Logitech Squeezebox Touch Review

I don’t know what Caleb is on about with the price. What else will do the same job for less? In fact most everything out there that does the job -like the cambridge np30 are much more money. Everything he says about the good stuff is right on – acccess to thousands of internet radio, organized in a variety of ways, I have my thousands of CD’s on a server in the basement and I can search using an app on my blackberry (or the built in screen) by artist, genre, album title, song title, or even just flip through the album covers on screen. Unlike Caleb I did not find the analog output bright. I have hooked up the digital out to an outboard dac (emotiva xda-1) and hooked up the analog out to the analog in on my preamp. Switching back and forth numerous listeners could not pick out a difference or identify which was which. – and this is through the $14,000 linkwitz orion speakers. I think the form factor makes people view this as a digital device in the same category as an ipod, This is a powerful piece of electronics. It’s not perfect, I would like a bigger screen, and maybe a different form factor. There are upgrades to it out there that I may try sometime but I think this is an underrated piece of hi-fi gear.

I just helped my nephew put together a system – a squeezebox touch ($260), feeding directly to an onkyo m282 power amp ($130), then a pair of magnepan mmg speakers ($600), with a 500 GB outboard harddrive where he rips and downloads his music to ($100). So for a total of $1100 he has a real audiophile system that sounds better than many I’ve heard for several times that.

Rating: 9 :: 3 out of 3 people found this user review helpful.