Beatles USB via Squeezebox Touch

My understanding was that you could plug the USB apple into the back of the Touch and it would play that way. I've been scanning forums all day and it seems that some people are copying the files to iTunes (or whatever) and then streaming them that way. But it seems to me that it would be much more direct, less connections, to go right into the Touch USB port. And that way it would play flac directly without needing to convert (I use an iMac and iTunes which won't play flacs without first converting them, but plan to switch to Pure Music soon).

Is there a way to play the USB apple directly through the USB input on the back of the Touch? You'd think that would be possible.

Help -- I need somebody?

Probably a good idea to copy the files to disk and play from there, similar to ripping a CD, but should be much faster than ripping.

That will save wear and tear on the source usb device. Better to store that away in a safe place.

I've been able do that, but it seems to me that the sounds should be better going directly into the back of the Touch via the usb port, because that bypasses iTunes, my router, wireless, etc. With my iMac and iTunes, I had to convert to wav, which I think would also not be as good as going directly with the flac into the back of the Touch. But I'm just guessing.

Can anyone with more knowledge with in on this?

I use lossless .wav. The sound quality is top notch. I would not worry about that. That's assuming the conversion software works properly as one would expect.

The location of the source music files on the computer is also not a factor in sound quality, The only issue occurs if the file can not be streamed fast enough to play without delays. That should not be a problem on most newer home computers and wireless G or better home networks that are operating normally and not doing too many other things concurrently.

The reason that the location of the computer files does not affect the sound quality is that these are source data files. THE DAC process onboard the Squeezebox is where the bits are input into the DAC processes and sound is created.

This is directly analogous to what occurs with my Roku Soundbridge and music server in my system, so I have highest confidence that the results will be very good.

One way to improve it further if needed is to use a very high quality outboard DAC device with the Squeezebox Touch ratrher than the Squeezebox's internal DAC, which I have read is not bad to start with.

Using any drive directly into the SBT's USB input means that you are forced to use the tiny server software in the SBT rather than the one on the host computer. Interaction is sluggish and 24/192, fwiw, is not possible.

Kal