Squeezebox Replacement

[Sonata8068]

I've realised I do most of my listening on Tidal. So I need to upgrade my streaming side of things, currently a squeezebox duet with external linear ps in to a M2tech Young dac with Paul Hynes ps. This does not sound anywhere near as good as my cdp (Densen B420). I think the squeezebox is the weak link. I've been looking at the Innuos Zen Mk2, any other suggestions? I want to remove my reliance on my pc as music server and Internet radio provider.

[Fi-Wi]

Because Spotify dropped their Squeezebox support, I purchased a Bluesound Node 2 as a replacement for my SB Touch (well, in fact both SBT and the Node 2 are connected to my Bushmaster II). I think the SQ of the Node 2 is an upgrade compared to that of the SBT and lossles streaming services as Tidal and Qobuz are native on the Bluesound.

I really love this device that connects easily and streams hi-res audio. Have a look at it, maybe it suits your needs.

[Gazjam]

Hi Brian,
An Oppo 103 bluray player had Tidal built in and can feed your Young Dac from its coaxial out.
Sounds great, ran one myself for quite a while and would be a noticeable jump compared to your Duet.

Another suggestion could be an Squeezebox Touch?
Its digital out into your Young will sound great too.

[Edward]

The Zen box you mention seems to have a great deal you don't need for streaming Tidal such as an optical drive and a massive 2tb drive. Also you may also be locked into whatever operating system the Zen has on board. Personally I would look at a fanless NUC (or similar) with windows 10 to provide flexibility. Combined with Tidal and Roon you will have a winning combination. In fact this is what I'm running at the moment. :)

But the Zen looks like a lovely unit, well built and attention to detail. £1,500 seems steep just for streaming Tidal, but reasonable with all the other options.

[Stratmangler]

Because Spotify dropped their Squeezebox support ......

If you insist on running the Squeezebox Touch as a stand alone unit then you're quite correct, and you're screwed.
However, Squeezebox still handles Spotify.
A new app, titled "Spotty" was written and incorporated into recent versions of LMS, which means you need to run LMS on a PC, Mac or Pi.

I bought a RasPi 3 starter kit, installed piCorePlayer on it, and had the thing up and running LMS in 15 minutes, and it has been working faultlessly since.

As piCorePlayer has Squeezelite built into it you can also use it as a rendering device (ie Player).
Fit a decent HQ DAC board, or a decent HQ SPDIF board and you can get excellent sound quality for less than the cost of a Squeezebox Touch.

[Stratmangler]

Hi Brian,
An Oppo 103 bluray player had Tidal built in and can feed your Young Dac from its coaxial out.
Sounds great, ran one myself for quite a while and would be a noticeable jump compared to your Duet.

Another suggestion could be an Squeezebox Touch?
Its digital out into your Young will sound great too.

My Squeezebox Touch sounds great running into the Young DAC's little brother, the EVO DAC.
And I performed the same upgrade on my EVO as Gaz did with his Young.

As far as streaming services go, LMS has apps for Spotify (as already mentioned), Tidal and Qobuz.

[carruthersesq]

I used to run a SBT but now use an Auralic Aries Mini and have to say it’s a superb device. One note of caution I would add is that the brilliant app only runs on IOS, so if your an android user you may struggle.

[Liffy99]

I run LMS on a. Vortexbox (dedicated ripper / streamer / nas) that handles my FLAC library and streams Qobuz (like Tidal but suits my tastes better). this then connects over the wifi to a SB Touch (kitchen) and a Raspberry Pi running Picoreplayer into my Lyngdorf / DAC.
All sounds good. Vortexbox going soon as now migrating my music to Mac ( no point in having two music servers).