[akwok]

A good peripheral device manufacturer does not necessarily translate to a good manufacturer of audio equipment.

 

[JahJahBinks]

good, now can they put a DAC in a mouse?

 

[LeonvB]

I wouldn't get too worried. After all, the 3Dconnexion and Harmony products all originate from earlier takeovers. Those didn't suffer from a decrease in quality.

 

[J-Pak]

Well Logitech does have good customer service

 

[Ori]

Logitech has long ago figured out that the computer market will eventually saturate and their profit margins come down. They are strong in pointing devices, but have invested for a long time in multimedia, with the hope to have a piece of the home entertainment pie...
Acquiring a market leader while it's relatively small is a good way to do it. Also notice that the two companies are located practically "across town", which should cut down the logistics of an acquisition.
The only thing which might suffer is the pricing. Slim Devices was obviously more interested in valuation than making big bucks in the early stages, which explains the low price of their Squeezebox product.
The transporter probably requires a lot more assembly effort and with projected low quantities that drove prices up. Logitech has facilities which can crank out large volume production. They're also well-connected to the European market (they are Swiss-based). With a well-established SB product line and the production/marketing strengths of Logitech, there is no reason why this acquisition would not be a market success. I think I'll buy some Logitech stock...

 

[sonance]

The Transporter is an exciting device because it's one of the early example of what I think of as the next generation of high end DACs, a generation that's savvy to the fact that not all music resides on shiny discs and takes advantage of that fact to eliminate jitter, give you access to all your music at once as well as hook you in to digital streaming audio sources.

It's Slim Devices attempt at a more high end DAC than their squeezebox (I hesitate to call it high end because I haven't heard it) as well as a front end with no jitter coming into the DAC (there could of course be minor sources of jitter internally, but nothing like you'd see from a crappy optical connection from a cheap computer sound card), driven by an open source streaming server. I've always been put off by the inability of DACs to eliminate jitter totally - a lot of them try various techniques to reduce the jitter, some of which introduce artifacts of their own, but none of them really deal with the fact that jitter is inherent in the SPDIF interface and other one way interfaces like it. By placing the front end controls on the DAC (and doing it well) they allow the DAC to be in control of the music.

Even if the Transporter turns out not to be perfect, it's a great attempt and really gets the idea out there. Someone else will pick up the ball if Logitech screws this up. I love the fact that it's streaming server is open source and supports lossless formats like FLAC and APE, and isn't burdened with any DRM. Other companies seem to think MP3 and (shudder) WMV is all anyone would ever need. This is the sort of thing that I'm afraid would be lost with a bigger company like Logitech at the helm. They have their own streaming media server that's not open source and I don't know what their position on DRM is. I hope they don't burden future products with unneccessary and burdensome anti-consumer technologies, or move the company exclusively down market by not placing a premium on high quality components as Slim Devices at least tried to with the Transporter (I'm still eagerly awaiting reviews to see how it turns out.)

 

[ModelCitizen]

The Tranporter is great. True Audiophile quality with miracle Dac and unbelievably low jitter. Loads of functionality including Internet Radio, Last.FM integration, AlienBBC (for listening to Real encoded streams, inluding the BBC Listen Again stuff) and of course Squeezenetwork, which allows you listen to stuff without your PC being turned on (but not your local files though).

Far from putting off your purchase I'd order one now, before Logitech dumb it down or stop it's production alltogether. If this does happen you are going to have one seriously sought after box. The software is open source so someone will pick up development (not that any more is needed now in my humble opinion, it seems to have come of age).

If Logitech do keep it on (and they might, they sell top quality Harmony remotes to few people for high prices) it's almost certain that a remote like the Sonos remote will be added (i.e. with large colour screen to view album art, reviews, bios etc etc).

The only stuff it doesn't currently play is DRM'ed stuff (no loss to me) but it's possible that with Logitech's deep pockets that this will get added some time soon.

MC

 

[slwiser]

I agree. Another company down into the abyss.

Quote:

Originally Posted by akwok WHAT NO!!!

 

[slwiser]

I will take this this way. Only four years to get service is about right from Logitech if they actually provide any at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riboge To offer a little hope I have used a Harmony remote for over 4 years now and the remotes and service have improved. So far I have not been aware of any ill effects of Logitech's ownership and it retains the Harmony name though Logitech is added in places. It's true that that is a least common denominator sort of product and the Transporter is more high end and specialized, so the fate of the two could be different.

 

[DarkJC]

As far as I know, Slim Devices is being left to operate as it always has, so I don't think this is bad news yet. It might be down the road, but I don't think it's a terrible time to buy a Slim Devices product.