Quote Originally Posted by Mike Anderson
^^^ I'm interested to hear what you think about the audio quality of the M-Audio.

BTW, re the Squeezebox -- I'm not sure what you mean by "addition software". True, you have to install the Slimserver program, but it's free, and you can actually operate it via iTunes (unless, like me, you're ripping your music in FLAC, which iTunes won't play).

What format are you ripping to?
Mike, I haven't done serious A-B'ing of the M-Audio versus my CDP, the Sony CE775, however I have no issues with the M-Audio sound, that is, I don't find it worse or better necessarily.

I recall that you have a Benchmark DAC which is great by all accounts, and presumably better than either of the above. Interestingly the M-Audio has a S/PDIF output so I could feed a stand alone DAC from it. I have no plans to do that except that I hope to get a Behringer DEQ2496 one of these days.

Sounds like I might have misunderstood the Squeezebox software requirement; I though it preclude the use of an iTunes front end. (BTW, I'm using Apple Lossless format.) In any case, it's not a cause for regret for me: the M-Audio was about half the cost of the Squeez and works fine.