Re: [slim] New (Logitech) Squeezebox
There's more to it than that, though - every modern electronic device is the result of a truly international effort, incorporating components and sub-assemblies made all over the world. "Made", "assembled"... it's all the same thing. The Chinese "manufacturing" operation amounted to no more than sticking components made all over the world onto boards. Looking at the big picture, that particular part of the assembly process is no more or less significant than the wafer fabrication (think Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia...), mining the raw materials or the final assembly and test, wherever that may have been. To qualify as 'made' in the USA, would you expect that the aluminium ore had been mined there? Or that the plastics were derived from oil on US territory? How about the tin in the solder? Is there really something so special about where the electronic parts were soldered to a PCB, as opposed to all the other manufacturing processes involved in making a complete electronic device? Why? -- AndyC_772 ---- AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35899 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] How do you use your Squeezebox/Transporter?
A poll associated with this post was created, to vote and see the results, please visit http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=36061 Question: When you listen to music, do you connect to Slim Server or SqueezeNetwork? - a) 100% of the time to Slimserver (on computer or NAS drive) - b) 75% of the time on Slimserver / 25% on SqueezeNetwork - c) 50% of the time on Slimserver / 50% on SqueezeNetwork - d) 25% of the time on Slimserver / 75% on SqueezeNetwork - e) 100 % of the time on SqueezeNetwork Don't live365 stations tend to use mp3PRO, which the Squeezebox can't really handle? Anyway: I probably spend about 80% of the time listening to my own music from a NAS drive. Typically I buy a few new CDs at a time, then listen to them over and over until I'm fed up, then go out and buy some more. So, I use the Browse>New Music feature all the time. If I fancy a change, often I'll use random song mix instead - it breaks up the monotony and can help me rediscover music I forgot I had - so it sounds 'new' in some sense too. The other 20% of the time it's a Shoutcast station. I keep its URL on one of my favourites so it's always easy to tune in to. However, a few weeks ago its URL changed, so my favourite stopped working - and I assumed the station was off the air. It wasn't until I browsed the list of available stations to find it again that I realised what had happened. So, it would be nice if the Squeezebox could store the name of the station rather than just the URL, so it would have a chance of retaining the link even if the server moves? Just a thought. -- AndyC_772 ---- AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=36061 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] New (Logitech) Squeezebox
sixofone;208750 Wrote: > Im sufficiently irked to register and post to this form for the first > (and probably last) time. There really is no need to be irked (IMHO). What Slim Devices have done is absolutely the normal, accepted, legally correct way of labelling their product - namely, to identify the country in which the _last_ major manufacturing operation took place. They have to apply this label to comply with international import/export regulations, it's not necessarily anything to do with national pride. The individual components (chips, display, metalwork, PCB etc) are made in factories all over the world, and that doesn't change depending on whether they're all finally screwed together in the USA, China or anywhere else. Stating ANY single country of origin for a complex electronic device is therefore a bit of a misnomer - they are all the result of a great deal of international co-operation. The fact that the parts are soldered to the PCB in China really is a very small part of the big picture. -- AndyC_772 ---- AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35899 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] New (Logitech) Squeezebox
Wasn't the Psion Wavefinder just a plug-in DAB radio for a PC? It always struck me as a pretty pointless little gadget, one which would never be able to overcome the fundamental problems that DAB coverage was poor (especially with a tiny little indoor aerial), and that even with a good signal its sound quality sucks. I doubt that DSG had much to do with its failure. Ron: I hear what you're saying, but it's a point of view that I typically only hear from manufacturers, not one that I often hear from companies which do the product design. My own experience with Chinese manufacturing has been very positive. Yes, they do try to substitute components, but I've always been given the opportunity to check specifications properly first and to approve or disallow them. Typically any changes are made for ease of availability, rather than a cynical attempt to shave off a few pence here and there, but as design engineer I can always insist that specific components are used in critical positions where they matter. It's certainly not something that the end user of the product should have to worry about. It's not just labour costs that are much reduced, but component prices too - a Chinese factory making thousands upon thousands of products has much greater buying power than a small company making batches of a few hundred at a time, even on components that are unique to a low volume design. Whilst I'd agree that cost savings aren't guaranteed, once a design is stable and there's reasonable volume, they can be very substantial indeed. -- AndyC_772 ---- AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35899 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] FLAC Streaming
Odd... it definitely should work. I listen to FLAC files on my SB3, streamed wirelessly from my ReadyNAS NV+ all the time - it works a treat. The only time I get dropouts is when I run an rsync backup of my laptop's hard disc, which uses up both wireless bandwidth and ReadyNAS CPU cycles. -- AndyC_772 AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=36032 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] New (Logitech) Squeezebox
Agreed. If it were me, I'd be talking to John Lewis (a chain of department stores that typically have good audio & video sections and, in my experience, intelligent and well trained staff), and hi-fi chains like Sevenoaks and Audio-T. -- AndyC_772 AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35899 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] New (Logitech) Squeezebox
I disagree. TiVo can control Sky and Freeview boxes, and once they're set up, the user doesn't even have to worry about the medium over which any given channel is transmitted; they all appear in the same EPG and the unit selects between sources automatically. Freeview wasn't really an issue at the time anyway - cable and satellite were the usual sources and it handles those just fine. In fact, TiVo's ability to integrate with external video sources was just one of the features that put it streets ahead of most other recorders at the time. I guess that goes to confirm my point - great product, shame just how few potential customers realised quite what it could do. -- AndyC_772 ---- AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35899 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] New (Logitech) Squeezebox
JimC;207874 Wrote: > in the U.K., we will be featured in the "Digital Home" section in the > largest UK electronics retailer. > Well, I wish you all the very best with that - but I'm pretty sure that was one of the main reasons TiVo failed so completely over here. Like the Squeezebox, it was one of those wonderful gadgets that has the potential to really transform how we experience home entertainment. I still have mine and love it - nothing else has come close. BUT, it was sold through clueless retailers, who had no real idea what it was, or why it was better than a VHS recorder at half the price or less. In the store where I bought mine, the demo unit wasn't even switched on. And if the store staff don't understand it, their chances of explaining it to the even more clueless public are nil. With that in mind, I think the Squeezebox will be a tough sell. It's many times more expensive than many CD players, and it needs a computer switched on all the time, and you have to rip all your CDs to a hard disc and organise them somehow, and set up a network... convincing the average joe that all that cost and effort is worthwhile certainly isn't a job for the non-tech-savvy. If my experiences this week trying to buy a new TV are anything to go by, that's what you're dealing with. You know this already, of course - but please don't underestimate the magnitude of the challenge ahead. They won't just fly off the shelves like a cordless mouse... :( -- AndyC_772 ---- AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35899 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: Transporter. �Boom� at power on/off.
Free Lunch;201230 Wrote: > I really think a high end device like the Transporter must control > transient behavior on the outputs . And if it can't be fixed > in firmware/software than there should be a free hardware fix offered. How would you feel if such a fix, which by definition must alter either the analogue circuitry or the power supply, had an effect on sound quality? IMHO that's a trade-off that hi-fi designers must make. We all know that simple designs with short signal paths are desirable for the best quality; adding a soft-start/shutdown circuit is adding extra complexity in critical circuits. If you'll pardon the expression: There is no free lunch ;) -- AndyC_772 ---- AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35155 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Speaker wires identical length?
It's nothing to do with delay - the sound travels a lot faster along the cable than it does from the speakers to your ears. Keeping the lengths similar is to do with matching levels between left and right. Provided your cable is thick enough not to attenuate the signal significantly, I'd be surprised if you hear much difference. Unless you have a perfectly symmetrical listening room, I'm sure there will be greater differences between L and R than are due to any mismatch in speaker cables. -- AndyC_772 ---- AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=33218 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
