This page started out as a simple way to get some system photos into a post on the Squeezebox Community forum, but has developed into a bit more for those who don't know what a Squeezebox is, or what you would do with it . . . So the non-SB hi-fi stuff is for the forum, the rest for the casual passer-by. I've tried to include as many useful links as possible. This only scratches the surface of a Squeezebox ecosystem, so further reading is essential if you want to go beyond the basics!
About Squeezeboxes
Squeezeboxes are music players of various types that play music files streamed from a computer source or online providers, as well as playing internet radio. Newer players can also display images, from Flickr for example. Developed by Slim Devices with help from a world-wide community of developers, the company was absorbed into Logitech - purveyors of keyboards, mice, webcams etc, with a dreadful side-ways scrolling product line on its awful website - to replace ageing music products. A lot of the resources from the Slim Devices community are retained, including a very active Forum and Wiki - both of which supplement very well the rather meagre documentation that comes with the players.
The Squeezebox System
In its simplest form, a Squeezebox player connects to a music source via ethernet cable or Wi-fi. The source can be your own computer (Windows/Mac/Linux plus some NAS devices, and others) running SqueezeServer, or MySqueezebox.com for online music.
Squeezeserver (SS) is the heart of the system. I run this on an Acer Easystore H340 Windows Home Server. SS for WHS installs as a native add-in to the server console (see image - click on all images to view a larger version). On a Mac you get a standard preference-pane panel. SS is a free download and doesn't need a player to work: a software player can run on the same computer (or other computer on the same network) to enable testing of most of the features.
SS allows almost infinite customisation of your system and players, via official and third-party plugins. You can set your displays up the way you want them, set alarms, change menu structure, and a lot more besides. You can even integrate with iTunes if you really have to (but the players don't play the Digital Rights protected music files you usually get from iTunes.)
Controlling the server can be done in many ways, but the usual methods are with the IR handset of some players or the Web interface of the server. The Duet bundle has a Controller device (which can control any player), and there is a very useful iPhone/iPad app called iPeng. This not only controls all the players, and displays album covers, but the latest version enables audio playback of your music library by the iPhone - effectively making it another player on the network. Currently my network has 6 SB players of various kinds - I'd need to move home to justify any more - but forum members (with bigger houses) report running 10 players or more. They can play independently or be synchronised to play the same playlist: ideal for parties . . .
The way the system works is that the Server controls every aspect of the players apart from decoding the digital stream. Buttons/knobs on the players transmit their operation back to the server, which then actions them and tells the players what to do. The Controller is a Wi-fi device that connects to the server and operates whichever player was chosen (as does iPeng). Once you select "play" the server pushes out the digital stream to your player to be turned into an analogue signal for amplifying.
iPeng screen shots (click to enlarge):
All the common music file formats are supported, but the biggest question here is quality: do you rip your CDs to lossy formats like MP3, or loss-less formats like FLAC. There's a good Wiki page on formats, but my take on this is: choose FLAC when you can. FLAC files are smaller than WAV files (what you get straight from a CD) but sound identical because even though they're compressed, no data is discarded - which is the case with MP3 files. Whether you can hear, or your system can resolve differences between a FLAC file and a high bit-rate MP3 is a moot point. But if you rip to FLAC, (which is a non-proprietry open-source format) and a super new format comes along in a few years, converting from FLAC gives you an identical file to the original CD (warts and all - "loudness wars", anyone?), while converting from MP3 gives you less data than the original.
Aside from CD and internet radio, downloads of music files are also a major source of files for the Squeezebox owner. There's iTunes of course, and Amazon has a great range of MP3s at good bit-rates. For quality though you can't beat HDTracks. Though their selections exclude current chart albums, there's an amazing range of record labels who sell via this site, and it's well worth checking out for going a bit off the beaten track or for classical music. A lot of albums are available in "better than CD" quality - 96KHz/24bit recordings - which Squeezeserver handles (downsampling for older players which only handle CD's 44.1Khz/16bit standard). A mention here, too, should go to Linn Records. This Scottish hi-fi maker's label is now distributing downloads for other labels, and again some are in high resolution formats.
My Squeezeboxes
I started with an SB3 (now called a Squeezebox Classic). With a simple display, analogue and digital outputs, and an infra-red remote, this got me hooked. Many months of CD ripping and tagging later, all my discs were boxed up and stored, and the amount of music listened to increased enormously. The ability to search for tracks and albums on the web interface and the ability to construct play lists transformed the way I listened. The slippery slope to equipping (almost) every room had started: just getting one is good, two or more are so much better!The SB3 is now used by my 11 year-old son in his bedroom. Hooked into a Cambridge A21 amplifier playing through some small Mission speakers its a system I'd have died for at his age . . .
Next along was a Duet. This is actually a two-part system consisting of a Squeezebox Receiver and Controller. The Receiver is basically an SB Classic without a display. A single light on the front indicates its status. Like the name implies the Controller controlles the Receiver - and any other players served by Squeezeserver. The Receiver was plugged into a small music centre in the kitchen: room no.2 to get the streaming music treatment. Now, however, the Receiver is in the study, plugged into kit retired from my main system. A Sonifex Redbox DAC (minus the rack mount front) goes into a Musical Fidelity X10v3 Tube Output Buffer, then an Audiolab 8000A amp and Tannoy Profile 633 floorstanders. The system makes nice audio playback for the Mac and PC computers on the desk (DVDs, iPlayer, MediaCentre TV etc). The PC runs Moose - another great way to control Squeezeserver. [Screenshots of Moose]
The pebble on top of the amplifier is my Shakti stone substitute; works just as well, but is a fraction of the cost . . .
A Boom arrived with a bang for a kitchen reorganisation following a house move; the first Squeezebox with a built in amplifier, digital signal processing and stereo speakers. This was genuinely a plug'n'play device. It sounds brilliant for such a small box, with really full-bodied sound. If you want more, there's an output for a sub-woofer to rattle the crockery. Slim Devices produced a detailed white paper [PDF] on the Boom's sound design for those interested.
A Transporter appeared with the house move and shuffling of devices. A full-width hi-fi component with audiophile grade DAC and other components, this is the heart of my main hi-fi rack along with the Michell Gyro SE turntable. Both of these feed into a Sugden Headmaster pre-amp/headphone amp (into which is usually plugged a pair of Sennheiser HD650 'phones). Line outs from the Sugden go to the Onkyo TSXR607 AV amp for speaker listening and to an M-Audio Transit USB ADC and thence to the Mac Mini in the rack for recording LPs to FLACs. The Mini, which is also used for TV "on-demand" from non-BBC channels, and the Transporter are on the network via a Homeplug device, as is the Foxsat PVR (above the Transporter) for BBC iPlayer. Also in the rack is an Oppo DV980H universal player for the small number of SACDs and DVD-A discs we have, plus of course DVDs and occasional CD ("gasp"). Hidden from view is a Graham Slee Era V Gold phono stage, taking its input from the Goldring 1042 mounted in the Tecnoarm of the Gyro.
I used to have some Kef floorstanding speakers, but now have some crystal clear AVI Neutron N5s partnered with a BK XLS300PR subwoofer. Rear speakers are Audica Pro Microlines, designed for commercial use but great sounding in themselves and ideal as rear channel speakers.
The equipment rack sits at the back of the room, with only TV and speakers at the front (and a Wii games console), and the sub off to the right. [More photos]
Last in were two Squeezebox Radios - for the main bedroom and my 7 year old daughter's room. A kind of Controller-with-a-speaker, this is neat and very clear sounding all-in-one SB solution.
What I don't have from the Squeezebox product line is a Touch. With a, er, "touch" screen and the ability to act as a server taking music from an attached USB drive, as well as controlling other players in the house, it is perhaps the simplest way into the SB way of streaming music. (Note to self - now, where could I use one?)
My Music
Playing music has never been easier - or keeping track of it, since not only is your collection indexed for searching by the server software, a third-party plugin can track what you do, or don't, play, and you can "scrobble" your track metadata up to Last.fm. My listening record since April 2008 has been recorded here, and scrobbles from all my players now almost total 40,000 tracks in just under three years. Over ten and half thousand tracks (285Gb of FLAC and MP3 files) live on my server, plus an unimaginable number of pieces coming from internet radio. RadioIO's Real Jazz stream is a particular favourite, plus Wyoming's Public Radio station Jazz Wyoming from Laramie. The iPlayer plugin serves current and recent BBC programmes.
A revelation of getting into the SB way of things was constructing playlists from "CD"s. I like to listen to the ways that different performances of the same piece of music are played. What would have been a laborious disc-swapping process - to play the five first movements of the same symphony for example - is now so simple. I've a playlist of about twenty different versions of 'Round Midnight. Admittedly a bit musically geeky, but right up the Squeezebox street. You want to play all your music by one artist? One click and it's done. When I'm fed up of so much ease, I put on an LP - the best of which can sound as good as, or better, than any CD - but that's another story . . .
![[More photos]](images/tp2.jpg){kind=link}
