The GOAT of music streamers (Spotify, Tidal, SoundCloud, Deezer & more)

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Interesting, thanks. I still use hardware from a similar vintage - a Netgear EVA8000. It does what I need (playing my music collection from an NAS - no interest in online services) better then anything more modern that I have seen so far. I've not tried a Squeezebox, but do like Logitech stuff in general. I like the idea of not having to have the TV on for the EVA8000, and having control via an app instead, so recently tried Volumio on a Pi. I found it pretty disappointing given the hype that seems at surround it. A very basic player compared to Netgear's 15 year old offering combined with a library managed by MediaMonkey. Maybe I should look into Squeezelite on a Pi.....

I had the squeeze Box duet and slim devices streamer, I upgraded my phone software to android jellybean and the Logitech app wouldn't work, I ended up going to Sonos.
It is bazaar Logitech quit the audio steaming market, especially now that it is common place to have streaming speakers like Sonos play 1 or era 300.
Logitech has had great success with computer speakers and gaming headphones they could have combined the two and be a Sonos competitor.

Love the video so much I bought a Squeeze Box Touch off of eBay for $191 after shipping and tax. I can't wait to get it in and add it to my setup. Thank you Darko for making the video for yourself 😉

And don't forget the clock display when the unit is in standby. Just replaced mine with an NAD M10 V2, which doesn't offer anything in standby.

I'm usung sbox touch more than 10 years. Any recommendation for replacement to get even better streaming sound quality?

I just wanted to say thank you for this video. I recently acquired a Touch for nothing but was at a loss as to what to do with it. I've now installed the server in Docker on my QNAP NAS and the system works great. Without you succinct and enthusiastic video I don't think I'd have made it my Bank Holiday weekend project...

I recently found a barely used Squeezebox Touch in an estate sale; purchased it and hooked it up to my vintage HiFi using the RCA outputs. Spotify is absent from the list of apps available in for streaming. How would I go about enabling my SBT to stream music from Spotify? I heard that Spotify terminated support for the SBT years ago.

@Darko Audio
Groove Salad Classic FTW! 😊

I still have a SBT with Remote...like new in the original box. Will need to get it up & running again now. :-P

I actually incorporated a SBT as my front end or "head unit" in one of my high-end car audio systems for several years.

I used the Toslink output to feed the digital input of an 8-channel output car audio DSP unit that provided independent custom crossovers (network filters), 31-band PEQ, Phase adjustment, and digital delay for each speaker & the subwoofer in the system.

It was a unique system that offered excellent usability and sound quality in that system. I used it in the car mostly with local storage on a USB drive, but Internet radio worked with my mobile hotspot.

Good times. Cheers

i used it everyday just perfect with my medium hi end system ;)

I have a Duet which has been giving me fits lately. Sometimes takes 15 minutes just to get it to turn on and connect. It’s gotten to the point where I bought a Wiim Pro to replace it. I have a SB radio that I have and it still works great.

I think tunelf tidal music converter is wonderful, I still use it! It is capable of downloading any song, playlist, album, or artist from Tidal and converting tidal music to several plain audio formats like MP3 and FLAC.

Logitech is just one more company that proofs that companies in our world are just financed by black rock and Vanguard and not customers. As long as they stay on the woke train their business is safe.

I still use this device :)

Couple questions...

1. As a controller, do you now prefer the Material Skin over iPeng on iDevices? Or is iPeng (or another app) superior?
2. I had no idea you could install Squeezelite on a Mac. I currently run LMS on my MacBook Pro, and use the UPnP Bridge plug-in to wirelessly connect to my recently-purchased WiiM Mini (which is connected to my Onkyo receiver via Toslink). Would running Squeezelite on the MacBook Pro somewhow eliminate the need for the UPnP Bridge plug-in (which is admittedly dodgy), or is that only viable if I were to connect the MBP to the Onkyo via wire?

I have a few Squeezebox 3 devices, absolutely gorgeous. They still work beautifully. I have Duets, they are a bit annoying. LMS the media server is a bit annoying too, but having used it for nearly 20 years, I now take for granted the fact I can decide to browse my music collection by Composer, or by genre THEN composer, or by conductor - works a treat for classical albums as you can imagine. In fact it's the only media server that allows such a level of customisation. It's not family-friendly, but I use it with Home Assistant which opens up new worlds of music control in the home, and make the whole system family friendly. It gets an A+ from me.

I've used iPeng for ages. Never loved it, I find the UI very poor. But it is really the only app for iPhone providing native support for LMS. The iPad on the other hand - no way. I use the excellent Squeezepad!

I think my Squeezebox Touch device is fantastic, I still use it, only because I prefer the artwork display over my Slim Devices Classic. I also have the hand held device with the display, forgot what it’s called :).

I have 8 squeezebox radios, linked as stereo pairs. So 4 wireless streaming battery powered speaker systems. They are in my kitchen, cellar, log cabin and bedroom. In addition to a squeezebox touch for the living room and two duet systems in other rooms. Logitech were absolute fools for dropping such a versatile and affordable system. I think having a dedicated server was the issue though as it seems to put off everyone I show the system to. What do they know though eh?

Loved the nostalgia oozing out from the host. I have squeezebox classic bought in 2006 and a logitech transporter. I use the transporter through NAD208 powe amp. Sometimes with an analogue equaliser too. Both of them sound great still today.

I have hit upon a treasure in their plugin called Radio now playing. It gives us access to many FLAC streams ranging from 846 kbps to 2400 kbps. Music never sounded so good. Hearing to streams is fun to have the old magical radio music going on and if they are FLACs, Bingo!

Bonjour , merci pour cette vidéo intéressante . J ai une bluesound que j avais achetée sur vos conseils . J ai une grosse librairie de plus de 5 teras . En décembre dernier , sans n avoir rien fait de spécial , un condensateur s’est retrouvé hors d’usage seulement 2 ans Apres l’achat et j en ai pour 261€ de réparation ! Ce n’est pas normal après seulement 2 ans de service ! J’en suis donc à me demander si je fais la réparation à un tel prix , ou si je me tourne vers un autre streamer…

I was a bit shocked to see you use the analogue outs of the Touch. When I first heard the Touch's audio many years ago I felt like I was listening to a cheap CD player and knew I had to invest in a DAC. Even my first el cheapo DAC 10 years ago sounded way better than the Touch's internal DAC, but now with asynchronous USB connectivity it's in a whole different league! You're just not getting the full potential of that baby.

I loved the squeezebox range and was gutted when they stopped it, but 10 years on I still use LMS on a Linux server and a touch into my headphone amp, it does everything I need and never felt the need to replace. My father in law has the same setup that I built for him and my second touch feeds his hifi equipment. Fantastic mix of local and online music

Got 2 squeezebox touches, and never felt the need to replace or upgrade. It's a classic and should be talked about in the same way a CD63 or a ZX Spectrum are, the best at the time and still bring a smile to your face.

(Except even better in that blind testing they really are still as good as you get)

Interesting. I bought mine when released and had it for years. It was set up really well. Loved it. Fantastic and made me love streaming. Moved on to a Yamaha WXC-50, and now have a WiiM Pro. The Yamaha is a really solid unit indeed. Great hardware and now, great software. The WiiM Pro sounds much, much better but the software is immature with bugs that drive me crazy but I know they are working on improvements. Their feedback system is great. Thanks for reliving the SBT, you are right. .

Bought mine in 2010. I was using it mostly as net radio player + Spotify, wasn't very much into ripping CDs. At some point Spotify support ended and so the Squeezebox ended up as a dusty living room watch. 3 years ago I got into streaming again with Tidal and rediscovered this really versatile, clever (+dusty) little thing sleeping on my sideboard falling in love with it more than ever before ♥️

Being new to this channel, I wanted to garnish the opinion of using Sony 1000mx4 earbuds with a DAP such as the Filo M11S?

Currently I’m using an aging Sony NW105, my preference would be to keep my music, FLAC format separate from my mobile device.

John - as per a comment below I have subscribed to you channel. Your experiences are almost identical to mine ; been a long time Slim Devices Squeezebox fan (I have 4 Touch, one classic and one series 2) and use Soma FM , iPeng, Tidal all the time. Weird to see someone treading the same path after so long ; I am not alone! I have paid attention to a lot of the streaming solutions over the last decade, but have to say I have not seen anything to compete with the LMS ecosystem. Am sure a $3k streamer would sound great but would it really be 30 times better than a Touch? Would not think so. I like the Swiss Army Knife model of the whole Squeezebox world. Guess one day the kit will die, and then I will have to migrate (never to Sonos!) but in the meantime Squeeze Stream On!

I never owned a Squeezebox but I did have an O2 Joggler running squeezeplay. I had a vortexbox for ripping CDs and hosting the server side for Squeezeplay. The O2 Joggler was a gimmick given a new lease of life as a squeeze interface

Like some musicians make a new album for them and still we love it.

Count me as a SBT enthusiast who was bummed when Logitech discontinued the service. At the time, I was busy ripping my CDs to FLAC to serve from LMS running on my Synology NAS. Synology broke the LMS compatibility with an upgrade a couple of years ago and I need to look into a solution. If I cannot find a fixed native application, your Raspberry PI/Samba solution is probably the way to go. Loved this video.

This was the video that inspired me to finally subscribe and like. I usually am not moved by anything or anyone but in studying the presenter’s request for my subscription I was made to evaluate something very personal within myself. My comment is simply an ovation and my subscription was long overdue.

Its funny you dislike the duet. I have two and love them. I even used to take one on skiing trips with a pair of audio engine A2's and the server running on a sony vaio ux-280 and the original ipad running ipeng for remote. We had great parties with it!

Can somebody think of a reason why DLNA sounds better than LMS in axactly the same chain? When I stream from the NAS to the Pi's (moode) USB-2 through to the DAC, DLNA offers better clarity, detail and separation. Switching to LMS introduces a sleight veil and collapsed soundstage. LMS is set to stream without volume control and without any transcoding for .flac

Best and cheap streamer is Fritzbox with external harddrive, smartphone and Chromecast Audio device.

All hail the glory of the Squeezebox Touch! One of the greatest audio products ever invented.

I recently bought a Squeezebox Touch and, to be honest, I am getting to the point where I wish I hadn't bothered. After many hours of tinkering I managed to get it to work with Spotify Connect and it sounded great but now the Logitech Media Server won't recognise the Touch for some reason but MySqueezebox does recognise it. I have spent hours trying to figure this out but am getting nowhere. I have never spent as much time on any piece of hifi kit in my life. I also managed to get Tidal to work controlled by the iPeng app which sounds very good but the iPeng interface is awful and Tidal Connect does not appear to be an option. Support is plentiful through the community but you need to sift through alot of nerd speak to make any sense of it. So I am left with a player which sounds great but offers a poor user experience and I may just give up on it if I can't get past this. Anyone else having a similar experience?
UPDATE: I posted this question on the Logitech Squeezebox forum and received some very speedy and helpful responses. I hadn't realised that you had to choose between Logitech Media Server (the preferred option) and MySqueezebox. All is working well now and I am very grateful for the input from the forum members. I've installed the Material skin which is a gamechanger on both mobile and desktop. The Squeezebox Touch sounds awesome and I am very happy bunny.

Thanks for covering this! I run the software from these on 3 raspberry pi's (two with HifiBerry Hats, one of those configured as the server/player combo you described) - works well. In the kitchen I have an older tablet that works as a dedicated touch interface similar to the original hardware. And +1000 for that Material interface. I found PiCorePlayer was a easy/simple way to get it all up and running.

Wiim Mini has had my Squeezebox Touch for breakfast last Tuesday. Went hungry after that poor meal until I managed to find some pristine ALACs fed through Airplay 2 to it....

Shout out to SomaFM!!! I love it! I have Groove Salad on most of the day via Roon. Been listening since 2000/1. Great to see them get some exposure! I've discovered so many favourites from SpaceStationSoma and DeepSpaceOne too! Check it out people!

Nice video, a bit of a blast from the past. I regularly check the market for potential alternatives should my squeezeboxes die at some point but to be honest, no.... Roon looks amazing but crazy high subscription fees kill it for me. I don't mind paying for software at all but investing in a system and then being fully at the mercy of that company in an either pay whatever price increase they want this year or effectively lose your streaming setup? Not for me. Same is true for volumio albeit being a bit more reasonably priced. Sonos? Too closed.

I'm running 2 Touch boxes, a Receiver fully headless and 4 self built clients based on raspberries with DAC on piCore Player (2 with screens, 2 headless with amps built into speakers) at the moment. Sadly the Boom stopped working for me as I can't get it to connect to modern Wifi setups anymore.

I wish some company would pick this system up and start producing devices again. I totally agree with you. Given that the hardware is 10+ years old and the software is also showing it's age, the system is still able to compete which is stunning. They really were ahead of the time back then. Too bad Logitech gave up on it after only 6 years. I really loved my UE in ears back in the day. Another company with great products Logitech bought to kill. I guess all of us Squeezebox lovers can be very very grateful for the Slimdevices folks open sourcing the backend. That way we can still use our devices even though they have been abandoned long ago.

Then again, maybe it was not all bad that Logitech abandoned the Squeezebox product line. Who knows what kind of subscription rip off Logitech would have invented by now. Their latest move selling the Radio under the UE brand with different software was not a step in the right direction. Who knows if new devices would have been compatible with the open source backend. The way it is, we can always build new squeezebox like devices and with some of the cases for the pi integrating a screen these come very close to the original touches.

I am, still using a touch, and have four new ones boxed in the cupboard :-)

Was looking to buy a Touch for my bedroom system and the price has just about doubled since this video was released, so thanks for that :(

Great that someone acknowledges the Squeezebox family of streaming devices. I run 4 of them through my entire house for more than 10 years now I think... I especially love the fact that I can use the squeezebox way to make lists (of lists) to store my favourites whereever they come from (internet radio, spotify, my own collection etc). Great user community too!!

I’ve been running Squeezeboxes since 2005 and still have 2 head units running…. I was using Twonkymedia server on a NetGear NAS such a great system… just going down the RasPi route now

Loved my Squeezebox Touch for well over 10 years and it’s still in use today. A remarkable little device, for many of us, that at once sounds good, relatively bug free, and at the same time doesn’t cost us anymore than the initial layout for the unit itself, to access our library in an easy fashion. Long live the squeezebox, what a great little streamer.

Nicee

I still have all 4 of them in service, the only change on the main system is that it feeds a MiniDSP Dirac processor via USB instead of doing D/A by itself.
Wonderfully robust and capable machines.

Thanks for the video ! I had my SBT collecting dust for years, the clip just bring it back to my attention. I was surprised that SBT can become a Spotify connect ? Is there a firmware updates for that ?
Thanks for help❤