Standalone internet player

[heliumflight]

Hemant I like the SB for its Content & Convenience. I'm not here to show off my Bryston or glowing tubes as I listen to the music for my ears. I like my music to be spontanious/ unprepared/ sudden with new music being aired 24 X7. It gives me an uncanny feeling when I connect/ relate the songs of my school days. What sense it is to have a CD's which you've head hundreds of times and just show off saying this is a very hi end SQ on a very expensive music system.

I hope you find what your looking for by listening with your own ears let it be (Branded/ unbranded) else with the advice purly on forums will result in erroneous decisions.

--
helium

 

[anm]

and the price is slightly greater than 11k. Price should be the similar here in India. I was not able to find availability in the noida store.

 

[anm]

op - do consider appletv as your standalone internet player + hard disk based player. You do not need a computer switched on to play your own music and internet radio. Appletv with 160gb hard disk are now end of life product, so grab one before it is too late Limitation seems to be 160GB hdd (which is good for ~160 cd quality music), but that can be taken care of by replacing its internal hdd. I will try replacing hdd as well as firmware hacks to enable usb port going forward. Another limitation seems to be a monitor required to control - I am hoping it can be made headless with the iphone/ ipod touch app. But if you keep it connected to a monitor/ tv/ projector - your kid will love it for its ability to play cartoons/ songs from youtube. Though I had most of these features in xtreamer, appletv has somehow been center of my daughter's attention for last couple of days. She loves the remote too. And so do I. How uncomplicated a remote can be, needs to be learnt from apple.

On positive side, it just works very well out of the box, interface is damn good. There are quite a good number of internet radio stations. I am liking sound quality of even youtube videos and internet radio. Kid just love micky mouse, donald duck, dabangg songs from youtube. Could be the placebo effect so let us revisit in few days.

I think mac mini with blu-ray player/ burner would be one hell of a htpc/ music transport combo. I hope it shall be out in the next gen.

 

[anm]

another limitations - it supports only upto cd quality and not 24/96 [sb touch does, classic doesn't]
usb doesn't work out of the box so if you are not daring enough to mod, you have to settle with ~160 CDs. CDs used to have 700MB storage iirc so this number should be ~ 140(actual avl space iirc) / 0.7 = 200 cds on local disk. Rest you can stream from your laptop if you got more.

 

[anm]

ok - so borrowed an ipod touch from an office guy.

Great - If you want to listen to radio stations, you may have to first find out what stations you listen to. Create a playlist in your itunes on your laptop, and sync appletv once. Playlist gets copied to appletv. Now whenever you need to play radio, you don't need the laptop, you don't need a display. Just use the ipod touch and select the radio station you want to play from your favorites.
Good - Pairing an ipod as a remote was a BREEZE. As simple as it can be. Should take anyone not more than 5-10 mins.
Once paired it can access playlists, songs on your appleTV and you do not need a display on to play the local music.
Playing radio stations is still something I would have loved to. But once a radio station is playing, the ipod screen shows the radio's name/ icon/ image.
Can anyone help me in figuring out how to play radio using the ipod as a remote, without looking at a tv connected to appletv, using the ipod's display only?

Bad - What bad? My previous experience - I was not able to find out how to search for radio stations and play them on the appletv from ipod. However, you are not able to "browse" through all the radio stations out there. To use the ipod as remote, you can only play stations that you add to your radio playlist from your itunes.

Wow!!!

 

[anm]

wow - this trick worked - PS Audio - How to add internet radio to an Apple TV or iPod : Do-it-yourself Solutions for Audiophiles

 

[heliumflight]

anm your really good at configuration and settings. I received my Squeeze box Classic and need help to set up the same. Let me know when is a good time for you to come over.

Sweets on the house.

--
helium

 

[anm]

can try over the weekend. I hope your sb classic is better than appleTV, it would be fun to compare. How much did u pay?

 

[heliumflight]

can try over the weekend. I hope your sb classic is better than appleTV, it would be fun to compare. How much did u pay?

Thanks a lot! I will eagerly wait for you.

I paid Rs. 13,700/-

 

[GeorgeO]

The SB Classic is not difficult to set up and use, you need to download the SB software and install it on your computer and then using the remote the rest of it is quite easy. Why not try it out?

 

[heliumflight]

The SB Classic is not difficult to set up and use, you need to download the SB software and install it on your computer and then using the remote the rest of it is quite easy. Why not try it out?

I will try it out. On opening the box the first impressions were 'WOW'. Really liked the display unit. The Duet is the more polished version.

 

[vinod_david]

Helium:

The Classic or SB3 looks alone will throw the Touch out of water, my opinion!

Congrats, on joining the Squeezebox brigade. Am a big fan of those 'vacuum fluorescent display', kind of gives the McIntosh feeling with 'Analog VU Meter' turned on as screensaver while playing - cheap thrill!

And, don't forget to play with the size button 'aA' on the remote to increase the size of display for you to view even from 8 feet distance - this is one question you've been asking me dozens of times.

 

[heliumflight]

Helium:

The Classic or SB3 looks alone will throw the Touch out of water, my opinion!

Congrats, on joining the Squeezebox brigade. Am a big fan of those 'vacuum fluorescent display', kind of gives the McIntosh feeling with 'Analog VU Meter' turned on as screensaver while playing - cheap thrill!

And, don't forget to play with the size button 'aA' on the remote to increase the size of display for you to view even from 8 feet distance - this is one question you've been asking me dozens of times.

Thanks vinod_david. I googled on U tube for a demo on installation and saw the 'Analog VU Meter' and also the 'Spectrum Analyser'. Is it a true depiction of the signal?

--
helium

 

[heliumflight]

buddy having a very good system why you are feeding with CRAPPY 128 kbps music?hyeah:hyeah:That to max. 120 kbps?

I mean tubes deserve a good source..you already have a good dac ( without usb ?) so why not a desktop or laptop with digital out ( there are few laptops with SPDIF out ) and all music on harddrive in FLAC? OR media player with Digital out? Even a WDTV connected to DAC with optical cable will sound far better than SB.SB is not miracle machine which adds details to 128 KBPS ( or lesser ) encoded music.
So in case of 128 KBPSmusic there is GIGO effect ( garbage in ,garbage out) !!!
In case of SB the weak link will be 128 KBPS music..of course if you want to save money on source then it is your choice ,but that is kinda strange with other equipment you have? ( Like Lyrita amp,B&W speakers and Beresford Dac and older Beyston amp Right?)

Hemant please check out this

Squeezebox Classic compared to TC-7520 - The Art of Sound Forum
http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2784

 

[vinod_david]

Is it a true depiction of the signal?

IMO, nothing is gimmick in a Squeezebox.

 

[anm]

as per my discussion with helium today, he is not finding the setup easy. Contrast with appletv which worked out of box without requiring any comp to set up.
Anyone interested in local storage player should grab the opportunity as it is going out of production soon. In global buy ebay it is for 11+k.

 

[heliumflight]

Thanks to Vinod / George who devoted their time in helping me thru the installation process. Some encription failure message. So I called Logitech customer care and a rep will come to my house on tuesday.

--
helium

 

[GeorgeO]

Ahh, keep us posted on developments..

 

[santhosh]

Thanks to Vinod / George who devoted their time in helping me thru the installation process. Some encription failure message. So I called Logitech customer care and a rep will come to my house on tuesday.

--
helium

If you have a working Home Network, setting up the SB should be a breeze. Nice of Logitech Customer Care to send someone over to troubleshoot. Were they able to fix the issue?

 

[vinod_david]

I never explored the deepest part of Squeezebox as I did to Helium over phone on a side-by-side setup with mine and his at the same time, mine connected in a breeze, but Helium's wasn't budging to shake hands with the router.

@Helium - Next time when you setup, try to switch off the 'Encryption' option and try to connect bypassing it. I forgot this option during our telephonic installation.