Separate Squeezebox Receiver/Controllers

[richidoo]

http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_overview.html

Controller  = $300
Receiver  = $150
SqueezeCenter 7 = free
The feeling of playing music without glasses, squinting or getting up to flip a record = priceless!

Slim support told me a couple days ago that a new official release of SC7 is coming out in a week or so, which should fix a lot of the connectivity problems. Slim is working hard on the bugs. It'll get there and it'll be great!

[spudco]

I love my Squeezeboxes.  Truely the future of how we will interact with music.  I control both of mine with a laptop and it works well, but I would love to try one of the new controllers.

Unfortunately, I really hate trying to load up proper cover art.  I use Itunes to manage my music library, but the covers for lots of my CDs just aren't available from the Itunes database.  Moreover, the covers used by Itunes are stored in a special Itunes file and must be added to the music files for use by SlimServer.  I use Coverscout for this, but i think it stinks.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and sometimes it corrupts my music library. 

I can't wait for a truely complete (i.e. cover art, liner notes, lyrics, links) database for music is available and usable by our home music servers.  Now that will be priceless!

[Phil]

RE:  being able to order the receiver separately, when I following this link https://secure.slimdevices.com/order/index.cgi   I noticed the following description:

Squeezebox Receiver
Now shipping! Requires Squeezebox Controller for setup.

So, can the receiver be setup just using SC7 and running from a PC?  I suppose I'm one of the very few who prefers the PC over the controller.  The controller looks great and is easy to use but in my in-home trial it was very slow and often got confused (so did I).  SC7 was fine and never burped.  Very frustrating. 

During this experience (during which I spent more time on my PC researching solutions than listening to music), it occured to me that an easy and quiet hard-disk based system which also included wireless internet and music services (such as Rhapsody) would be ideal.  Anything like that out in audioland?

[richidoo]

Sonos. I'm thinking of trying it too.

I dont know if the receiver can run by itself with just the SC7 on a server (what would happen if you shut off the remote after setup?) But I do know that the controller is required to setup the receiver. You can control the reciever with SC7 webGUI as with slimserver.

spud, dbpoweramp ripper uses All Media Guide, for which I pay a little extra. It has good data for the CDs that I rip, which are mostly off the beaten path. It puts jpg album art in the directory with the tracks then the Controller displays it. It is a great ripper too.

[Black Sand Cable]

So, can the receiver be setup just using SC7 and running from a PC? 

Yes but it's a pain in the ass. I tried it today and it took my computer three re-boots and 2 re-boots of the receiver to get it to work.

The problem is with the initial set up. You set your network info via the remote. Without it....well, it's a pain in the ass.

Sonos is so much easier......

I sell both and today was the first time in weeks I fired up my Duet. I personally find the Sonos so much easier to use and a hell of a lot less buggy. I loaded 4 gigs of flac's today into a play list with the Duet and it froze. I got pissed off and did the exact same thing with my Sonos system. The Sonos was playing a few seconds later while the Duet was still trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

[Black Sand Cable]

what would happen if you shut off the remote after setup?)

It keeps playing and you control everything with your computer.

[rosconey]

i dont want to have to run my puter just to listen to my music-
the wadia ipod transport dock looks like the future to me-

now if they could make a unit with a built in dac and ipod guts with a cd drive so you can down load all in one unit-

[Carlman]

i dont want to have to run my puter just to listen to my music-
the wadia ipod transport dock looks like the future to me-

now if they could make a unit with a built in dac and ipod guts with a cd drive so you can down load all in one unit-

So, does the ipod holds your entire music collection?  Or, does it have a web-based music player?  But if that was the case, you'd have to use your computer to play music... I'm confused.

[rosconey]

the ipod can hold all my music(depending on size)

you dock your ipod and run it-the only issue is the wadia unit must have a outboard dac-

[TomS]

If that's the case you definitely need more music   

[rosconey]

you can get a 80 gig ipod-that is a lot of music

[Black Sand Cable]

you can get a 80 gig ipod-that is a lot of music

It is if you have everything ripped as an MP3 but if you are playing with FLAC's or even WAV's, 80gb's is easy to fill.....and then some.

My current FLAC library (not including MP3 files) is currently at 158 GB.

[richidoo]

Probably 250 flac CDs in 80MBs?  That's a lot if they are all primo. My whole LP collection is less than that, but it got me to be a pro musician. No iPods back then..... haha

[ik632]

I just upgraded to the production release of SqueezeCenter (7.0.1) and it's much better than the initial release (and the other daily builds). I think the connectivity issues that everyone is having are based on specific network conditions. I notice that my neighborhood has about 10 wireless networks that are visible from my laptop sitting on my computer desk. All but 2 are more powerful than my cheap Belkin access point. Occasionally I have trouble with my SB3 connecting and playing but it's reasonable most of the time.

I have been playing with a Duet and controller as well as a single controller paired with an SB3. Both perform very well but I do notice about a half second lag for the Duet to respond to a command where the SB3 seams to respond a little quicker. I think it may partially be perception since the SB3 has a display which updates right away, but music doesn't happen immediately either. I think most people are used to this and as a result they think it's taking longer to do stuff. This is much like the phenomena of having a mirror in an elevator. Even with 2 elevators going same speed from floor to floor, the one with the shiny walls feels faster because you are distracted. SB3 vs. Duet is much the same.

[Phil]

I compared the Duet receiver with controller vs. using the PC as controller.  The speed difference was considerable.  It is great that some folks love their Duets, but for me it seems that logitech is a few steps away from a product that will be accepted by a wider audience -- especially for those of us who may use computers every day but don't enjoy working through the glitches and just want a plug-n-play device. 

Taking a guick look at the Sonos stuff, you can see a big difference in presentation (since I haven't tried these units I don't know if that translates into better performance).  The slimdevices stuff makes you search for the information.  Do you want to know why your Duet didn't work at all last night?  Gotta fire up the PC and look for the appropriate forum which tells you what was going on.

OK, I'm the impatient sort with computer-related stuff and probably not their target audience.  Seems like these companies are either going the route of slimdevices and sonos or toward servers, like Olive.  Will there be a convergence?