to assemble the asynchronous packets into a synchronous PCM data stream based on the clock in the 808 or 861. Nothing before the ID40 can contribute to jitter.

Sounds similar to an asynchronous USB ?

Yes, but in the ID40 solution the Ethernet packets are completely asynchronous - they don't even have to arrive in the original order. There are various implementations of asynchronous USB some of which, afaik, might in theory still allow some jitter to break through from the source clock.

Hi all,

I have managed to sell a camera lens on Fleebay so I have taken on board what HH�s have said and I have ordered a SB Touch � thanks all for help and advice, shortly, I will be entering a new world of music streaming and not having to put CDs into a machine.

I am currently using dBpoweramp � the free version. Question: should I really be using the Reference?

I guess the Meridian software will inform me where to connect everything when I alter my con fig settings.

If anyone has any pointers or help into this �new world�, I would be extremely grateful.

And thanks Seeker_UK for starting this thread.

PS

Not getting a NAS drive until Xmas so I am going to use a USB stick.

CheeRS
Shaun

I have my Touch up and running � that was fun � it always is! The anti-virus was the main problem. But for the life of me I can�t get it working via a USB hard drive, so its computer only for now, which isn�t a problem as the USB hard drive wasn�t the best option.

The Meridian software said connect it via �A1� but for the life of me I couldn�t find it so I connected it via �tape� is this OK? Is this the best way to connect my SB Touch and not optical etc?

I must say it sounds good and I for one will not go back to a CD player, so it�s onwards and upwards from here.

Shaun

Shaun

I'm no computer expert but what operating system have you got running your hard drive? My Nas runs under Windows home server so I believe that you need some embedded operating system on your hard drive to load Slimserver and thus run your touch

But I could be wrong

Rod

Thanks Windows 7

shaun

You definitely want to connect it via optical or digital coax if you can, otherwise you are using the SBT DAC which is unlikely to be as good as the Meridian DAC in the G61R.

You can even try it direct via coax into D2 on your 5500s. :-)

Duncan