Finally Sold My Treasured Squeezebox Setup :(

[MikeekiM]

Over the years I've found that each change to my system re-energises my appreciation of music. Getting my first SB3 was such an event, probably the most significant over the long term, but adding my home-built speakers made a step-change in the sound, which set me off exploring my collection again. Subscribing to Spotify was another such event. Most recently, adding a home-built integrated amplifier, with separate channels for each speaker driver and a spare channel for a sub, has done the same again, this time giving me a new-found appreciation for the bass content in my collection!

Just curious - what was it that lured you away from your Squeezeboxes?

Honestly, it was a combination of things... The "perfect storm" of sorts...

Like @MeSue, my listening habits have changed. I wouldn't say that I have the same shift as her to podcasts, and other content, but my overall volume of music listening has dramatically decreased. And when I do listen to music, I no longer listen to my digital library. Most (read "almost all") of my music listening is casual listening via my Google Play Music subscription. Additionally, the locations/situations where I listen to music have shifted as well. I no longer listen to music on my traditional audio system. Most of my listening is in my car, or directly from my computer (with a reasonable set of PC speakers/sub-woofer attached).

So based on that, I really have not been lured away from my Squeezeboxes to another network music eco-system. I have been lured away from the need for a network music eco-system altogether (if that makes sense).

It doesn't help that my SqueezeBox Booms started to experience a number of different audio, hardware and physical appearance issues. The center soft-touch paint was starting to get very "tacky" to the touch on all of my booms. Some were very sticky, and others were starting to get sticky. This not only made it irritating for day-to-day usage, but also looked awful. One of the reasons I loved my SqueezeBoxes was that they looked fantastic. A couple of my boom displays became very dim. Again, adding to my frustration with day-to-day use, and appearance. And a couple of my booms had the infamous bass "fart" problem. I know I could have fixed this problem, but a combination of my changing use case, along with all the other problems I mentioned made it hard for me to get motivated to burn calories to fix the problems.

My duet controllers and receivers fared better. There are obviously no speakers, so "farting" was not a problem. But the controller batteries were losing capacity, and as I said, my use case did not include listening to music from my traditional AV rack.

AND...with all of the above...it didn't help that Logitech abandoned the eco-system. I know that the Squeezebox Network is still being maintained (and I applaud Logitech for making this investment for the existing installed base), but the lack of a future for the eco-system certainly did not help matters.

It really is a shame. I really did (and do) love the Squeezebox eco-system. It's a sexy and impressive set-up that I used to show off to all of my houseguests in the prime of my usage. I invested a lot of money and mental energy on the eco-system (and it did return a lot of joy).

But with the "perfect storm" that I described, I decided it was time to do some cost recovery and figure out "what's next".

Does that make sense? Sorry for the long explanation...

[TheLastMan]

My experience:

Bought our first Squeezebox Duet in 2008 for the living room, connected to my Naim amp. This prompted me to buy a NAS (Synology DS107) to run LMS (then SqueezeboxServer) and learn a whole lot about Linux and networking!
Bought our second Squeezebox Duet in 2009 for the kitchen. It became the default for listening to music in the house, the kids especially liked the Spotify integration.

10 years later and the main music listening done in the house seems to be via mobile phones and portable bluetooth speakers or headphones. Nobody other than me seems to be bothered about stereo!

The Duet in the living room is still connected, but I am the only one that listens to it. We have some active speakers in the kitchen that have Bluetooth and an RCA aux input that I use for a Raspberry Pi running PiCorePlayer. Again, I am the only one who uses the SB, everybody else uses the Bluetooth. They don't seem to be bothered that the connections are so flaky and their phone notification sounds are amplified. Most serious listening seems to be done privately on their telephones.

My twins are now 18 and about to go off to uni, and my youngest at 16 seems to spend most of his evenings out with friends or in his room doing homework. Because of this Mrs TLM has decided, just before our 20th anniversary and my 60th birthday, that this is the right time to dispense with her husband.

:-(

She has decided that she does not want to spend her retirement years with me and plans to buy a dog for company instead while she swipes Tinder. I am being shipped off to a small one bed apartment during a 6 month "trial separation". All reasonably amicable - but with great reluctance and sadness on my part. We get on OK, no rows, but she is just bored and thinks that getting rid of me and looking for a new bloke will make life exciting again! She is almost certainly right - but maybe more exciting in the Chinese sense than the fun time she is expecting.

Anyway, she is the one with all the cash, so will be buying me out of the joint property (assuming the trial is "successful"). I will then have enough to buy either a 2 bed flat if I decide to stay in London, or a small house if I move out of town a bit. She says she will be very glad to get rid of all my ugly hi-fi. Any replacement for Mrs TLM is going to need to be more accepting of my audio setup. In fact a shared appreciation of music and its reproduction is going to be a big factor in choosing Mrs TLM 2.0!

I will take the "plug ugly" Linn LP12, Naim amps and B&W speakers and leave her with a nice shiny plastic £30 Sony portable speaker for the living room. If I am feeling generous I might run to a £100 or so for Bose or UE box.

Wish me luck...

[d6jg]

My experience:

Bought our first Squeezebox Duet in 2008 for the living room, connected to my Naim amp. This prompted me to buy a NAS (Synology DS107) to run LMS (then SqueezeboxServer) and learn a whole lot about Linux and networking!
Bought our second Squeezebox Duet in 2009 for the kitchen. It became the default for listening to music in the house, the kids especially liked the Spotify integration.

10 years later and the main music listening done in the house seems to be via mobile phones and portable bluetooth speakers or headphones. Nobody other than me seems to be bothered about stereo!

The Duet in the living room is still connected, but I am the only one that listens to it. We have some active speakers in the kitchen that have Bluetooth and an RCA aux input that I use for a Raspberry Pi running PiCorePlayer. Again, I am the only one who uses the SB, everybody else uses the Bluetooth. They don't seem to be bothered that the connections are so flaky and their phone notification sounds are amplified. Most serious listening seems to be done privately on their telephones.

My twins are now 18 and about to go off to uni, and my youngest at 16 seems to spend most of his evenings out with friends or in his room doing homework. Because of this Mrs TLM has decided, just before our 20th anniversary and my 60th birthday, that this is the right time to dispense with her husband.

:-(

She has decided that she does not want to spend her retirement years with me and plans to buy a dog for company instead while she swipes Tinder. I am being shipped off to a small one bed apartment during a 6 month "trial separation". All reasonably amicable - but with great reluctance and sadness on my part. We get on OK, no rows, but she is just bored and thinks that getting rid of me and looking for a new bloke will make life exciting again! She is almost certainly right - but maybe more exciting in the Chinese sense than the fun time she is expecting.

Anyway, she is the one with all the cash, so will be buying me out of the joint property (assuming the trial is "successful"). I will then have enough to buy either a 2 bed flat if I decide to stay in London, or a small house if I move out of town a bit. She says she will be very glad to get rid of all my ugly hi-fi. Any replacement for Mrs TLM is going to need to be more accepting of my audio setup. In fact a shared appreciation of music and its reproduction is going to be a big factor in choosing Mrs TLM 2.0!

I will take the "plug ugly" Linn LP12, Naim amps and B&W speakers and leave her with a nice shiny plastic £30 Sony portable speaker for the living room. If I am feeling generous I might run to a £100 or so for Bose or UE box.

Wish me luck...

That’s shit.
Good luck

[garym]

Any replacement for Mrs TLM is going to need to be more accepting of my audio setup. In fact a shared appreciation of music and its reproduction is going to be a big factor in choosing Mrs TLM 2.0!

I will take the "plug ugly" Linn LP12, Naim amps and B&W speakers and leave her with a nice shiny plastic £30 Sony portable speaker for the living room. If I am feeling generous I might run to a £100 or so for Bose or UE box.

Wish me luck...

Sorry to hear of your troubled time at the moment. At my age I know lots of divorced couples (often happens when the kids leave home). And in 100% of the cases, after the initial pain (and its painful even if you want to do it), they are *all* much happier a few short years down the road. Good luck!

[chill]

Yep, there's a lot of it about. It shouldn't be a reflection on either of you. Remember the old saying: "Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed."

Good luck.

[TheLastMan]

Thanks for the kind thoughts guys. The reason I am so reluctant and sad is I actually really like my wife and honestly don't want us to break up. I saw the kids moving away as an opportunity to spend more time together and rekindle our relationship which has become colder and more distant; smothered in the organised chaos of managing three demanding teenagers. Not the kids fault, obviously, but we have just focused too much on their welfare at the expense of our relationship. However, she obviously has been having other ideas.

Lesson for anyone who has acquired children recently, make an effort to drag your wife away from the kids as much as you can, so you can spend time together, no matter how reluctant she is too leave them. Deposit them with relatives or grandparents for a week and fly off somewhere. She may spend the first couple of days texting and phoning them, but it will be worth it.

She asked for the separation 18 months ago, took off her wedding ring and moved into the spare bedroom, but I persuaded her to wait until the twins were 18 and had finished their High School exams and were back from various post-exam travels. The time since she asked has been very difficult. I have tried really hard to make her life as easy as possible, doing most of the laundry, shopping and cooking, so she can take up hobbies and "find herself". I still have some hope that she will miss me more than she thinks during the separation. Hoping for the best but planning for the worst.

Despite the obvious signs, the children seem to have no idea what is up. My apartment becomes available in mid-August and we are planning to tell them then. That is one conversation I am REALLY not looking forward to!

Also not looking forward to starting all over again - particularly at the age of 60, but trying to remain positive.

Sorry I have taken the thread so far off topic!

Back to Squeezeboxes...

[TheLastMan]

Yep, there's a lot of it about. It shouldn't be a reflection on either of you. Remember the old saying: "Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed."

Good luck.

A bit of truth in that, although I think it is more that courting couples are more inclined to ignore or tolerate the annoying parts of their partner's behaviour, and become less tolerant once the rose tinted veil of new love falls away.

The quote I have in mind is from Richard Bach (author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull)

“If you love somebody, set them free. If they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were”

Although I am the one physically leaving, I am setting my wife free.

A couple of good sources of help for new relationships, before they start to have problems.

A book, "Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts ", Travis and Aronson. Actually I would say a "must read" for everybody! I cannot recommend it strongly enough, it has changed my behaviour and how I view the world. I wish I had read it 20 years ago (but it wasn't written then!)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1780662653/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_H8hkDbQ33YAKP

Also, any stuff by Alain de Botton, but particularly his lecture at the Sydney Opera House "On Love" - available on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-iUHlVazKk

I haven't managed to persuade Mrs TLM to look at either, which is a shame.

Sorry, I really will shut up now!

[Retailbroker]

Boom to sell

So I have a Boom to sell. I loved it but not a techie. Wifi in my house where it was was tough. Worked fine by router but lost streams in my bedroom. Bought an Ocean Digital which works great in bedroom - at least does not drop stream. Is Ebay the best place to go?

Well, I have been hanging on for quite a while now... And I had a LOT invested in the Squeezebox platform...

But sadly, it was time for me to part with my treasured Squeezeboxes... Truth be told, I decommissioned my Squeezebox setup years ago, and this hardware was just sitting around collecting dust and losing value.

For those of you who are curious on what I was able to get for my Squeezeboxes in the open market, I will share with you what I was able to cost recover through eBay.

• SqueezeBox Boom #1 - $100.00
• SqueezeBox Boom #2 - $100.00
• SqueezeBox Boom #3 - $85.00
• SqueezeBox Boom #4 - $102.00
• SqueezeBox Boom #5 - $90.00
• Squeezebox Duet (Receiver/Remote Combo) #1 - $160.00
• SqueezeBox Duet (Receiver/Remote Combo) #2 - $160.00
• SqueezeBox Receiver (Extra for Duet Setup) - $70.00
• SqueezeBox Boom Remote (New Spare) - $25.00

All of the above selling prices are "shipped" prices, so they all need to be reduced to consider eBay Fees (10%), PayPal Fees (2.5%), and shipping. The duets cost me around $14.00 to ship, and the Booms cost me around $20.00 to ship.

Good luck to everyone... I enjoyed my Squeezebox set-up, but unfortunately, it is just time to move on...

[BJW]

TLM,

my advice: go get a sugar baby and parade her around your ex but pretend like u don't care and that you're surprised it upsets her.

u can't expect to win her back via pity or sentiment. no one wants to be a member of a club that would have them as a member. work on exclusivity!

play hardball and enjoy some sweet tart while ur at it.