Better Logitech products than the Squeezeboxes

[mortslim]

Here's a favorable review of the Logitech bluetooth boombox that compares Airplay and bluetooth quality:

"Despite the recent attention AirPlay speakers have received, this speaker demonstrates precisely why Bluetooth options will continue to be viable for the foreseeable future"

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/rev...ne-ipod-touch/

As far as I know, bluetooth is just another digital form of transmission, a series of 1's and 0's. That being the case, the quality of the audio is not determined by the bluetooth format, but rather by the quality of the digital to analog converter in the product. Logitech has put in high quality converters, as far as my ears can tell.

[pippin]

As far as I know, bluetooth is just another digital form of transmission, a series of 1's and 0's. That being the case, the quality of the audio is not determined by the bluetooth format, but rather by the quality of the digital to analog converter in the product. Logitech has put in high quality converters, as far as my ears can tell.

No, that's not entirely true.
While this is theoretically true of Bluetooth, it's not generally true of Bluetooth Audio. Bluetooth Audio uses it's own codecs to encode and decode the audio before and after the transmission and these can be VERY lossy.

CAN BE, because there ARE better ones but only very few devices support them and to be used BOTH the sending and the receiving device have to use these better codecs or Bluetooth falls back to the default ones which are actually even much worse than mp3.

Bluetooth for audio is NOT just a transport like ethernet or WiFi, it's a system that includes audio conversion.
The same is true of AirPlay, but AirPlay these days uses the lossless ALAC codec.

So while you could build a Bluetooth connection between two computers that just acts as a network and transmits whatever file format, that's not what Bluetooth does if you connect audio devices.

[aubuti]

Here's a favorable review of the Logitech bluetooth boombox that compares Airplay and bluetooth quality:
<snip>
As far as I know, bluetooth is just another digital form of transmission, a series of 1's and 0's. That being the case, the quality of the audio is not determined by the bluetooth format, but rather by the quality of the digital to analog converter in the product.

No and no. That article is comparing AirPlay and Bluetooth players. For these all-in-one devices the bulk of the difference in sound quality most likely comes down to fundamentals like the built-in amps and speakers. The DAC and wireless protocol are loose change in comparison. It may well be that the Logitech Bluetooth device sounds better than many AirPlay devices -- they probably learned a thing or two when making the Boom. But it says nothing about superiority/inferiority of the wireless protocol or the DACs.

[Mnyb]

No, that's not entirely true.
While this is theoretically true of Bluetooth, it's not generally true of Bluetooth Audio. Bluetooth Audio uses it's own codecs to encode and decode the audio before and after the transmission and these can be VERY lossy.

CAN BE, because there ARE better ones but only very few devices support them and to be used BOTH the sending and the receiving device have to use these better codecs or Bluetooth falls back to the default ones which are actually even much worse than mp3.

Bluetooth for audio is NOT just a transport like ethernet or WiFi, it's a system that includes audio conversion.
The same is true of AirPlay, but AirPlay these days uses the lossless ALAC codec.

So while you could build a Bluetooth connection between two computers that just acts as a network and transmits whatever file format, that's not what Bluetooth does if you connect audio devices.

.....and that is another reason for squeezeboxes , a transmission protocol designed to be lossless and bit-perfect and respect the source quality all the time .
Not many other devices do that at this price level , there are ofcourse a bunch of specaliesed hifi streamers ,but the are to expensive and have other limitations .

The masses don't care much for soundquality so other practicallities always trumps soundquality in such devices

[Gingernut63]

The masses don't care much for soundquality so other practicallities always trumps soundquality in such devices

That is the key statement for most music delivery systems. Most people just want to hear music, much like the old days of listening to a transistor radio. The majority of people on this forum want high quality audio delivery, but we are a small percentage of the heaving masses. Personally I'm a pragmatist. I want high quality for my HiFi and I'll accept lesser quality for my portable units. You are also spot on regarding usability. That is why people like Airplay because it just works. That is why people bought 3 in 1 music systems of years gone by. That is why Squeezebox has not been accepted universally because it is a bit too complicated for the average listener.

Finally, I think it's too early to give up on Logitech and the Squeezebox product family, but I don't want to go into more details in a public forum at this time.
Let's just say that there might be more things going on than what's visible in this public community forum.

A ray of light perhaps? You have piqued my interest.

[MeSue]

FYI, that Logitech Boombox wireless speaker is on 1saleaday for $90 today.
http://1saleaday.com/flash/984-00018...h+08%2F07%2F12

Also this one for $50:
http://1saleaday.com/flash/980-00058...h+08%2F07%2F12

I'm thinking of getting one for a vacation place we are buying (hopefully...).

[fuzzyT]

On 8/6/12 7:36 PM, pippin wrote:
>
> Bluetooth Audio uses it's own codecs to encode and
> decode the audio before and after the transmission and these can be VERY
> lossy.
>

From what I understand, there are also issues with digital fidelity
when using AirPlay. Audio-only AirPlay streams are encoded using Apple
Lossless for transmission, regardless of the original source format.

So, the AirPlay receiver should get the same bitstream that the sender's
DAC would see. But, at least in the case of the AppleTV device, there
are only digital audio outputs (optical) and that output only supports
48kHz. So, all 44.1kHz audio is resampled to 48kHz before output. And,
you need an outboard DAC or you will be relying on the DAC in your
receiver/amp.

I don't know what the other AirPlay receivers are doing as far as
transmission encoding, internal decoding, resampling and D/A conversion,
but I'd want to see these details before committing to a solution like
this for my main system.

I do own an AppleTV, and occasionally stream audio and video from an
iPhone or iPad for playback, but this is mainly just for convenience in
playing back something I've found on the web. Most of these sources are
*far* from pristine. They do sound better through the big system than
they do on the device outputs (excepting headphones), but I wouldn't
consider this as a solution for regular audio playback.

[vw195]

The biggest factor for Squeezeboxen for me is that they are dedicated devices with good sound quality.

For me its a bit of a pain to turn on bt, pair, switch to music app etc. Its much more simpler just to hit play on the device or unplug my radio and drag it all over the house.

And I love my boom in the kitchen.

I wont buy anymore without a sign that logitech is going to support the line though

[maggior]

The biggest factor for Squeezeboxen for me is that they are dedicated devices with good sound quality.

For me its a bit of a pain to turn on bt, pair, switch to music app etc. Its much more simpler just to hit play on the device or unplug my radio and drag it all over the house.

And I love my boom in the kitchen.

I wont buy anymore without a sign that logitech is going to support the line though

I agree.

Whether a squeezebox or a BT speaker system appeals to you depends on what your PRIMARY music source is. If you are a high school or college kid, it's likely nowadays that your primary music source is some protable device like an iPod, andriod phone, tablet, etc. For those people, the BT speaker system would best suit their needs. For the rest of us, the squeezebox is the best fit.

I've actually started using BT Audio (A2DP) in my car (2012 Volvo S60) with my Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2. I was VERY surprised by the audio quality. My ears can't tell the difference between this setup and my old 80 GB iPod hard wired into the iPod interface. Both devices have mp3 made with LAME at default settings (~190kbps I think?). So even though there is reencoding of a lossy source going on, it still sounds really good...in a car environment at least. Now when I had the trial Sirius/XM subscription, that was horrible!!! To my ears, it wasn't too much better than AM radio. So the audio system in the car can be revealing.

It may be that I'm just lucky that the Samsung/Volvo combo results in a high bit rate transcode.

[erland]

Whether a squeezebox or a BT speaker system appeals to you depends on what your PRIMARY music source is. If you are a high school or college kid, it's likely nowadays that your primary music source is some protable device like an iPod, andriod phone, tablet, etc. For those people, the BT speaker system would best suit their needs. For the rest of us, the squeezebox is the best fit.

Completely agree and this is also the main reason why a BT (or AirPlay) solution isn't going to work for me personally, I need a single source -> multiple players/controllers solution (like Squeezebox/Sonos) and not a single source/controller -> single player solution (like BT or AirPlay).

I've actually started using BT Audio (A2DP) in my car (2012 Volvo S60) with my Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2. I was VERY surprised by the audio quality. My ears can't tell the difference between this setup and my old 80 GB iPod hard wired into the iPod interface. Both devices have mp3 made with LAME at default settings (~190kbps I think?). So even though there is reencoding of a lossy source going on, it still sounds really good...in a car environment at least. Now when I had the trial Sirius/XM subscription, that was horrible!!! To my ears, it wasn't too much better than AM radio. So the audio system in the car can be revealing.

Have you tested or do you think you would be able to hear difference between a lossless file and a 190kbps MP3 in the car environment ?

Just asking to get a feeling how good your car audio environment is, because if you can't hear difference between a lossless file and a 190kbps MP3 a bluetooth solution might be good enough because there might be other components limiting the system more than the bluetooth does.

I'm personally fairly sure that both MP3 and bluetooth is good enough for a lot of people, the question is just if it's good enough in a listening room setup for people that really care about audio quality. For bluetooth to replace Squeezebox in my home from an audio quality perspective, its really important that it at least doesn't result in that my FLAC files sounds like MP3's or even worse.