thomsens wrote:
I'm not following you here. high-end usually means you obsess about
quality. It is trivial to get better sound quality, don't use MP3. Use
FLAC.
If you don't care about the last percent or two, why bother with
high-end, just get something decent, say some $600 speakers and a AV
receiver. Plug your SqueezeBox into it, and be happy.
Not sure I follow your logic. Point is that transporter connected to a
decent system very clearly approaches the other sources.
The point is that using MP3, you are throwing away all the stuff that
makes High End, be high end. There is no point in trying to improve the
speakers, amp, or make the change from SqueezeBox to Transporter, the
weak link is the MP3 files.
A Transporter is a good source in a $5000 up system.
It is a waste of money if the rest of your system is not up to the
standard. And using MP3s means there is nothing a Transporter can do
to restore what you've thrown away making MP3s.
Look, it is simple. MP3s sound "pretty good".
They are more than adequate for a lot of people's listening 100% of the
time. They are adequate for a very large percentage of people's
listening casually.
But "pretty good" is not what 'high end' is about. It is about making it
be real. Not real electric guitars distorting their brains out, but real
as in a jazz singer's voice, or an acoustic guitar. Or piano.
You can get "pretty good" for a lot less than the $2000 that a
Transporter costs. You can get a complete "pretty good" system for the
$2000. Maybe "very good" to 99% of the folks who listen to music.
That is not what audiophiles look for in a high end system.
The reason I haven't used FLAC is for portability. It's
more important for me to be flexible than to have that extra %.
Then be happy with mid-fi. Save your money and spend it on more music,
more women, more booze, etc.
A $600 system isn't in the ball park - didn't follow you there. And of
course you wouldn't buy a transporter with that system.
SO what is your budget? My point is that you can get all the quality
that MP3 files have, extract it all, with a system with a total cost of
less than the Transporter.
If you are thinking about spending $5000 or more, which is the entry
point for most "high end" stuff, than you should stop thinking about MP3.
Since disks are so cheap, you can have all of your music twice, once in
FLAC and once in MP3 for very little money. Terabytes of disk storage
cost about what a Transporter costs. This would hold several thousand
complete CDs in FLAC and MP3.
--
Pat
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html
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