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Apple Airport Express or Squeezebox duet or ?

post #1 of 17
4/8/10 at 4:10pm
Thread Starter 
Hi all,

Recently I've come to the realization that my Ipod Touch is not going to do the job for me as a high quality source. My new Turntable kicks it's butt in terms of sound quality in every way and so does my CD player. I have tried the Ipod headphone jack, a Sendstation line-out dock, and the Apple Universal dock and they all suck compared to the CD player and turntable. However, the vast majority of my music is in digital format on my computer. I can foresee eventually going the path of music fed from my computer to a DAC and then to my pre-amp, etc. Currently I am just feeding my Ipod straight to my pre-amp. However, my computer is on the absolute opposite side and floor of my house from my main sound system. My house is ethernet wired and I have a wireless router. I do not want to have to purchase a laptop to make this work.

Assuming I will eventually add a separate dedicated DAC, what is the best method of getting music from my computer to my stereo? The two items that I think may do the job are either the Apple Airport Express or a Squeezebox Duet. Does anyone have any experience with either of these
products integrated to a hi-fi setup? Which one is better as far as pure sound quality?

My two main goals are to get a better quality source than my Ipod, as well as have a digital out for adding a separate dedicated DAC in the future. Are either of these items better than the Ipod in terms of sound quality?

Any thoughts or recommendations? Thank you.

Cory
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post #2 of 17
4/8/10 at 5:35pm
Since you can get a DAC to your tastes and budget rather than relying on the one in the iPod, SQ should be improvable. That's assuming your iPod isn't modded or anything.

If you don't mind waiting and the lack of remote control, you could get a Squeezebox Touch. It's got some pretty nice specs.
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post #3 of 17
4/8/10 at 5:45pm
Personally, I would take a look at your digital music collection and see what bit rate you have. If it's a low MP3 rate, that might be a place to start. Re-rip at a higher rate or go uncompressed with AAC, ALAC, or similar.
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post #4 of 17
4/8/10 at 6:07pm
I am an AE user and have owned a SB3 in the past. By itself, the Squeezebox has much better sound quality than the AE. This is not surprising, as it already has a capable DAC built in, while the AE's DAC is of similar quality to that used in your iPod.

When you start talking about adding an external DAC, the balance tips to the AE, in my opinion. This is especially true if you're already an iTunes user -- there's nothing easier than just selecting your AE instead of your computer in iTunes and listening away. The external DAC will probably provide much better sound quality than the SB's onboard DAC.

If I were just starting now, I would buy a refurb AE from Apple, a used DAC w/toslink input from the forums here, and a good optical cable (I use a Lifatec). And yes, unless you're already at 256k AAC, the greatest benefit will probably come from re-ripping your entire music collection as lossless. You might as well get started... :-)
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post #5 of 17
4/8/10 at 7:18pm
Olias - What inherent advantages do you see the AE having over the SB besides iTunes implementation? I've heard arguments on both sides and ended up with a SB.
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post #6 of 17
4/8/10 at 7:50pm
Hi Equus -- for me, it was all about the interface. I found the SB's web-based library to be incredibly clumsy and non-intuitive. Perhaps I've been spoiled (or poisoned, depending on your perspective) as an iTunes user for many years, but I couldn't get used to SqueezeCenter. With my library already in iTunes, I found no advantage to the additional layer of interface necessitated by the SB.

In addition, Rogue Amoeba's $20 Airfoil application fills in the gaps for everything iTunes can't do, like Pandora and other subscription streaming services.

Finally, if you know you're going to add an external DAC, I think that's another plus for the AE. You're only spending $75 for a refurb AE unit, as opposed to at least twice that for a SB whose higher-quality DAC you're planning on bypassing.
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post #7 of 17
4/8/10 at 8:12pm
Ah...I have to agree on the Squeeze Center web interface. It's pretty clunky. Not to the point of being un-workable, but I've had my problems in the past. Especially with playlists. For some reason all of the products I end up using are horrific in their use of playlists. I think I've finally found a workaround to export playlists from MediaMonkey and get Squeeze Center to find it, but I've "lost" a few playlists along the way and it sometimes does not work for random reasons unknown to me.

I use FLAC and don't use iTunes at all, which is the main reasons I went with SB. I never really originally planned to use an external DAC, but I ended up there anyway. Go fig.
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post #8 of 17
4/8/10 at 8:22pm
I'm guessing you find the D10 to be a better DAC than the SB's Wolfson, then?

The no-FLAC-in-iTunes thing is really the only bummer about the AE for my purposes, since I have about 2TB of live music in FLAC. I use a standalone player (Cog or Songbird) and Airfoil to the AE for that.

It would be nice to have a single library, but then again, a library of 2TB FLAC and 500GB ALAC would be pretty unwieldy...
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post #9 of 17
4/8/10 at 8:39pm
I've been using the D10 since it has a pretty decent DAC in it, and it keeps me from really wanting to do a power supply mod or grab a new adapter for my SB. I had read about people getting good results with that, but I've also read some folks saying that if you have an external DAC that it isn't necessary. As it is, I'm pretty happy with the set-up since that room is for when I'm lying in bed, and I'm not doing uber critical listening.

So far, I have nothing in my apartment with a little apple insignia on it, so my library can remain a single entity.
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post #10 of 17
4/8/10 at 8:52pm
I also think, if you intend to have a DAC, AE is very good to start with (toslink connection) limited to red book resolution though.

You can get same quality with Ipod > Onkyo Digital-Dock ND-S1 > your DAC.
(toslink, coax and I believe also usb)

Onkyo Digital-Dock ND-S1 -- they sell it here in Europe for as low as cca 130 Euros.
(it bypasses ipod DAC and gets the digital data out of ipod to your DAC)

Airport express costs 89 Euros in Europe.

Converting Flac to ALAC is no big deal , or ?
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post #11 of 17
4/8/10 at 9:09pm
Converting really isn't a huge deal, unless you're like Olias and have a ton of 'em. For me, converting to ALAC just to use iTunes and AE isn't really appealing, since I own nothing with a little Apple logo on it at all. Personal choice, really. Well, that and my friend has problems with his AE, but I think that has more to do with his network being flaky than with the AE to be honest.
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post #12 of 17
4/8/10 at 9:15pm
If you use an AE and Airfoil, you don't need to use iTunes. You can use VLC (or anything else) to play your OGG, FLAC, etc files. Any audio output will be sent to the AE.
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post #13 of 17
4/8/10 at 9:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by oldskoolboarder View Post
If you use an AE and Airfoil, you don't need to use iTunes. You can use VLC (or anything else) to play your OGG, FLAC, etc files. Any audio output will be sent to the AE.
I have tried many players, but in terms of flexibility I can not think of one that can beat Itunes capability and if you have an iphone or an ipod touch - you have a free nice remote controller as well.

Itunes handles easily very big libraries ( have more then 90000 files cca 3.5 TB) (lightning fast search, smart playlists, etc).
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post #14 of 17
4/8/10 at 10:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by oldskoolboarder View Post
If you use an AE and Airfoil, you don't need to use iTunes. You can use VLC (or anything else) to play your OGG, FLAC, etc files. Any audio output will be sent to the AE.
Definitely true. But the elegance of the iTunes/AE interface makes it a slam dunk for those of us that already have iTunes libraries, or for anyone looking to start a digital library from scratch.

I should also note that Airfoil has some problems with dropouts when using the AE's optical out to certain DACs. The DacMagic was useless with Airfoil and AE as I would suffer through a half-second dropout approximately every 20 seconds. Fortunately, my MHDT Paradisea has no such problems. This isn't network related -- it's an Airfoil-specific problem with the AE's optical port that Rogue Amoeba has acknowledged and claims to be working on, and I don't really know why it only affects certain DACs. Just something else to think about.
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post #15 of 17
4/8/10 at 11:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Equus View Post
Converting really isn't a huge deal, unless you're like Olias and have a ton of 'em. For me, converting to ALAC just to use iTunes and AE isn't really appealing, since I own nothing with a little Apple logo on it at all. Personal choice, really. Well, that and my friend has problems with his AE, but I think that has more to do with his network being flaky than with the AE to be honest.
You can use Itunes for windows as well (no need to have a mac comp).
For mobile (meaning when not at home i.e. when travelling or on holidays) use I use Samsung Q1 (Windows xp for tablet pc) or Toshiba M700 (Vista) and either M2tech Hiface or AE into coax or toslink of my DAC. It works like a charm. (you do not even need a router - it works as an ad-hock connection /taken your comp has wifi card/ )
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