[ruleof72]

Well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later..One of my beloved Squeezebox Classics that I bought in 2005 refuses to power-up. The optical port lights up but I can't get the rest of the unit to do anything, even after trying the factory reset option. I'll still try to revive it this weekend but at this point it's not looking good.

 It's a real bummer.
 
The good news is that my other Squeezebox still seems to be plugging along fine.....for now. So, I'd like to get prepared for the inevitable switch to something newer that can stream FLACs wirelessly. I know I can buy another Squeezebox Classic or Touch off of ebay but I think I want to get something that is more current. The catch is, at least for now, that I'd like to be able to still use the Logitech Media Server until my other Squeezebox dies.
 
I've heard about the Raspberry-Pi and other small, cheap, computers that run opensource software. The CuBox i from SolidRun looks very interesting but I don't know much about it. I think it can be configured to run Logitech Media Server so I'm considering it.
 
What other inexpensive (<$200) solutions might there be? I don't need an internal DAC as I was already planning on adding one before the unexpected Squeezebox death. All I need is a USB/Optical output.

 

[gatorengineer64]

Android phone running USB Audio Player and a dedicated DAC is about all I know of that will stream 24 bit affordably.  Why not just get a NAS?  I run a Synology on DLNA and it works great....

 

[ruleof72]

  Android phone running USB Audio Player and a dedicated DAC is about all I know of that will stream 24 bit affordably.  Why not just get a NAS?  I run a Synology on DLNA and it works great....

I've done some research and it seems like I can run Logitech Media Server on a NAS so I'm considering getting one but I think I still need a "box" to receive the signal from it.
 
Any suggestions for a nice,inexpensive box with optical out that can receive DNLA?

 

[ferday]

My favorite boxy box is by far the wd TV (optical / hdmi out and massive file format support)

Not sure you need a NAS as your PC can send the DLNA to any renderer...although I run JRiver media server so I'm not sure if there may be compatibility issues with the Logitech server for a particular renderer (can't see why, DLNA is DLNA....but don't take my word for it).

 

[fleshx]

My solution was:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Multi-Room-Audio-MobileTabletPC-Contr/?ALLSTEPS
 
http://www.squeezeplug.eu/

using squeezeplug and squeezelite
 

 

[ruleof72]

My favorite boxy box is by far the wd TV (optical / hdmi out and massive file format support)

Not sure you need a NAS as your PC can send the DLNA to any renderer...although I run JRiver media server so I'm not sure if there may be compatibility issues with the Logitech server for a particular renderer (can't see why, DLNA is DLNA....but don't take my word for it).

 I did some research and decided to try the WD TV Play. It was under $50 including shipping. It looks like the optical output is plenty good enough for my needs. I will only be using it for audio. I have a Roku which we use to stream Netflix, Amazon, etc.
 
 If I like it I'll probably get another one and "retire" the other Squeezebox.

 

[gatorengineer64]

   I did some research and decided to try the WD TV Play. It was under $50 including shipping. It looks like the optical output is plenty good enough for my needs. I will only be using it for audio. I have a Roku which we use to stream Netflix, Amazon, etc.
 
 If I like it I'll probably get another one and "retire" the other Squeezebox.

do you know what you will get out of the WDTV on optical?  Will it be 16/44 or something better?

 

[ferday]

Mine will pass through at least 24/96 (I don't have anything higher). I am unsure if it doing any downconverting, but when I got them I checked a bunch of forums and it appears that it indeed passes 24/96 on new firmware, while others say it down converts to 24/48 (the manual says 24/48). My only DAC that displays depth/sample is in my hi-fi room and I haven't bothered to move stuff around to try it, as I can "play" all my 24/96. Might be a good experiment when I have some time!

They sound fine to me, but then again I'm not using them for hi-res critical listening, I'm using them for zone hubs

 

[ruleof72]

Mine will pass through at least 24/96 (I don't have anything higher). I am unsure if it doing any downconverting, but when I got them I checked a bunch of forums and it appears that it indeed passes 24/96 on new firmware, while others say it down converts to 24/48 (the manual says 24/48). My only DAC that displays depth/sample is in my hi-fi room and I haven't bothered to move stuff around to try it, as I can "play" all my 24/96. Might be a good experiment when I have some time!

They sound fine to me, but then again I'm not using them for hi-res critical listening, I'm using them for zone hubs

I found a blog post where the guy tested the WD TV to see how it performed from the RCA outputs vs optical to an outboard DAC:
 

MEASUREMENTS: WD TV Live - A look at (and listen to) the digital "low end"

 
It's a pretty good read and he seems to do a fair analysis of it. Apparently, it does downsample to 44/48khz but I'm not worried about that. Bottom line is that it looks like the WD TV is a decent audio streaming device, especially when using the optical output.

 

[gatorengineer64]

For the price hard to beat.  I am trying a wifi connected DVD player with a $50 decoupler.  using it as UPNP device and streaming from a NAS.  Sounds great when it works but the network seems to drop alot.  Gotta work on that before I form a final opinion.  Thanks for the link.

 

[ruleof72]

  For the price hard to beat.  I am trying a wifi connected DVD player with a $50 decoupler.  using it as UPNP device and streaming from a NAS.  Sounds great when it works but the network seems to drop alot.  Gotta work on that before I form a final opinion.  Thanks for the link.

Yeah, for $50 it was hard to pass up. I should be getting the WD TV in a couple of days so I'll be able to give an opinion of how it works by next week.

 

[ferday]

i have 3 right now, and they work fantastic.  the only potential question is quality, whether it's good enough for you or not (the video is universally praised higher than the straight audio) but i never find myself wishing for better quality, seeing as i'm using it to stream to secondary systems and not for critical listening. 
 
i'm running mine off of JRiver DLNA and i've never had a dropped network or anything, it sees both audio and video fine and plays almost every format.  it's also connected to my windows home network (it does either windows or mac home networking) It does take a long time to connect to the network at first boot-up OR after it wakes up from sleep mode (long being ~5 minutes or so) but once connected mine at least stays that way until i turn it off
 
i've used mine as both in push/pull, and using either webgizmo or jremote i can control it just fine with my phone/pad.  one thing i don't like about it is the menu system, while it's easy to use, it doesn't organize the files very nicely so it makes browsing a bit of a chore sometimes.  using the smartphone to control it eliminates this issue.
 
for the price i'd be shocked to find something better

 

[ruleof72]

  i have 3 right now, and they work fantastic.  the only potential question is quality, whether it's good enough for you or not (the video is universally praised higher than the straight audio) but i never find myself wishing for better quality, seeing as i'm using it to stream to secondary systems and not for critical listening. 
 
i'm running mine off of JRiver DLNA and i've never had a dropped network or anything, it sees both audio and video fine and plays almost every format.  it's also connected to my windows home network (it does either windows or mac home networking) It does take a long time to connect to the network at first boot-up OR after it wakes up from sleep mode (long being ~5 minutes or so) but once connected mine at least stays that way until i turn it off
 
i've used mine as both in push/pull, and using either webgizmo or jremote i can control it just fine with my phone/pad.  one thing i don't like about it is the menu system, while it's easy to use, it doesn't organize the files very nicely so it makes browsing a bit of a chore sometimes.  using the smartphone to control it eliminates this issue.
 
for the price i'd be shocked to find something better

I plan on using it on my main system but through the optical to an outboard DAC. I don't have any high res stuff at this point and don't plan on adding much, if any to the collection in the near future. I have PLEX on my desktop so I will probably try and get it setup with the WD TV to see how it works. My wireless is pretty good and I haven't had any dropout issues with the Squeezebox. I should have the unit on Thursday so I plan on spending some quality time with it over the coming weekend. I think I'll  know pretty quickly if it will work for me.