SB Touch experience!

[ravi_d]

Here are some of my tips:-

1. Reduce the number of devices using the router, prefearbly the only one using it while running SB.

Even only when my pc and SB touch using the router I'm having the issue of rebuffering often. I'll try hard-wiring my SB with the computer and see if the issue exists.

2. The folders which its trying to access should not have anything other than recognized music files.
3. Reduce the number of album arts and in no case more than 150x150 size. SB Touch has poor RAM and big size picture will slower the speed.

The music folder on my computer contain folders with flac files with some folders having those .m3u and .nfo files. I have bigger album arts than you suggested. The SB touch manual is pretty bad. It doesn't have any such information.

So if I connect a 1TB external HDD containing movies, music and photos in various folders is SB going to have a problem playing music and displaying photos say 4 mb in size each?

4. The 2-3 sec pause will always be there inspite of whatever medium you use.

Thanks for confirming. Rather than using the pause on SB I started using the mute on my amplifier as a work around. Now I have only rebuffering issue to sort out.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

My heart is set on buying a good dac...

I'd thought, from my reading, that the Touch has quite a good DAC, better than the Duet. This means that, to be confident that the external DAC will make things even better, the budget had better be adequate!

but, here's a man with both...

I've got a Duet and a Touch, currently use both but prefer the former.

You get better sound from the Duet?

If I did frequent and serious listening, using the Duet, I'd be DAC-tempted too --- but 90% of my music listening, although PC-based, is currently late-night headphone-delivered

In fact, to be mid-plus-budget DAC-tempted at all, I would have to be using it frequently, and preferably have more than one digital source for it. So, sadly, no excuse for me to spend money

 

[GeorgeO]

Thad

The Duet uses a DAC -one that I got to use with my SB Classic which gave up the ghost a few months ago. The Touch (sans DAC)is for streaming audio only in another room.

 

[TaureanBull]

Even only when my pc and SB touch using the router I'm having the issue of rebuffering often. I'll try hard-wiring my SB with the computer and see if the issue exists.

The music folder on my computer contain folders with flac files with some folders having those .m3u and .nfo files. I have bigger album arts than you suggested. The SB touch manual is pretty bad. It doesn't have any such information.

So if I connect a 1TB external HDD containing movies, music and photos in various folders is SB going to have a problem playing music and displaying photos say 4 mb in size each?

Thanks for confirming. Rather than using the pause on SB I started using the mute on my amplifier as a work around. Now I have only rebuffering issue to sort out.

I can assure you that with hard wiring SB touch works like a charm. No issues of album art size and no buffering issue. If you can use it then nothing like it. In any case hard wiring is preferred over wi-fi.

4MB is a huge size! In 1TB discs there would be hundreds of them. No wonder there are issure of rebuffering. The HDD should have only compatible audio files and very small size album art.

On an ethernet you would really enjoy this piece unless you mind keeping your PC on.

You may like to keep yr SB on UPS. If the power goes then for 1TB disc the loading time is high and its irritating. May well be in excess of 30 mins.

 

[ravi_d]

I can assure you that with hard wiring SB touch works like a charm. No issues of album art size and no buffering issue. If you can use it then nothing like it. In any case hard wiring is preferred over wi-fi.

I managed to hard-wire the SB to the WiFi router and the situation has improved a lot. But the rebuffering issue still persists.
I'm sure if I hard-wire the computer to the router the issue will be completely solved. I think to get away with such issues Marantz didn't provide wifi connectivity on their NA 7004 network player.

I couldn't get make it to work the SBT hard-wired to the laptop. Its asking for some manual configuration which I need to take help from someone.

4MB is a huge size! In 1TB discs there would be hundreds of them. No wonder there are issure of rebuffering. The HDD should have only compatible audio files and very small size album art.

On an ethernet you would really enjoy this piece unless you mind keeping your PC on.

You may like to keep yr SB on UPS. If the power goes then for 1TB disc the loading time is high and its irritating. May well be in excess of 30 mins.

If it takes 30 mins to scan an 1TB HDD each time the SB powers up then I think its really annoying. I can't even think of using it with a 1TB or bigger NAS drive. At least the SB server running on a computer has the provision to mention the music folder so that it scans only that folder/ folders rather than scanning the whole HDD.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

That sounds quite unworkable.

Leaving aside the occasional glitch when the SB receiver may not have connected properly to the network, my Duet experience is ... start SqueezeCentre and play [from the local hard disk]. I wonder if Logitech have bitten off a bit too much with this abiity to attach a hdd? Don't despair though... their development is ongoing, and there are sure to be firmware upgrades. Not to mention the community effort and resource on the dedicated forum. One example of this is that the headphone socket on the Duet remote is [still?] not actually supposed to work! You can find out how to make it work, though, on the forum.

Your opening remarks in the post, though, certainly make this sound like a networking issue --- and a I am no wifi expert, I have noting to offer on that, I'm afraid. Other will

If your house happens to be cabled for ethernet, wired-net connection is a reasonable thing to do. If you are just laying an ethernet cable from your router to the SB, when you could just as easily be laying an analogue or optical cable from your PC, then, as I opined before: no point in the SB!

 

[ravi_d]

That sounds quite unworkable.

Leaving aside the occasional glitch when the SB receiver may not have connected properly to the network, my Duet experience is ... start SqueezeCentre and play [from the local hard disk]. I wonder if Logitech have bitten off a bit too much with this abiity to attach a hdd? Don't despair though... their development is ongoing, and there are sure to be firmware upgrades. Not to mention the community effort and resource on the dedicated forum. One example of this is that the headphone socket on the Duet remote is [still?] not actually supposed to work! You can find out how to make it work, though, on the forum.

Your opening remarks in the post, though, certainly make this sound like a networking issue --- and a I am no wifi expert, I have noting to offer on that, I'm afraid. Other will

If your house happens to be cabled for ethernet, wired-net connection is a reasonable thing to do. If you are just laying an ethernet cable from your router to the SB, when you could just as easily be laying an analogue or optical cable from your PC, then, as I opined before: no point in the SB!

No, the house I live is not cabled for ethernet. The WiFi router sits about 3m away in the other corner of the same room where my hifi is and was easy for me to connect the SB to the router with a 5m cable. I wouldn't mind running an ethernet cable from my laptop to the WiFi router as if I run an usb cable from my computer to dac if it improves the situation.

Regarding the USB HDD drive I think Marantz is trying to play safe even here. Its mentioned in NA 7004 manual that "If the number of files stored in a USB memory device exceeds 1,000, the access speed may become slower". That is about less than 35GB of flacs. SB Touch manual doesn't have such comments which makes us to assume it works for everything.

 

[TaureanBull]

I managed to hard-wire the SB to the WiFi router and the situation has improved a lot. But the rebuffering issue still persists.
I'm sure if I hard-wire the computer to the router the issue will be completely solved.

If it takes 30 mins to scan an 1TB HDD each time the SB powers up then I think its really annoying. I can't even think of using it with a 1TB or bigger NAS drive. At least the SB server running on a computer has the provision to mention the music folder so that it scans only that folder/ folders rather than scanning the whole HDD.

Firstly, as brought out earlier, hardwiring router is no good you have to hardwire SB with computer. The manual configuration asks for IP address and DNS server. Just click on the properties of ethernet connection and type the same figures. Other figures just leave blank. (Mask IP etc). No rebuffering problem and no issue on album art size.

Secondly, I am not sure if I discussed before, number of files in each music folder/subfolder should be less than 100. Thats the max size SB can make a playlist of.

Thirdly, dont confuse the SB by using both USB and SD card simultaneously.

Lastly, 30 mins for 1 TB is time in case the file contains only music. People have reported even 24 hrs for scan of 1 TB. Guess a place like India where power cut offs are often.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I don't know much about wifi, but I do know a bit about wired networking...

A direct connection from a PC to the SB might require a cross-over cable. In theory, it should. If it works without, then one or both of the ports are auto-sensing and implementing the cross-over for you.

Connection direct might and should work for playing from the PC. The basic requirements will be different IP addresses (eg PC=192.168.1.5; SB=192.168.1.6) and same and Net mask (255.255.255.0).

DNS will not be relevant, because the SB can't access the internet through a direct connection to your PC (wait... yes it can: Windows XP has an "allow other computers to access the net through through this computer. I think later versions of Win got more sophisticated, but I gave up MS as of XP).

DHCP: best to set all IP addresses manually, so that DHCP cannot cause problems by giving out an address you have already set. This is actually difficult on the Duet receiver, and takes one of those special tweaks from the Squeezebox forum. I restrict the range of DHCP-available addresses on the router.

As your router is close to the SBT (and you've wired it anyway), any net problems must be happening between the PC and the router. The fix that I would aim for would be to cure that, and keep the big hard disk attached to the PC running Squeeze server.

Sometimes, even a small change of wifi position can make a big difference. Think, for instance, of how a signal passing straight through a wall only has to move a few inches through the concrete, whereas one passing at an angle through the same wall might have to survive several feet and numerous steel rods!

 

[amitk777]

Whatever I have understood, the touch has tiny SB server on it. It is used to access any USB drive attached to it.
The encoding and other things are handled by SB , so tiny SB on the touch is not upto the mark with it.
The workaround is to run SBS on a computer so heavy lifting is done by it and let the SB touch just play..

 

[ravi_d]

I don't know much about wifi, but I do know a bit about wired networking...

A direct connection from a PC to the SB might require a cross-over cable. In theory, it should. If it works without, then one or both of the ports are auto-sensing and implementing the cross-over for you.

Connection direct might and should work for playing from the PC. The basic requirements will be different IP addresses (eg PC=192.168.1.5; SB=192.168.1.6) and same and Net mask (255.255.255.0).

DNS will not be relevant, because the SB can't access the internet through a direct connection to your PC (wait... yes it can: Windows XP has an "allow other computers to access the net through through this computer. I think later versions of Win got more sophisticated, but I gave up MS as of XP).

DHCP: best to set all IP addresses manually, so that DHCP cannot cause problems by giving out an address you have already set. This is actually difficult on the Duet receiver, and takes one of those special tweaks from the Squeezebox forum. I restrict the range of DHCP-available addresses on the router.

BTW it seems to work better wiring the SB and the laptop both to the router.

For connecting SB to the computer I don't think I'll be able to set it up on my own. I asked a friend to set it up for me in evening. I'll try my luck then.

As your router is close to the SBT (and you've wired it anyway), any net problems must be happening between the PC and the router. The fix that I would aim for would be to cure that, and keep the big hard disk attached to the PC running Squeeze server.

I never had issues streaming BBC iplayer videos which requires 1.5mbps for normal TV and about 3.5mbps for HD videos. So I never bothered the connectivity between the computer and router.
I don't have a large HDD I'm just trying to understand what works and what doesn't work well. If attaching the HDD to the computer and running a wired connection to the SB I don't see any advantage in going for the SBT.

One good thing is the SBT is not introducing gap between the track on its own. I heard few other network players have that habit which is a big let down.

Playing a flac from computer is like the SB eats upto 1MB each sec. Sometimes I see the SBT getting stuck with Rebuffering... for few seconds and displaying a message Rebuffering Failed but it seems to start playing immediately after that message.
Another issue the SBT music track status bar continues to run but I hear no sound from the speakers :sad:

Sometimes, even a small change of wifi position can make a big difference. Think, for instance, of how a signal passing straight through a wall only has to move a few inches through the concrete, whereas one passing at an angle through the same wall might have to survive several feet and numerous steel rods!

Rotated the router by 90 degrees had no luck. So running a wire from my computer to the router and it seems to work well so far.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Think of the line between router and pc, and what it passes through, rather than the aspect of the router --- although, as you have had no previous problems with the wifi on your computer, this "wifi problem" might not be a problem at all.

Whatever I have understood, the touch has tiny SB server on it. It is used to access any USB drive attached to it.
The encoding and other things are handled by SB , so tiny SB on the touch is not upto the mark with it.
The workaround is to run SBS on a computer so heavy lifting is done by it and let the SB touch just play..

Yes, I think you are right.

 

[manoj.p]

wow, so many issues in streaming audio files in the days of high bitrate HD video files? Logitech should have done a better job for the network interface for such a nice device.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Seems to be commonly reported that, despite the USB port, this device does not handle decent-sized attached disks well. However, so far as the streaming problem is concerned, we don't know that this is general, or something specific to Ravi --- or even a faulty device.

My best idea is to browse the slimdevices [squeezebox] forums for similar problems, or to post there. In fact, at this stage, that's the only idea I have left!

 

[ravi_d]

Seems to be commonly reported that, despite the USB port, this device does not handle decent-sized attached disks well. However, so far as the streaming problem is concerned, we don't know that this is general, or something specific to Ravi --- or even a faulty device.

My best idea is to browse the slimdevices [squeezebox] forums for similar problems, or to post there. In fact, at this stage, that's the only idea I have left!

The rebuffering... issue is gone with the SBT and laptop hard-wired to the router. The basic controls response has improved playing files from the computer using the Touch/ Remote/ Web Control almost to the level or better than playing a CD from a CD player.

The SBT is working well for me now :yahoo: It would be great if I can work out a way to set the computer free from hard-wiring it to the router with out sacrificing its performance.

If an external HDD plugged into SBT directly doesn't work well I would like to know if a NAS drive would be faster?
May be I'll look on that as suggested on the forum. One can buy a 1TB NAS drive for same cost as a decent 5m USB cable hyeah:

But I miss 'Add to playback queue' feature on the foobar :licklips: where I can add a random track to be played in sequence on use it to jump few tracks in the playlist.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

One can buy a 1TB NAS drive for same cost as a decent 5m USB cable

:lol: everybody knows a thick piece of string is just as good as an expensive cable . But seriously, I guess it has to be an NAS that will run Squeezeserver (and I think people have talked about this and it is possible?). Could be a good idea.

Glad your system is now working to some level of satisfaction, albeit wired.

I guess there would be lots of features in the Squeezeplayer interface that would be on various wanted lists. I've never tried it, but it is probably possible to take any media player that will stream to a given port and use it as a front end on the PC, at least. VLC will certainly do this. Might try ...one day.

 

[Rajivm]

Hi

Does any owners or users of the SB Touch or duet have pandora playing directly from the device. how have you managed the US only problem. does the touch or the duet have the ability to have a vpn setting inserted in it. or some other silution that i am missing

 

[pdhanwada]

Let me put my experience related to SB touch.

I had been using since March 2011. No issues with audio quality and rebuffering. IF I consider roughly I must have listened to about 250 hours of music since March thru SB touch. Rebuffering must have happened I would say less than 10 times.

It is more related to your wifi setup. Once I changed the antenna direction, it got fixed.

I had seen rebuffering is more of an issue when listening to internet radio. It makes sense here as our internet speeds may not be matching at a particular instant.

MY wifi hub is one floor below, my desktop and the sb touch.

Thanks
Pandu

 

[Kevian]

People, I've been enjoying SBT ever since I've laid my hands on it. I have 6827 flacs stored in a 2TB HDD connected to SBT's USB port. If one chooses HDD way rather than streaming via wireless router, you'll have to do some "Data Cleansing" by deleting files like m3u, txt, log, nfo, gif, etc. And make sure your cover doesn't exceed 500x500 px size. I've never faced any lags during playback or file selection. Only 2 issues I've faced were
1) After a listening session I turn off my HDD, SBT will take 2 mins max for checking file indexes before the library is ready when I turn on SBT again.
2) When I add new music, it'll take 15-20mins to rescan and update the library.
3) A complete wipe&scan takes 45mins.

But, these 3 issues are pardonable as its processor is slow but otherwise its a great piece of equipment for decent music quality at an economic price compared to Sonos or PC+DAC combo or high quality streamers like NA7004/NP30 etc.

JMT
Kevian

 

[ravi_d]

Today the SB server on my computer prompted there is an update available. When trying to install the update it removed the old version and installed the new version Logitech Media Server Version: 7.7.0 - r33614. The icon in the system tray changed from the old SB icon to new music note icon.
On the device too there is an update waiting to be installed. I installed the updated version 7.7.0 - r9550.

And now guess what
The SB Touch is streaming 96kHz Vinyl rip flacs seamlessly without any Rebuffering issue on wifi :clapping: And its responding to the touch and remote controls fast in wifi mode.
Its really fun listening to Hi Res Flacs.

I guess all the issues I had before are related to the SB Touch compatibility with the N router which has been addressed in the newer software release.