Squeezebox Touch -- Modifications

[soundcheck]

Originally Posted by gk7

Buy a decent DAC (don´t use the internal one) and forget about the rest.
This is the only real way to improve the sound, IMHO.

There is not any external DAC ( at any price) or USB interface - such as Wave-IO, Hiface, you name it - that I'm aware of out there,
which wouldn't respond to transport sided optimizations.

It doesn't matter what you run -- Windows,OSX,Linux -- a PC,MAC,Touch -
if you want to get the best out of your chain, you won't get around tweaking your transport.

People pay 400$ and more for a simple USB interface card. People spent hundreds of $ for audiophile SW players.

With a Touch and a little tweaking you can IMO beat many of them.


We're not at Computer Audiophile or AA over here. It's DIY-Audio. It can be expected that people invest at least a little effort to get
things going.

And please consider. Most of time has been spent by others figuring things out, writing them up and sharing them -- FOC.

What you folks do is a 20 minutes exercise. Writing waterproof SW that meets everybodies expectations requires weeks.



If you want to go the easy way buy a MAC +Decibel and a DAC.


In any case - Computer based audio - done right - means twenty times more effort, then good old CD playback with a simple CDP.

[brgds]

Is there any influence of EDO or TT on SQ when using I2S?

[soundcheck]

Originally Posted by brgds

Is there any influence of EDO or TT on SQ when using I2S?

You mean I2S - tapped from Touch !?!?

Of course it'll have an impact.

Those transport optimisations impact the surrounding HW and SW. That usually affects several types of jitter, noise, timing varitiations, slew rates, ripple - you name it.

All this is NO voodoo. All this is physics.

If you turn off a screen, you turned off a huge part that shares the same
PS as your clock/I2S/DAC.
If you reduce the processor load you'll see it on the PS side as well as on the data jitter side. ASF. ASF.

The logic behind it is pretty simple. Less is more.

[brgds]

Ok, that's clear.
The I2S advantage is to omit coax or usb circuit, less is more , right?
How about ability to play hi-res files via I2S? Does EDO have something to do with I2S output?

[soundcheck]

Originally Posted by brgds

Ok, that's clear.
The I2S advantage is to omit coax or usb circuit, less is more , right?

It depends!

I2S is not meant to be used as transmission line. I2S usually runs right into your DAC. It should be used for the
last 20cm only.

Slightest issues/distortions on your I2S connection/interface/timing can have a huge impact.

There's no way to get rid of those issues anymore, unless: You introduce an I2S reclocker.

Much easier - in many cases at least - is to recover a rather jittery/noisy SPDIF signal and generate a nice I2S signal from it.

If you follow the TP Buffallo threads, you'll find that quite some people prefer SPDIF over I2S on the Sabre DAC.

Of course all this can differ from setup to setup from DAC to DAC from SPDIF receiver to SPDIF receiver .....

Originally Posted by brgds

How about ability to play hi-res files via I2S? Does EDO have something to do with I2S output?

EDO supports up to 192khz - over the digital outputs.

However. The Linux driver used for the Touch DAC needs to support it.
I honestly don't know if the driver supports it.

[entrenous]

Klaus,
Keep on doing the good job. Great work!
EN

[entrenous]

Originally Posted by entrenous

Klaus,
Keep on doing the good job. Great work!
EN

one question, pls. Most of the mods enabled (screen and IR aside) I am hesitant to go with the deamon killing mod. The language you use there (eg: "It goes that far that even remote access daemons are killed.") give me goose skin

will other mods remain as they were before (I need IR!) when press tt -k with no blood on my system ?

cheers!

[MurphyUHF10]

..So let me understand this correctly??

For the "Screen Off" mod to be at its best, you need to use TT3.0 to de-activate the screen, but ALSO physically unplug it from the main board as well..??

Thanks!
CM

[soundcheck]

Originally Posted by entrenous

one question, pls. Most of the mods enabled (screen and IR aside) I am hesitant to go with the deamon killing mod. The language you use there (eg: "It goes that far that even remote access daemons are killed.") give me goose skin

will other mods remain as they were before (I need IR!) when press tt -k with no blood on my system ?

cheers!

You just have to pull the plug once. After that everything will be OK.

If I kill e.g. a ssh daemon ( remote access) - you simply can't login again.

[soundcheck]

Originally Posted by MurphyUHF10

..So let me understand this correctly??

For the "Screen Off" mod to be at its best, you need to use TT3.0 to de-activate the screen, but ALSO physically unplug it from the main board as well..??

Thanks!
CM

Some people reported that physically disconnecting the screen gets you again a little further.


I skipped that mod. It's just more convenient to me to keep a quick access option via screen - just in case. And then, the cables/connectors are that flimsy that the chance you break em sooner or later are quite realistic.

I'm running my Touch face down with an open back to be able to do a surgery once in a while.