Ok, now that I have several hours experience with the unit, I'll talk a little bit about the sound. However, I won't be able to comment on comparisons with DAC's until this weekend when I borrow my friend's Bryston.
System: Cary SLI-80, Silverline SR17.5, Cary 308T cdp, EAR 834p modified phono. Interconnects Cardas Golden Ref, speaker cable Audience AU-24, powerc(h)ord mostly Audience. (no "e" levels alas...).
The analog outs sound very, very lovely, with natural level of detail. Neutral, perhaps a tad more neutral than my 308T, but generously musical. Deep bass, but not as deep as the 308T. The sound has a couple of problems at this point that prevent it from entering the league of my 308T, or turntable, or any other source I've been using over the years: (1) it is very polite. (2) it is somewhat flat sounding. I'm not getting depth of image. On wireless there is a slightly ghostly quality.
That said, having spent even a few minutes using this thing, it is hard to go back to any kind of spinning platter. It is very enjoyable and great fun - for natural music like classic, jazz, singers, etc. It seems not dynamic enough for rock or pop, but my system is not designed for rock anyway (that's for the car and Shuffle with Westones at the gym:-) . So I suspect that it is not fair for me to evaluate the Touch on music that my system is not designed for.
The Touch appears to be a keeper, but so far at least, I will be pulling out my spinning disks for serious listening.
Perhaps that will change with the addition of an external DAC?
I can comment on how this compares to the Devilsound that I use in my home office and have tried in my main system. It does seem a bit clearer than the Devilsound.
All of my music is ripped in iTunes at both 256 and Apple lossless. I use the smaller versions on small capacity ipods for gym and travel, and lossless for serious listening and large capacity ipod. In direct comparisons last night, it was hard to hear a difference between 256 and lossless. Again, perhaps an external DAC here will reveal greater differences.
I tried playing the Touch using iTunes as a source from my MacBook Pro wirelessly, and also, from an SDHC card directly. In my relatively brief testing, the SDHC card sounded a bit more saturated, full of color.
I intentionally used the SDHC card (32GB) rather than a spinning hard drive to avoid issues of electronic noise. The SDHC card has 256 bit rate versions of the music.
I played the Touch with the volume all the way up, and rely on the volume control of the amp for control.
I found setup of the Touch very straightforward until I began to alternate between sources, and also alternate between using the Mac to control it rather than the screen or remote. Alternating sources or control units is very tricky - to me, anyway. Also the online control unit froze up use of Firefox for any other concurrent purpose. I wish I could use iTunes as the control interface rather than the Squeezebox software - which is not bad BTW. Perhaps that is possible, we shall see.
Having access to radio stations from all over the world is a revelation to me, but Squeezebox owners are used to this for a long time now I guess, going back to generation 1, right?
That's about all I can think of to say at this point. It does sound way better than a cheap cd player. I can't really compare it to better cd players or turntable since it seems to have its own sound. I've never heard any source component have this combination of neutrality, detail, musicality, robust bass, yet flawed with a dominating politeness (lack of dynamics?) and flatness of perspective.
Caveat: Many of you know from personal experience that a few hours of experience with a component is premature to draw firm, fixed conclusions, so I reserve the right to update as things progress.
Art
System: Cary SLI-80, Silverline SR17.5, Cary 308T cdp, EAR 834p modified phono. Interconnects Cardas Golden Ref, speaker cable Audience AU-24, powerc(h)ord mostly Audience. (no "e" levels alas...).
The analog outs sound very, very lovely, with natural level of detail. Neutral, perhaps a tad more neutral than my 308T, but generously musical. Deep bass, but not as deep as the 308T. The sound has a couple of problems at this point that prevent it from entering the league of my 308T, or turntable, or any other source I've been using over the years: (1) it is very polite. (2) it is somewhat flat sounding. I'm not getting depth of image. On wireless there is a slightly ghostly quality.
That said, having spent even a few minutes using this thing, it is hard to go back to any kind of spinning platter. It is very enjoyable and great fun - for natural music like classic, jazz, singers, etc. It seems not dynamic enough for rock or pop, but my system is not designed for rock anyway (that's for the car and Shuffle with Westones at the gym:-) . So I suspect that it is not fair for me to evaluate the Touch on music that my system is not designed for.
The Touch appears to be a keeper, but so far at least, I will be pulling out my spinning disks for serious listening.
Perhaps that will change with the addition of an external DAC?
I can comment on how this compares to the Devilsound that I use in my home office and have tried in my main system. It does seem a bit clearer than the Devilsound.
All of my music is ripped in iTunes at both 256 and Apple lossless. I use the smaller versions on small capacity ipods for gym and travel, and lossless for serious listening and large capacity ipod. In direct comparisons last night, it was hard to hear a difference between 256 and lossless. Again, perhaps an external DAC here will reveal greater differences.
I tried playing the Touch using iTunes as a source from my MacBook Pro wirelessly, and also, from an SDHC card directly. In my relatively brief testing, the SDHC card sounded a bit more saturated, full of color.
I intentionally used the SDHC card (32GB) rather than a spinning hard drive to avoid issues of electronic noise. The SDHC card has 256 bit rate versions of the music.
I played the Touch with the volume all the way up, and rely on the volume control of the amp for control.
I found setup of the Touch very straightforward until I began to alternate between sources, and also alternate between using the Mac to control it rather than the screen or remote. Alternating sources or control units is very tricky - to me, anyway. Also the online control unit froze up use of Firefox for any other concurrent purpose. I wish I could use iTunes as the control interface rather than the Squeezebox software - which is not bad BTW. Perhaps that is possible, we shall see.
Having access to radio stations from all over the world is a revelation to me, but Squeezebox owners are used to this for a long time now I guess, going back to generation 1, right?
That's about all I can think of to say at this point. It does sound way better than a cheap cd player. I can't really compare it to better cd players or turntable since it seems to have its own sound. I've never heard any source component have this combination of neutrality, detail, musicality, robust bass, yet flawed with a dominating politeness (lack of dynamics?) and flatness of perspective.
Caveat: Many of you know from personal experience that a few hours of experience with a component is premature to draw firm, fixed conclusions, so I reserve the right to update as things progress.
Art