Tunes In The Garage

Assembling cheap but good secondhand stuff, listening for a while and selling on is part of how I keep my urgings to change kit in the main system at bay.

The main system stays relatively static, with the occaissional step forward when funds allow, but messing about with old stuff that was well respected in its day allows for the sampling of lots of kit whilst not breaking the bank.  Some of it sells for less than I paid, some for more and some for about the same.  Rough with the smooth and all that.

Then there are the bits that hang around for a bit longer.  They're still cheap, but are worth slotting into music somewhere about the house.

So here's the current system in the garage.  Listening to tunes when working on the car or the bikes or just tidying the place up makes the work seem less arduous.  Plus, during the winter, I'll plug the laptop into the system and watch some DVDs or cycling vids on YouTube whilst I try and become less unfit with the bike on the turbo trainer

So this £250 system consists of Squeezebox Touch (connected to QNAP NAS via Ethernet over mains), NAD 1240 pre-amp, NAD 2155 power amp and Mission 773e speakers (the earlier version with the leather look baffle trim.  Speakers hang from a shelf on the rafters, hence they're upside down.  This keeps them off the floor (which is good as that's a pretty in-hospitable environment - both for water when the car comes in wet and the danger of being kicked / damaged by box shifting etc).  They're upside down as they are floor standing speakers, so the theory is that the large shelf on the rafters is acting as though they were standing on a floor.

CRANAGE HALL AUDIO SHOW JUNE 2014 - Lampizator, Van de Leur, Tektron Italia, hORNS.pl

OK, lets the get the first thing out of the way.  This is not a visually domestically acceptable system, at least not in our house.  I have a very understanding partner - she likes to hear good sounding music, but without a dedicated music listening room, this wouldn't be given house room by either of us.  The LampizatOr obsession with putting the power button / indicator into the "O" in every word is distinctive but just makes for messy looking equipment - they need to work harder on shaking off the home made origins of the products.

So that's out of the way.

Here we listened to the LampizatOr TranspOrt (which is essentially a tweaked Squeezebox - I'm sure the extent of tweaking is revealed on their www site), the LampizatOr Level 7 DAC, Van de Leur 002 stereo pre-amp and Sicillian made Tektron Italia Reference mono valve power amps and a KBL Sounds mains conditioner.  These played into the industrial strength hORNS.pl speakers you see in the picture, along with their battleship stands.  These were in a gloss black finish which was OK, but not as smooth as some others.  A range of glossy colours are available.

Lots of detail coming through on this system.  Deep well controlled bass.  Plenty of heft and control.  I did wonder what it would be like after several hours of listening though - could get wearing.

At the side of the room they also played some music via bluetooth from a phone into these funky looking little boxes.  There's a valve amp and a pair of single cone speakers.  Very well finished in a variety of bright colours they're a bit of fun for a bedroom, kitchen, study etc.  Sounded OK, but not really very fair to judge, given their tabletop position, speakers close together etc.  Might be worth further investigation if that's the sort of thing that you're considering for non-main system requirements.

How Leaky Is A HomePlug Network?

I've been using HomePlugs to feed my Squeezeboxes, TVs, DS etc. for approximately 3 years and they've been completely reliable to date. I use a mix of TP-Link single plugs and Zyxel multi-port units.
Just in the last week I've started to have reliability issues with my network - weird stuff was happening like the wifi recycling every 2 to 3 minutes and having trouble logging into my EE router from my PC. Re-setting the router to factory default seem to resolve the problem for up to half a day or so then everything started going wobbly again.
Then, just yesterday, I did a factory default reset of the router and as I was trying to log into it, the router suddenly flipped from an EE log in page to a Huawei log in page. Weird as I don't have an Huawei router in the house, never mind plugged in. Access to the internet continued OK, but the devices plugged into the HomePlugs were not connecting properly with the network and the DS started doing that fading then coming back thing every couple of minutes which happens only when there's a network problem.
Removing all the HomePlugs and running only on wifi made the whole thing stable, but the hifi very quiet of course. I decided on a process of elimination by plugging in one HomePlug at a time to see which one was causing the problem. But this wasn't consistent - sometimes the problem arose with one device, then with another.
Then, the weirdest thing happened - McAfee on my PC popped up with a warning that I had about 10 devices on my network that "are not protected by McAfee". One of these was a laptop named "CHRIS". A Chris lives over the road from me! This only happened when a HomePlug was connected up - any of them - but not when only running wifi.
A bit of Googling later and I find that the general concensus on "leakage" of HomePlug signals beyond the house circuit breaker box / consumption meter has changed significantly compared to 3 years ago. When I first started with these things, leakage beyond the consumer unit was "extremely unlikely". Now, its reckoned to be virtually certain in an apartment block, and "fairly likely" in houses.
In order to make these devices "plug and play" they all present themselves to a default network grouping of HomePlug devices called "HomePlugAV". So any of these devices that stick with this default name will talk to each other. I think one of my near neighbours must've recently decided to use HomePlugs when they haven't before, and our 2 networks are talking to each other. And because many routers default to the same network IP address, I was getting access to my neighbour's Huawei router. For some reason, that was "over powering" the IP address of my own router.
So not surprising that my HomePlug devices and the rest of the network was getting confused - the DHCP server and default gateway were probably flipping between my own router and that of my neighbour.
So the resolution was to install the HomePlug management software on my PC and rename the network name on all the devices away from HomePlugAV and to something unique to my own house.
Now all seems to be well and stable - across HomePlug and wifi. Will keep an eye on how it goes and I have a list of the MAC addresses of the outsider HomePlugs so I can go and advise whichever neighbour they belong to to secure his/her own network.
So there you go. Take note and make the changes to your own HomePlugs before things start to go a bit wobbly in your network too.TP

Cambridge Audio NP 30 - At Last!

After over a year of waiting, the NP 30 is finally coming to the UK.

Priced at £399 it sits between the Logitech Touch and the Cyrus Stream X, but closest to the Logitech in both price and funcitionality, given that it contains a DAC.  It will be interesting to see how the sound quality compares.

What HiFi News Article
Cambridge Audio Pages

Being uPnP based it doesn't need software installing on a PC or on a NAS and that's got to be a good thing.  Also good to see that it has a coax SP/DIF output so that other, better, DACs can be used when the time comes to upgraded.  Looks good too - purely on the cosmetics it looks like a more up market product compared to the DACMagic.

There's an Apple iWotsits app which looks fine in the screenshots - it will be interesting to see if it can overcome the issues of lag that many of these apps suffer from.

I look forward to the reviews.

DAC. Magic?

For those of you paying attention, the streaming set up currently looks like this:
QNAP NAS (including SqueezeServer software) - Etnernet over mains - Logitech Squeezebox Touch - QED Performance Digital Coax cable - Cambridge Audio DACMagic - Audioquest Emerald analogue interconnect - Meridian 541 pre-amp and then off into the active amps and Linn Keilidhs.

And very satisfying it is too - as I've said earlier, about 90% up there with the CD player, and definitely better with 24 bit tracks.  But there's always that nagging doubt eh?

Now some sites (e.g. Stereophile, Digital Audio Blog) have been making some seriously big claims for the capability of the Logitech Squeezebox Touch - such as "the best transport I've ever heard (Digital Audio Blog on the Touch with a Teddy PSU)".  This means they've been running the humble Touch with some multi $k DACs and stratospherically expensive amps and speakers.

I am, by nature, somewhat sceptical of such claims and what sometime seems to by hyperbole.  Now I'm not singling out Stereophile nor Digital Audio Blog or questioning their integrity, it just that I like to see lots of evidence and corroboration, or better still, find out for myself.

Another thing that's a worthwhile background to this post is my continuing good natured sibling "rivalry" with my brother when it comes to hifi and the route to getting the most enjoyable sound in the home.  Brother J has gone down a different route to myself, (although we initially shared an enjoyment of Meridian CD players, with J running a 206 for many years.  After a few years with Meridian CD / Cyrus 2 / PSX and Mission 770 Freedoms (the last of the 770 line) he's recently upgraded to a Cyrus 4 box CD player (I can't remember the transport model, but the other three boxes are DAC X and 2 PSX-Rs) plus a reasonably high end Cyrus integrated.  This has substantially improved his whole system and it suits his taste - its fast, has pin-point imaging and real clarity and separation.  But for me, it doesn't go deep enough, the music lacks somewhat in emotion and doesn't "envelope" the listener.  Its all silver too, which just isn't right ;-) Each to his own of course, and it delivers what he wants to hear.  This means he finds my system to be somewhat vague in its imaging (can't argue with that) and a little less analytical than he would enjoy.  Fair enough.  Will do a feature on the "other systems I have known" page sometime soon.

Why is this relevant?  Well, in amongst J's kit list you might have spotted a somewhat fine DAC combination of Cyrus DAC X and PSX-R.  This half term (this is a very late post, apologies!), J came to visit with family and had kindly agreed to bring along said DAC and power supply.  It's good to unplug and re-connect cables every now and then, make sure the connections are clean!  And so began a "quick trial" session - we reckoned an hour would be enough...

For purposes of this session, we used exclusively 16 bit 44.1 kHz FLAC files ripped from my CD collection - so we could make direct comparison with my Meridian 508.20 CD player.
Music used:

Thea Gilmore - Loft Music - Tracks "Ever Fallen In Love" and "The Old Laughing Lady" (A great covers album - with Thea its all about her extraordinary voice - its range and ability to convey emotions, plus the acoustic instruments and backing vocals)
Brendan Perry - Eye of the Hunter - Track "Death Will Be My Bride" (Don't listen if you're feeling a bit down!  Very well recorded and spacious track with some really tricky and complex cymbals to deal with)
Eagle Eye Cherry - Desireless - Track "Shooting Up In Vain" (Another one to cheer you up! Mutilayered instruments that need a good system to allow each instrument to survive in the complexity of the mix)
Chris Rea - The Road to Hell - Track "Looking for a Rainbow" (needs a system that has good drive and pace as the song builds the underlying rythmn throughout)
Eddi Reader - Eddi Reader - Track "Dear John" (lovely voice, needs to convey the emotions)
FAC 15 - On Fierce Angel's Angels Fall 3 CD Set "Stay With Me Till Dawn" (a superb re-work of the Judie Tzuke classic with a bass line that slides into the depths of the unknown!)

To get a reference and to demo the DACMagic to J we started off using the Thea Gilmore album to play the Touch with its internal DAC and then stepped up to the DACMagic.  J's view largely aligned with mine - a massive improvement somewhat out of kilter with this modestly priced most looking little black box.  Comparing to the CD player there are aspects of the music that are different but we couldn't really choose between Touch / DAC and the CD player.  CD being warmer, Touch being a bit more up-front.  Tried Eagle Eye and Chris Rea on this too, with similar indecision.

So the Cyrus DAC X is unpacked and plugged in to the system.  It sits on an Isoplat and takes the place of the DACMagic in support of the Touch for the streaming side of the system.  What follows is somewhat of a revelation.  Usually, when you get to this stage with hifi, the improvements in the system deminish, the more you spend on the system.  One day I'll post in depth on the benefits of going from passive amplification to active amplification with the Linn Keilidhs which was the biggest single improvement I've made in my system.  Until now.  For those of you who've had the benefit of listening to a Linn or Naim system that has been moved from passive to active, you'll know just how fundamental a change this Cyrus shoebox has brought to the system.

Cyrus DAC-X in brushed black

Some examples of what we heard:
- The music appears to be playing slower (but it takes the same length of time to play the track) this would seem to be because the instruments and/or notes aren't slurring into each other, they've got time and room to be notes in their own right
- One of the tracks (can't remember which one) has a riff played on an acoustic guitar.  As the track progresses and more joins the mix, the guitar continues in the background.  But we were both astonished to hear (and we both spotted this at exactly the same moment, without discussion) that part way through the track the guitar changes from acoustic to steel.
- The Brendan Perry track finishes with a very complex and subtle cymbal sequence.  Now, the difference between the sound of each cymbal is much more obvious, but on top of that, you can hear if the stick is striking the top or the edge of the cymbal and when being brushed, if the brushing is being done by a brush or by a stick.
- The soundstage on all tracks is outside the speakers and with the FAC15 track, fills out into the room.

So we were VERY impressed with this and messed about with a few tracks for another hour or so.  Then outcame the Cyrus PSX-R to sit alongside the DAC-X.  You need to keep both the DAC and the PSX-R plugged into the mains then there's an umbilical chord from the PSX-R to the DAC.  I understand that the internal power supply of the DAC is then dedicated to digital duties and the PSX-R takes over the analogue output circuits.

So what now?  Well this is another non-subtle improvement.  Darkness behind and around instruments, bass is deeper and more controlled (check the sliding synth bass line on the FAC15 track) and those Brendan Perry cymbals shimmer out and away from the speakers, seeming to sit in the room.  FAC15 are now enveloping the whole room.  Its lush, detailed and completely captivating.  And so the quick listening session went on for 3.5 hours.  We didn't want to stop trying different tracks.  Later in the evening, the system seemed to have matured again - I know many experience this with their systems and there is much debate about noise on the mains. physcological effects and many other theories. Perhaps this would've happened anyway, but we did suspect that the PSX-R might have warmed through a little?

We, rather indulgently, spent another couple of hours of listening the following day, throwing in some 24bit stuff from Linn and HDTracks, which, of course, was mighty impressive, if, at times, a little dry.  No problems with Ian Shaw's "Barangrill" (on "Drawn To All Things" from Linn Records) nor with Steely Dan's "Hey Nineteen" (on Gaucho from HDTracks).

And then J and his Cyrus kit went away again.  Sad.  But one thing has definitely been proven - the little Squeezebox Touch is certainly capable of supporting some very serious downstream electronics.  Now to eBay...

Squeezebox Touch - Evolution Begins

No changes to the rest of the system (although there is a bit relating to cables...) so this is the first stages of experimentation with streaming audio and how it relates to the Logitech Squeezebox Touch in my system.  For the first part of this story, see the posting First Streaming Times below.

So we are at a Touch on its own into the rest of the system using a pair of Linn Black analogue interconnects.  And it sounds very detailed but flat, lacking space between the instruments, there's little width to the sound and its all lacking somewhat in terms of drive / pace / enthusiasm.  Its fine for background listening, but not so good for listening to music properly.  The CD player is still in a different league.  These comparisons are done between the same CD and the ripped version in FLAC, not against high res files which would be an unfair comparison.

 

Some research revealled that quite a few folks have been running external DACs on their Squeezebox Duets and Touches with some success, and there are various references to different (e.g. Fidelity Audio, Teddy PS) external power supplies making a difference.

There's then a whole separate story about a chance opportunity to go to a Naim dealer when Naim themselves were there demoing loads of kit.  I might write that one up sometime.  But the key relevant point here is that Naim have come out with a streaming device that sounds distinctly unimpressive to me when using its internal DAC, but plug it into the Naim stand alone DAC and it sounds astonishingly good.  Add the external power supply to the external DAC and you have something quite remarkable, but also rather expensive (approx £6.5k at this point).  So this, coupled with the internet chattosphere spurred me on to further experimenting.

I took the plunge and bought a Cambridge Audio DACMagic (for those with an eye for absolute detail, its a black one) along with the CA basic optical digital interconnect.  This is a major step forward and unleashes all sorts of extra information, deeper bass and the soundstage leaps out from between the speakers and pretty much doubles in width.  Hmm, very interesting.  If I then move the interconnect from the CD player (its an AudioQuest Topaz) there are further improvements in control and bass extension.  I purchased a What HiFi recommended Chord Chameleon Silver Plus interconnect (£125) which is an improvement on the Linn, but isn't as good as the Topaz (£180 for 0.5m over 10 years ago, but thrown in when I bought the CD player).

Now if I use the DACMagic and CD player as a transport then the CD player inbuilt DAC still wins out, and that's using an optical digital interconnect (not tried with a coax interconnect yet), so the DACMagic doesn't appear to be as good as the DAC inside the CD player.  Or is it?

The reason for this doubt is because of the next step I took.  I picked up an old coax digital lead that's actually designed for Meridian components to talk to each other, but only for control purposes, so its not exactly designed with sound quality in mind.  However, the improvement of this over the optical digital lead was astonishing.  Optical appears to be rubbish - that could be the Touch output, the DACMagic input, or the cable, or some kind of combination of all or some of these. The biggest difference here is difficult to describe, but if you imagine the "space" around, between and behind instruments is blackness, then the blackness was much blacker - I guess it means there's some kind of digital error correction or hash (jitter?) disappearing from the signal? The music is now going along with some proper drive and pace.  Foot is tapping at last. So if a rubbish cable is better than an optical one, what's a decent cable like?

So in comes a fairly basic but recommended digital coax cable - a QED Performance which is only £30.  Another step forward over the basic coax, but more subtle this time - mainly in the treble area, it's lost some of the remaining grittiness and splash.  Must get around to trying the DACMagic with the CD player transport and the coax interconnect soon, just haven't had the time.

So we're now at Touch - QED coax - DACMagic - Chord Chameleon. 

Comparison with CD player is now getting about 85% of the way there.  CD player still giving a bit more in terms of punch / pace etc, but from a pure detail point of view, there's nothing in it.  CD player still using the Topaz interconnect though, which is somewhat better than the Chord Chameleon.

So off to ebay to find a secondhand Topaz (you can't buy them new anymore).  No luck there, but did find 2 pairs of Audioquest Emerald interconnects which were top of their range at around £230 for 0.5m.  Got them for £40 and £42 so one for the CD and one for the DACMagic.  So here we have yet another improvement to both Touch / DAC and the CD player.  Again its subtle but its definitely there.  How can I describe this one?  Well its a kind of smoothness and flow to the music - whilst the instruments are very seperate and obviously so, the actual music seems to flow along much better and its not a bunch of accurately rendered notes, its a better illusion of a piece of music (I almost used the word accurate there, but we know its not about accuracy, because so few of us actually know what the original performance sounded like and we need to remember that much of the processing done during production is deliberately trying to make the recording NOT sound like the original performance).  This description probably isn't making much sense, that's why I'm not Jimmy Michael Hughes!

So we have Touch - QED Coax - DACMagic - Audioquest Emerald and that's now somewhere between 90 and 95% of the way to the CD player's quality. 

But here are the 2 killer points.  It now stands me at £500 and if I was starting from scratch I'd a choice between that and the £1700 CD player, I know which I'd choose!  But as soon as you add in the ability to play 24 / 96 files then its a hands-down win for the streaming tech - its a good 10% better than the CD player and leads to those evenings that are "just one more track" until its suddenly 1am!

So you have to wonder just how much DAC the Touch can support...
And what about power supplies, and do they matter, once you're no longer using the internal DAC?

 

If you're interested in more on the Squeezebox Touch, take a look at this article as there are mods you can do to your Touch without spending any cash:

http://www.stereophile.com/mediaservers/logitech_squeezebox_touch_network_music_player/index.html

Today's Tunes

Managed to grab about 30 mins of downtime amongst the bathroom decorating today.

I chose to play music through the Squeezebox Touch / DACMagic as follows:

Shostakovich Symphony No 8 (88.2 kHz 24 bit)
Massive Attack- Three (44.1 kHz 16 bit)
Lyle Lovett - Dakota, She's Already Made Up Her Mind (44.1 kHz 16 bit)
FAC 15 - Stay With Me Til Dawn (44.1 kHz 16 bit)
Ian Shaw - A Good And Simple Man (88.2 kHz 24 bit)

Very enjoyable.

First Streaming Times

Having studied the various PC / USB / NAS / Squeezebox / Ethernet / WiFi options for approximately 12 months, I've made the decision to go down the NAS / Ethernet / Streamer route.  I'm interested in this approach as it gives the benefits of no PC nor any spinning hard disks in the listening room, the ability to use mirrored storage in the NAS for back up purposes and only one copy of the music to be accessed from around the house - even across the internet is possible with the QNAP software.

Having been to a few Linn and Naim demos, I knew that it's possible to get very good sound using streaming and accessing NAS over Ethernet.  But I'm not yet ready to spend thousands of pounds on a first try.

More research.  More tests read.  Good reviews of the Logitech Squeezebox Touch and its ridiculously good price whilst being able to deliver FLAC at up to 24 bit / 96kHz looked like a safe way to go. 

This particular story has a bit of background, so if detail is your thing, this should suit you somewhat!

System

CDs ripped using Exact Audio Copy to FLAC, so 16 bit 44.1kHz

FLAC files downloaded from Linn being a mixture of 24 bit 48 kHz and 24 bit 96kHz

QNAP TS 209 II Pro NAS using 2 x 1.5TB mirrored Seagate drives (ARM processor, Linux based firmware)

DELL laptop, Windows 7

Wired Ethernet over Mains

Logitech Squeezebox Touch

Linn black analogue interconnects

Meridian 541 pre-amp

Linn Tunebox Active Crossover

3 x Rotel RB850 power amps

Linn Tri-Active Keilidh speakers

Linn LK600 speaker cable

Comparison against Meridian 508.20 CD player

Software

A mixed bag.  Getting software installed on the NAS is a hit and miss affair, in general, despite them being recommended by Linn - but Linn only required uPnP (e.g. Twonky) and nothing bespoke / proprietary.  The SqueezeCenter server software is, therefore, immediately a compromised situation.  Being reliant on the open source community for QNAP installs means that you need one or more people out there who are enthusiastic about doing what you need to be done. In this case, there only seems to be one person who is producing the required QPKG files (that's the QNAP equivalent to and RPM in the RHEL World or an MSI in the Windows World).  It's therefore a problem if things don't work and that individual hasn't found the time to fix or look at your particular combination of NAS hardware, firmware version, QPKG version and SqueezeCenter version.  I believe the ReadyNAS range has much more support in this area, but having had an earlier Belkin NAS, I didn't want to go there again!  If you are really keen you can go command line and do the Linux install manually and I thought that might be where I might end up.

The QNAP web site is very helpful and has step by step instructions and screenshots on where to find the downloads, where to install them, how to run them etc.  Such a shame then that QNAP have redesigned their website and, of course, our helpful friends in the opensource community have changed some of the help text and instructions since the QNAP instructions were published.  I therefore had to grub around using search terms at the QNAP site (which is a bit hit and miss) to find the right files and to interpret the steps into the current version of the actual steps to take.  So, I downloaded the QPKG file and the QPKG web interface file.  They have to be in a particular directory on the NAS and that was no problem.  I ran the QPKG and it worked OK, but then you have to go off to Squeezebox (Logitech) to get the actual SqueezeCenter software - and even that isn't in a logical place - its actually at mysqueezebox.com which isn't the main Logitech site - for the QNAP box you need the Perl version of this software.  This did install OK through the QPKG software.  However, when running the SqueezeCenter (don't forget to spell it the American way or you'll find nothing!) it failed.  There is a log file which is full of fairly obscure (to me at least) error messages and hints.  However, using the hints in the log and searching for them on the QNAP forum fetched up some answers (one of which included uninstall and reinstall of the NAS firmware - scary!) but it turned out I had a QPKG that was specific to one recent version of SqueezeCenter and needed to download an earlier QPKG that was compatible with early SqueezeCenter versions and the latest version.  So a bit confusing.  It's also a bit disconcerting when running the QPKG files and the NAS tells you that you are now installing a system update...a little unsettling.  Now over 2 hours in!

In the meantime and in parallel...I downloaded the Windows version of SqueezeCenter, installed it on the DELL, pointed it to the correct directory on the NAS and it was all done in about 20 mins, including indexing my music files (but there's only 6 albums of FLAC at the moment).  This allowed me to log into my SqueezeCenter account and make sure all my stuff was ready to go there too (not that there's much to do if you just want vanilla everything), and to plug in the SB Touch and get it up and running.

Touch

This was packed very well and is done in a very restrained but quality way.  The unit itsself is much heavier than I expected and has a solid case and an aluminium stand at the back with soft rubber feet and the whole thing feels very sturdy - there are no nasty plastic moulding edges / flashing etc.  Its very thoroughly wrapped in thin cellophane which is a bit of a challenge to remove.

So, using an Ethernet cable directly to the router and sat alongside the laptop, I plugged in the Touch and switched on.  It immediately identified that later software was available, asked me if I wanted to update and off it went and the software was downloaded automatically and installed in about 5 minutes.  From there it found the (Windows!) SqueezeCentre automatically and there was my (very limited) collection of HQ rips available via album, artist, search etc.  I haven't used the touch screen as navigating via the remote is very easy to use, if a bit cheap feeling in the hand.

Once all up and running the SB Touch was moved down to the listening room and plugged into the Ethernet over mains and the main hifi system using a Linn interconnect.

In my room I'll have to think about where the SB is going to sit - the only currently available position in my rack is a bit restrictive and the screen faces 90 deg to the listening position.  Even so, although the screen is very clear and easy to read, I doubt it will be readable from the listening position.  The interface is easy to follow and very intuitive and I have no problems with it at all.  Very impressive.  I like the info available on each track - you can delve into sample rates, bit rates etc. which helps in comparing sound quality.

Listening

I used exclusively FLAC files as listed above, ripped from my CDs using EAC or, with higher quality files, downloaded from Linn.  Tracks from Jon Strong (Folk Rock), Charles Webster (electronica) from CD and Ian Shaw (Jazz / Rock?) and some piano stuff and female vocal jazz from the Linn sampler downloads.  An Ian Shaw track (A Case of You) I have from Linn in both 24 bit 48kHz and 24 bit 96 kHz formats.  Everything streams fine over the Ethernet over Mains with no dropouts and no obvious artefacts.

So, bearing in mind that its now nearly midnight, listening was not extended and these are very much initial thoughts.  At least I could use a decent volume as the kids were fast asleep and it takes a lot to wake them!  I didn't make direct comparisons with the CD player due to time limitations so observations are from memory of how the CD player sounds and I will report back when I can make actual comparisons - I'll be able to compare CDs against rips of those CDs and CD against downloaded higher res files.  But for now, it seems to me that the SB Touch has very good resolution of detail and has reasonable timing.  However, whilst pretty much all the info is there, it all feels a bit "polite" or "restrained" with tracks lacking some attack and Jon Strong's aggressive acoustic guitar playing (he's from Leeds and is singing about what Thatcher did to the North East so, as you can imagine, this track shouldn't be polite, and isn't on my CD player and definitely isn't when he's playing live with a couple of pints inside!) isn't as meaningful as it should be.  On the female vocal jazz this isn't really an issue as its politely presenting very polite music.  The electronica dance tracks were also restrained and less likely to get your foot tapping, but again the detail is there.

I guess you might remember the "inky blackness" of silence between instruments when moving from vinyl to CD?  Well this device takes that one step further - the lack of noise is stunning and is something I noticed on the Linn DS devices.  I think some might call this dryness or sterility, but I would disagree - it just makes the actual music stand out more.  Also, I noticed that the SB Touch is actually capable of demonstrating the difference between the 24/48 file and 24/96 file of the same Ian Shaw track - very impressive.

Internet radio works - I guess it'll be very sample rate dependent as DAB is.  Favourites are going to be essential here as the choice is a bit overwhelming and could be a few evenings work in itsself - hopefully its possible to manage this through the SqueezeCenter software rather than just through the Touch as the interface isn't good enough to be able to work through the full gamut (sorry Alan) of choice.  There are apps to install too, one of which allows podcast listening so that'll be the first one I give a try.

So a pretty good start.  A more direct comparison will need to be done against the CD player.  However, here's the killer point - the SB Touch was £208 including P&P and the CD player cost £1700 about 10 years ago.  Even at this early stage, I don't think I'd want to swap the CD player for the Touch, but if you were starting from scratch...

If this is the basic level, then the likes of the Cambridge NP30 and stuff coming soon from Cyrus, Arcam et al looks very promising indeed.  Perhaps I don't have to save up for that Linn Akurate DS after all?

Back to the Software

And so the above was all done listening through the Windows SqueezeCenter on the laptop.  However, the NAS version did get up and running, pointed it to the correct folder on the NAS, closed down the Windows SqueezeCenter and started up the NAS version.  SB Touch did find it, but I had to use the "change folder" option on the Touch to point to the new SqueezeCenter instance.  Everything then works well and I did a quick listen to make sure it was working.  Wonder if there's a difference in sound between the NAS and Windows versions???