Great writeup on the Duet. I've owned Squeezeboxes for years, the Duet since it came out, briefly switched to Sonos after getting the Duet, played with Sooloos and use iPeng. Impressions:
- Major YEAH, it's cool to have the album covers in your hand, kinda puts a foot back in the camp of actually pulling a CD from the shelf. Connects you w/the artist a bit, and besides, my kids are always asking to see a picture of who's on, so it's fun to show them.
- The Duet to begin with (got on day one of release) was a near disaster IME. Wouldn't hook up with my SBs reliably, and the new SC software to support it destroyed my previously rock-solid performance. Stuttery playback, all kinds of problems -- became hit play and pray. Got so frustrated, I bought a Sonos system. Tech support is great, and they patiently reconfigured my whole wifi system. Result was pretty solid, though sometimes no digital out from some of the ZP90 head units. Mysterious, frustrating, and also, it reminded that I like a one handed, slim remote better than a two hander. I never used the M remote. So that and the occasional dig. out issue, along with just wanting something to f--ing work (a hangover from the Duet partly, so unfair) led to retrying the Duet. Worth pointing out too that my initial few years w/the SB were one of those rare, beautiful, painless tech. experiences (why I love Apple, eg.). I plugged it in, it found my network and played music. No prob. solving.
Turns out after what seemed like 20 or so software updates, the Duet got reasonably solid. Updates are few and far between now. It works. iPeng lets me use my old iPhone, but the interface is its own and takes a minute to figure. It doesn't mimic the Duet, or say, the simple iPhone interface for Apple TV. Since I had an old iPhone though, it's a great deal at $10.
The Sooloos interface is cool, and the big screen makes all the cross referencing available easy to use. But where do you put the screen in a multi-room setup? OK, you use the iPhone interface to travel around, but then what's the advantage over the SB. I don't really get the high end server thing w/SB and Sonos around. Dealer touted automatic backup as a major plus. Worth thousands no doubt
Looking forward to a 24/96 SB head unit to feed a good DAC as we move into hi rez downloads.
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