Nice! Thanks andy! Ordered and should be arriving tomorrow

....and on the 8th day God created Visa...



Cheers

Cris.

Can the server software tell if if you have the same track in flac and mp3 formats and then automatically pick the flac version? I've tried searching but can't find an answer.

If two databases will be available in the new version I guess I can try to remember which files are mp3 only.

I've ordered one anyway, time will tell whether it'll get any use or not.

No, but you don't have to add the MP3 versions to the database if you're adding the Flac, if you take some care in how you organize your files and how you let Slim Center scan for music.

Groups of tracks make up an album and Slim Center will not exclude tracks from such groupings based on their format. If you had all your music in both formats it would likely make it easier to omit one format completely from the DB. But if you only have such duplication for some content, then it's a little harder.

There's probably one or more people in the Slim forum with such a setup though, and perhaps they've come up with a decent solution, including the possibility for some plugin to take care of the details for you. http://forums.slimdevices.com

Just to be explicit, there is no need to have SqueezeCenter* see both the FLAC and MP3 files, because SqueezeCenter can transcode from FLAC to MP3 on the fly. So clients that can't play back FLAC can get MP3 streamed to them instead.

* SqueezeCenter is the name that Slim Server changed to at version 7.0

The need to keep MP3 versions along side FLAC is generally to support portable players which have limited storage capacity and also may not support FLAC. Special care needs to be taken in this circumstance because Slim Center doesn't come with any built-in ability to make managing this type of duplication painless.

I have a lot of MP3 files downloaded from emusic, and these are mixed in with files converted from FLAC. I'll have to see if I can separate them out easily.

I'm thinking of going this route to replace my Soundbridge. I didn't realize when I bought it that it doesn't support ff/rewind. It is funny on the Roku forums the people defending this decision; they would also defend not having previous/next track selection!

The Roku products definitely had the "look" but they didn't have any software. Their products all suck to put it bluntly. For a long time it seemed like running SlimServer was the way to get decent streaming on your SoundBridge products.

I believe Soundbridge sales took a huge dive when Slim Devices introduced their newer lineup (SqueezeBox 3).

I'm not sure how everyone's market share is divided right now, but I believe Sonos is still dong quite well as they've always had a good balance of nice looking hardware and software.

Slim Devices is growing slowly but surely after its acquisition by Logitech.

Just use MediaMonkey to transcode to MP3 when it syncs with the device

It works ok with Itunes, but I wish it had two things: FF/rewind and the empeg way of going back to your last playlist by holding the "down" button. I hate scrolling around to get to the next album.

Install Slim Center and take a peek at its web UI. You won't be able to try its Now Playing portion unless you connect it to a software player (or Squeezebox), but navigating its album and artist lists will give you a good idea of the features of its DB navigation UI.

SqueezeCenter includes a software player: SoftSqueeze.

You're right. Just click on EXTRAS at the end of the menu in the left tab of the default web view. I thought you had to download it on its own. Especially since having announced that it will be replaced by SqueezePlay (which may be late). SqueezePlay will be both a player as well as controller UI.

I got my Squeezebox Boom today and its quite nice. I've got older Squeezebox units anyway so I've already got Squeezecenter running. Plugged it into my wired network and it did the usual Squeezebox detection steps. It needed to upgrade the firmware which took a couple minutes.

The actual unit oddly comes bagged in a cloth drawstring sack. I'd understand if it had the ability to be battery powered but not when it is a mains powered unit.

There are two annoying aspects however. First one is that the screen isn't particularly wide. The clock display is truncated when its a 2 digit hour and half the PM is off the side. The second one is that the casing is made from a glossy black plastic which is a dust and fingerprint magnet.

Apart from that I'm pretty happy with the unit. Pondering getting another since its a nice discount...

While the screen is narrower than the SB Classics, I haven't seen that clock problem you describe. Maybe you have some existing custom setting on SC that is giving you a wider clock display ?

Using the Music Information plugin it is possible to tweak the screen layout so that it makes better use of the Boom's limited screen width.

I too thought the bag was silly. However I have already used twice, once as a bag when transporting it to the office to use it there and also as a very handy cloth to clean off those finger prints and dust

Mine arrived yesterday and has already taken it's place on the bedside table replacing my old Roberts DAB radio.

First impressions are that it's wonderfully put together, and the software isn't half bad either. It reminds me of when I first got my empeg. I've installed SqueezeCentre on my MBP to try it out but I'm actually just using the SqueezeNetwork to run it on it's own for now. I'm getting a ReadyNAS NV+ next month so that will eventually host my music.

Sound quality is great and UI works well. Only gripe so far is that the headphone jack is on the back, it would've been really nice to have it somewhere more accessible. But the most impressive thing for me (which shows they've actually been thinking) is that even with headphones plugged in, the alarm sound still comes out of the speakers.

Maybe. I can't remember what the default clock setting is. I've change it to H:MM PM now and dropped the seconds which fits okay.

I ordered another unit for the kitchen.

Mine arrived today, already I want to order another.

Really nicely made bit of kit. Sound quality is pretty good too, as Andy points out. It actually has bass!!!!

Cheers

Cris.

That did cross my mind, although I'm struggling to think of another space in the house that I'd like to have music that doesn't already have a computer (so I can use SoftSqueeze) or a set of amplified speakers (I could just get a Squeezebox Receiver use my iPod as a controller with iPeng).

Yeah. The design whitepaper linked earlier in the thread has a block diagram which has a standalone DAC for the headphone/subwoofer output. Each speaker has its own DAC and amp as well.

Bathroom. Though I could be wrong and you're already using it as a second server room and theater.

The Boom is a perfect bedroom, bathroom and kitchen music appliance. Of course it can be useful in any room, but those are rooms that might not already have a dedicated stereo system like a den or family room/living room might.

I have two SB3 but only one is set up right now. I'd also like to get a Boom for my master bedroom, especially since we can use the multiple alarm features (my wife and I always get up at different times during the week).

Yeah. I'm using mine in the bedroom and kitchen.

What I want now is a SB3 with the buttons from a Boom that isn't huge like the transporter. It is handy to be able to just go up to it and push the buttons without looking for the remote.

There appears to be two iPhone/iPod apps that can control SqueezeCenter. iPeng and Squeemote. Anybody got any opinions on them?

I use iPeng and find it very good. I haven't used Squeemote, but from my reading it looks like it is lacking some features compared to iPeng.

iPeng also has some new features coming soon, including support for SqueezeNetwork and any plugin menus that work on the SqueezeBox controller.

Reading through the FAQ's they don't recommend using it there because of condensation. If I were going to do that I'd still go for a Squeezebox Receiver and some waterproof amplified speakers.

In my kitchen I currently have an airport express feeding a logitech 2.1 PC speaker setup. I don't think I really need a display. I can use my ipod or laptop to control everything.

iPeng it is then The author should make it easier to find in the App Store however. If I didn't know about iPeng from posts here, I wouldn't have known it existed and would have ended up with Squeemote.

If you search for "squeezebox" on the app store the iPeng is top of the list.

He does need to do some SEO though, he doesn't appear on the first page of "squeezebox remote" on Google.

Ah I know what I was doing wrong. I was just using the app name search and not letting it do the proper search.

I imagine some people probably never realise that tapping search and not just seeing the results in the auto complete does something different.