M-Audio USB Transit VS Squeezebox Classic

[Ajani]

A Tale of Two Transports

My first HiFi move in 2010 was to separate my headphone rig from my speakers... This required purchasing an M-Audio USB Transit for use with my headphone rig and some RCA to TS Adapters for my speaker setup...

As you can see from my sig, I now have my Squeezebox Classic connected to my M-Audio Active Speakers.... and the USB Transit serving as transport for my Benchmark DAC1... My HP laptop is my music server for both setups (running Squeezebox Server and iTunes respectively)...

My first thoughts on listening to the New Headphone Setup were "SWEEEEEET".... I thought (crazy as it might seem to some) that it sounded better than when I had my Squeezebox as Transport.... However, being an Audionut, I knew such impressions could not go unchallenged, so I eventually motivated my lazy self to hook up both transports and do an on the fly comparison between the Transit (using Optical and iTunes) versus the Squeezebox (using Coaxial and Squeezebox Server)... My Optical Cable is some no-name cable from my computer store and my Coaxial is an Audioquest VDM-X (yep, a real fair comparison :) )

Anyway, going back and forth on my favorite tracks for about half and hour last night I found that I couldn't find any appreciable difference between the 2 Transports...

Now of course those findings could be due to the excellent Jitter Rejection of the Benchmark DAC1, so ymmv....

Now whether you should purchase either the Classic (replaced by the Touch) or the Transit, really comes down to your needs and budget... as they are very different products feature-wise...

Since I spend a lot of time at my computer and prefer to have my best setup (headphones) there, then the Transit was the better option... I also find it much better for streaming music videos from yahoo etc than the Classic, which has a time delay....

The Squeezebox is excellent for setting up a Hi-Fi system away from my computer (nothing beats a remote control for that job)...

[Feanor]

I guess you have different options. Beaware that I don't own any of the hardware so I'm relying on my sketchy recollection of documentation I've seen ...

Your current set ups are:

Headphone Rig
HP Laptop->M-Audio USB Transit->Benchmark DAC1->AKG K701 Headphones

Living Room
HP Laptop->Squeezebox Classic->M-Audio BX5A Active Monitors

Questions: Is your Squeezbox connect LAN cable or wirelessly? I guess your Benchmark isn't the USB version?

An important aspect is the significant difference between Transit and Squeezebox. The former is from iTunes via USB; the latter get its data stream from Squeeze Center (or whatever it's called these days) via LAN (wired or wireless).

There are two theoretical weaknesses of the iTunes + Transit route. First, on the Windows platform iTunes won't give you bit-perfect transmission to the Transit. If you were running, say, Foobar2000, or even WinAmp, you could use the Transit's ASIO driver, Kernel Streaming, or (on Vista) WASAPI player plugins, but iTunes doesn't support these options. Furthermore USB is considered a pretty jitter-prone interface, although using Transit's own drivers, particularly the ASIO drive, might mitgate this problem.

On the other hand, at least in principle, the Squeeze Center => Squeezebox via LAN route ought to give you both bit-perfect transmission and possibly lower jitter.



One interesting configuration would be ...
Squeeze Center (on the laptop) using the Squeeze Center's GUI interface (instead of iTunes) => Squeezebox via cable => M-Audio speakers using analog outputs, and => Benchmark using S/PDIF => headphones. Or you could manually swap the headphone and speaker cables on the Benchmark.


OK, but I guess the main problem with this would be that you really need the Squeezebox in the living room. So otherwise, given you priority for headphones, I would suggest:
Foobar2000 using Transit's ASIO driver (instead of iTunes) => Transit => Benchmark => headphones.

[Ajani]

Thanks Feanor... I just downloaded Foobar 2000 (plus installed their ALAC and ASIO drivers)... So I'm currently testing if I can hear any difference with iTunes....

[Ajani]

Questions: Is your Squeezbox connect LAN cable or wirelessly? I guess your Benchmark isn't the USB version?


I've used the Squeezebox with both LAN and Wireless... They are currently wireless (as I have strong reception in the Living Room)....

And yep, the Benchmark is the basic version....



I just installed Wasapi... much more convenient on Vista than ASIO (which was causing a number of blue screen of death headaches)... At times like this I miss having a MAC... but anyway now that it's up and running... it sounds sweet.... Foobar/Wasapi seems to be a bit of an improvement over iTunes and I really like the system muting with Wasapi....

[Ajani]

Well... time for another and possibly final update:

After a number of problems with the USB Transit, tonight's Blue Screen of Death was the final straw... So the Transit is now in my spare cable bag and it's back to the Squeezebox... I'll consider trying the Transit on my other laptop to see if it was a problem specific to my HP... But for now it's out of my system...

[Feanor]

Well... time for another and possibly final update:

After a number of problems with the USB Transit, tonight's Blue Screen of Death was the final straw... So the Transit is now in my spare cable bag and it's back to the Squeezebox... I'll consider trying the Transit on my other laptop to see if it was a problem specific to my HP... But for now it's out of my system...
M-Audio drivers can be flaky. I've had problems, e.g., my Revolution 7.1 ASIO driver doesn't work with Foobar on my HP XP machine.

[Ajani]

Time for an update:

I recently switched operating systems from Vista (which finally decided to start being a temperamental little b!tch) to Ubuntu (Linux)...

After some research on the Ubuntu forums to figure out how to install Squeezeserver and the M-Audio USB Transit, I got both working... Maybe not surprisingly, they both work brilliantly on Ubuntu...

So for now my setup is as follows:

Bedroom: Laptop running Ubuntu -> M-Audio USB Transit -> Benchmark DAC1 -> AKG K701

&

Living Room: Laptop running Ubuntu -> Squeezebox Classic -> Emotiva XPA-2 -> Technics SB-LX70K

[Feanor]

Time for an update:

I recently switched operating systems from Vista (which finally decided to start being a temperamental little b!tch) to Ubuntu (Linux)...

After some research on the Ubuntu forums to figure out how to install Squeezeserver and the M-Audio USB Transit, I got both working... Maybe not surprisingly, they both work brilliantly on Ubuntu...

So for now my setup is as follows:

Bedroom: Laptop running Ubuntu -> M-Audio USB Transit -> Benchmark DAC1 -> AKG K701

&

Living Room: Laptop running Ubuntu -> Squeezebox Classic -> Emotiva XPA-2 -> Technics SB-LX70K
Aj, I'm glad to you hear you've had some success with Linux -- I've tried it 4 or 5 time over the years and have always found it an masochistic exercise.

What player are you using in the Bedroom instance?

Further Linux, I have a space computer with which I might try Linux once again. What distribution would you suggest? I have a problem in that I used Windows Home Server to back up my files and also store some of my music files, (other music files reside on a dedicated music computer which is XP). Needless to say, WHS won't recognized a Linux machine.

I'm just going to toss this out there: does anyone know of a good DLNA computer-based client program? There are is and more DLNA-compliant hardware available: Blu-ray players, receivers, TVs, but I'm also interested in a computer-based client to try as an alternative to other music players such as Foobar, etc.

[Ajani]

Aj, I'm glad to you hear you've had some success with Linux -- I've tried it 4 or 5 time over the years and have always found it an masochistic exercise.

What player are you using in the Bedroom instance?

Further Linux, I have a space computer with which I might try Linux once again. What distribution would you suggest? I have a problem in that I used Windows Home Server to back up my files and also store some of my music files, (other music files reside on a dedicated music computer which is XP). Needless to say, WHS won't recognized a Linux machine.

I'm just going to toss this out there: does anyone know of a good DLNA computer-based client program? There are is and more DLNA-compliant hardware available: Blu-ray players, receivers, TVs, but I'm also interested in a computer-based client to try as an alternative to other music players such as Foobar, etc.

I'm just using the standard RhythmBox music player on Ubuntu 10.04... I'm still doing research on whether I need to change from RB or mess with any other programs/settings to get the best quality sound... But since RB just works I'm not anxious to start messing around with things...

You summed up Linux very well: it is an exercise in masochism... Getting Squeezeserver to run was just the first step. The next was figuring out how to get SS to access my USB HDD (which is where all my music is stored)...

Linux is great when it works, but it makes Microsoft look like Apple when it comes to being user friendly... I've never had to write a single line of code in Windows.. With Linux, I feel like I'm back in computer programming class....

[mlsstl]

Needless to say, WHS won't recognized a Linux machine.

Not true. There are several ways to accomplish this. One is Samba which allows a Linux machine to share files with a Windows machine over a network. My Squeezebox music server runs Fedora Core 11 and its entire music collection is available to my Windows machine (which has Adobe Audition for LP->CD conversion and other editing work) and the Windows box has no problem accessing the whole collection.

You can also setup a Linux machine as a file server. Or, you can install a ext2/3 driver program in Windows that will allow you to directly access a Linux file format USB drive. You can both read and write. The driver is Ext2IFS and it's a free download.

PS. One of the things that frustrates a lot of Windows users who try to use Linux is the issue of file permissions. Linux is far more sophisticated in this regard than the home versions of Windows. So it pays to study up on this issue a bit. Ownership and read/write/execute are related, but different issues.

[Feanor]

Not true. There are several ways to accomplish this. One is Samba which allows a Linux machine to share files with a Windows machine over a network. My Squeezebox music server runs Fedora Core 11 and its entire music collection is available to my Windows machine (which has Adobe Audition for LP->CD conversion and other editing work) and the Windows box has no problem accessing the whole collection.

You can also setup a Linux machine as a file server. Or, you can install a ext2/3 driver program in Windows that will allow you to directly access a Linux file format USB drive. You can both read and write. The driver is Ext2IFS and it's a free download.

PS. One of the things that frustrates a lot of Windows users who try to use Linux is the issue of file permissions. Linux is far more sophisticated in this regard than the home versions of Windows. So it pays to study up on this issue a bit. Ownership and read/write/execute are related, but different issues.
Misstl, thanks. Good information.

I'll give it some consideration but it's unlikely I'd go with Linux in any case.

Permissions is one of the issues I've struggled with with Linux. Once I install Linux and started to set up permission. I used a security setup UI that came with the distriubution and things looked under control. Then I wanted to change something; trouble was I used a different security UI, (that came with the distrib also), to make the changes. Turns out the two UI did things differently behind the scenes -- it took me hours to straighten out that mess.

[Dawnrazor]

M-Audio drivers can be flaky. I've had problems, e.g., my Revolution 7.1 ASIO driver doesn't work with Foobar on my HP XP machine.

Hey Feanor. I bet you could get the Revo 5.1 drivers to work. I have that card and have used on 2 different xp machines pretty successfully.

Heck once I even had that card work with the Audiophile 24/192 drivers, so it might be worth a try.