how to open up the squeezebox touch?

[sckramer]

Yesterday I opened mine up again and tried running without the display at all (physically removed, no connections at all).

Wow! This made a significant improvement. Way more spaciousness, room ambience etc. Everything sounds more organic, full bodied etc.

Of course there are some problems, you can't initialize the Touch from startup or after a factory reset without the display. You also need the display to turn on remote login. Once you have remote login working you can do almost everything else, albeit you have to edit configuration files for most of them.

After hearing what it sounds like without the display its hard to go back!

This was through the analog outs, It did make some difference on the digital out but not as much as it did on the analog outs. This was with a Peachtree Nova which uses the Sabre DAC which is fairly immune to variances in digital ins, so it might be a bigger difference on other DACs.

While it was open I decided to try bypassing the output caps. Again this made an improvement. Not nearly as big an improvement as taking out the display but still definitely there.

As a reference, with the caps bypassed and the display removed the analog outs are now better than the DAC in the Nova. I was listening to the Touch driving the Nova both over coax and analog. Listening to the preamp outs of the nova. The analog from the Touch was definitely better. And that had an extra set of interconnects as well.

So the Touch with a linear supply, no display and output caps bypassed is a REALLY good DAC.

John S.

What about the screen off screensaver... Did you try that & hear differences? I'd prefer that over ripping out the screen

[JohnSwenson]

What about the screen off screensaver... Did you try that & hear differences? I'd prefer that over ripping out the screen

The screen off screensaver just turns off the backlight, it doesn't turn off the clock and sync sugnals to the display.

I could not hear any difference when the screen off screensaver kicked in.

John S.

[[IDC]Dragon]

Dear Logitech.

Pleeease - build a DUET II - no frills. Half the size of the old DUET should be possible. You might even skip Wifi (or built in a switch to turn it completely off), since Wifi messes with the sound anyhow. Just focus on sound quality. You might think of an I2S output. (I am not asking for USB on purpose) . And 24/192. Stay with 5V on the DC side. We'll take care on the linear supply.You might consider GBIT ethernet.

If the quality is good enough you'll be able to sell it at 199$ and probably
come out with an even better margin than you'll see with the Touch.
For sure you'll have much less trouble compared to the Touch, with such a product.

And for sure you'd turn the traditional "High-End-Audio" world upside down, with such a product.

TX for listening.

Best regards
SC

Same here. I bought the Touch (to replace the Duet) because it can do HD audio, the display will be useless.
All I need is a receiver, invisibility of the box is preferred.

[sckramer]

The screen off screensaver just turns off the backlight, it doesn't turn off the clock and sync sugnals to the display.

I could not hear any difference when the screen off screensaver kicked in.

John S.

do you think it could be shut off in software? should we make a request?

[peterw]

do you think it could be shut off in software? should we make a request?

Frankly I can't imagine Logitech spending any time on that is even folks as experienced and well-equipped as John don't detect any audible impact. Forgive my not dredging up the post, but I vaguely recall Sean Adams saying that the sb2 (sb1?) display actually had less audible impact on its brightest setting than when dark -- which suggests to me that changes you expect should help might actually make things worse.

[sckramer]

Frankly I can't imagine Logitech spending any time on that is even folks as experienced and well-equipped as John don't detect any audible impact. Forgive my not dredging up the post, but I vaguely recall Sean Adams saying that the sb2 (sb1?) display actually had less audible impact on its brightest setting than when dark -- which suggests to me that changes you expect should help might actually make things worse.

please read post #21, john was talking that the backlight off only does not make a difference, thanks!

[Phil Leigh]

please read post #21, john was talking that the backlight off only does not make a difference, thanks!

Yeah, well you can't turn off the LCD driver hardware in software...

I still can't measure any RFI/EMI from that screen. If there is any it is going to be VERY low level...

[peterw]

please read post #21, john was talking that the backlight off only does not make a difference, thanks!

Ah, OK. I'd talk to some modders then, like Patrick Dixon or Bolder Cable, they might like to provide mods like that. Also I think John may be wrong about needing the display to turn on remote access -- Touch (somewhat to my chagrin) supports running shell scripts with certain names if they're found on an SD card (or thumb drive?) when Touch boots. So if you somehow disabled remote access, you could almost certainly re-enable it via a shell script on an SD card.

[Ryssen]

I am interested in modding the Touch as I did with the receiver, to bring out I2S signals with LVDS drivers and bring in slave clocks from my Dac. This requires mounting LVDS driver and receivers in the vicinity of the Touch DAC or processor. In the receiver I was also able to mount a DVI connector on the box. It seems like the room for this may not exist inside the Touch. (The receiver is WONDERFULLY spacious)

John, you have the most experience with the insides of the Touch. Any room for such mods? If not, I will likely want to pull out the receiver circuit board to mount elsewhere (sacrificing the controller - I am very happy with SlimControl on my Windows phone and don't really use the Touch controller).

Actually, all I want is an upgraded receiver for 88.2K and 96K files...

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Jack Jones

Wich LVDS driver did you use for this?
I mean the I2S..

[JIJ3]

65LVDS31, from TI