I opened my Duet last night and thought I should post some first impressions. It is packaged very nicely. Makes me think I went hog wild and bought an Apple product. Same font, same feel, except they actually use some material for packaing, not like tree huggin apple package designers who use as little as possible. Very nice. Documentation is sparse but enough to get you going. Free trials for Rhapsody, etc...
Setup was nuts because I screwed up my 26 digit wireless code on the first try. I have only made that mistake about 50 times so you think I would learn that if there's two digits left over then I fucked up and do it again. BUT NOOOOOO!!!! I am sure the device is wrong and I made no mistake...
I had to forget my wireless network and rechoose it to start again. This time I had the right number of digits and it all came to life right away. If I did it slowly and carefully like a 26 digit password demands, then it would have been perfectly easy. One thing that was funny in the paper pamphlet was the statement to the effect, "If you have experience setting up wireless network in your home then you will have no problem with the Duet." haha That would have been taboo only 5 years ago when "wireless networking" was code word for "Don't even try it stupid." Of course it is all automated now. The nerds' glory days of setting everything manually are long gone. Just as well...
The audio box is still referred to as a Squeezebox so you pick the SB that you wanna control and you're off. The remote battery came with half charge which was nice. It charged fully over night and is still full after a day of piddling. It is eager to sleep though, which is a little annoying, but maybe it is just me lost in themusic, not realizing how much time passes between using the remote. It wakes with motion to the Now playing screen, or clock, I can't remember which.
The software design is exceptional. It works well and is pretty fast. The sound box responds instantly to commands. Although my Windows PC which I must use to host SC is flakey, typical Windows XP with lots of miles and programs installed. It will lock up and make the remote spin it's little icon waiting for response. Usually happens drilling down into a folder. I still use folders because I started with wavs. Now that I am all flac I will clean up the folders and switch to using the library database which should work faster because it is all in servers memory and precludes looking at the disk for a drill down. The server uses 62MB of mem, plus the tray is another 5MB. Changing songs takes 2 seconds of 20% processor load on my 2.6GHz P4 with 1GB mem. Response time (when PC is not acting stupid) is nice and fast. A dedicated SC PC with no other crap running on it would be very nice. My NAS has no SC build ready yet, even though it is officially released. I think this may be the end of the road for Infrant users. The SC is probably too big to run standalone on the NAS hardware with stock 256MB memory.
The sound quality is....... wait for it....... wait for it....... well, I don't know, I didn't listen to it yet. But the digital out works fine
The Altmann DAC sounds just as good with stock Duet wall wart PS as with SB3 on linear. I'll try the analog out later today. Should be better than SB3 with no noisy display. It was very loud into speakers with high sensitivty, especially direct connected to amps with normal 26dB+ gain.
OK, bitch time. The battery lid on the remote is a little flimsy and the battery pushes it out a bit, so it creaks and clicks and feels really cheap whenever I press a button. My old style plastic SB3 remote was the same way after millions of uses, it felt like ready to fall apart in my hand so that was one thing I was looking forward to improving. Of course the remote is a huge improvement in every other way, and even in that way. Because now it is just the battery lid, and not the whole thing that is creaking. I will try some scotch tape around the lid to see if it can be held down tight. The lithium ion battery in the remote is proprietary size. I had that in my Creative World Jukebox 3. Constant charging killed the first battery and it was tough trying to find replacements a year after production stopped on JB3. I found 2 extra and I take good care of them. I imagine Logitech will not abandon this battery form factor as quickly. But something to keep in mind. When word of SB5 rolls around, order a couple spare Jive batts.
The SB3 software allowed reverse and FF through music, so you could go back and hear a section again, or FF to the end of a song. It even allowed you to skip to the next song and reverse backward through the gap into the end of the previous song. Only skip song ahead or back is available now. Maybe software can bring that function back. As a musician studying the music this is very valuable to me. I would never buy a CDP that didn't let me listen to just the end of a song. Like reading the last page first. A feature I would love to see is a way to program a repeat loop in the middle of a song. Maybe this kinda stuff will be made into a plugin. The device will be more popular than ever so the general public will come by hordes.
On SB3 if you play a specific song, it would keep playing the associated folder/playlist after that song was done. Now it just stops at the end of the selected song. Pressing FF just plays the same song again. It doesn't relate the single song to any other songs so you have to do that manually. I bitched about that feature in SB, that you couldn't just play one song from one album and then add to playlist another single track from another folder. It would play the whole folder of tracks before going to the next programmed track. But I got used to that so now I am a spoiled brat and want it both ways. haha It is better this new way, but just takes some getting used to.
But the biggest PITA of all is now fixed. On SB3 when you play a song, a couple seconds later you get sent to Now Playing. To pick another song you have to drill back to the song folders or playlist or whatever you use to pick songs manually. Duet remembers where you were and makes it available with a back arrow, or just by touching the control wheel, takes you right back to where you last made a selection. Cool! Maybe the remote will not get worn out so quick by saving all that extra useless navigation. The price of this intelligence is waiting for the remote to boot up if you shut it off. It is about 15 seconds. Just like a Windows PC - NOT! It just sleeps in the charger so you should rarely see it boot.
The remote has a very nice Now playing screen that shows album art, time elapsed, time til end (countdown - I always wished for that on SB) repeat mode, time of day, etc. Power conservation first dims, then switches the display off.
The color display is excellent. It is very easy to read the naviugation menu text with greenish grey letters on white background, or is it vice versa? Album art is full color and it was sharp enough that I could read the fine print on the cover of I Am Sam soundtrack. I had to take my glasses off and look at it from 6 inches, but I could read it. VERY small! Great resolution on the screen. Animations and sound effects are cool.
The sound box (DAC) is small and very lightwieght compared to SB3. No metal legs or flourescent display. It actually feels pretty insubstantial, but is solid enough. Both the sound box and the remote have rubberish protective layer on the bottom. The remote looks right at home on my wifes fancy Ethan Allen furniture, OK maybe a little trendy. The sound box tucks away anywhere, no need to see it. I used ethernet for it, but the wireless on the remote works very well, so I imagine the base would work well streaming music too, but 100Mps hardwire is always better than wireless, even just for paranoia nervosa. You can connect the remote wirelessly to either your WAP or to the sound box. So if you are far from the router WAP you can hardwire the sound box and connect the remote to it as a WAP. I didn't try using a laptop on the Duet sound box WAP, but it will probably work?? Maybe not great range with no exposed antenna.
What else.... hmmmmm.....
I am using the official release software, maybe the latest nightly has addressed some of these software things, but they are minor convenience features, overall the thing works perfectly, except for flaking out on my PC. Not sure if that is Windows or SC. I will disable Slimserver on the NAS to lighten that load maybe get better response through the PC SC server.
The Duet at $500 is at least $200 less than factory direct Z80 Sonos with incentive. I guess their prices will soon be dropping. I have used a Sonos a couple times at dealer's but never at my house for extended time. It is very nice and has the advantage of syncing separate rooms together seemlessly without packet lag. JA says the analog output is a little better than SB3's with switcher wallwart, no surprise there. But these are consumer electronics heavy on the cool factor and light on the audiophile factor, so a DAC is really essential for high end audio. Without regard for the sound quality I would give the Duet 2 thumbs up for the industrial design, software design and overall concept and execution. Well done Logitech!
Rich
