squeeze box upgrades

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07-03-2011, 01:08
wee tee cee

squeeze box upgrades

I need some advice on upgrading my duet.
what is the best route to take.
Upgrade the receiver or power supply.
I have recently made the transition from naim cd player as my front end to upgrading my dac to a mf m1 and utilising the duet.To be honest never thought I would move away from the silver disks but.... hey ho.
The wee power supply for the squeeze box duet receiver makes my system sound awfull if I plug it into my mains block with everything else.
On its own its ok.....would this be the first port of call upgrade wise,or a modified receiver.
wisdom greatly received
07-03-2011, 01:10
Stratmangler

Get a Touch, keep the controller and sell the Receiver.:)
07-03-2011, 08:42
wee tee cee

Pardon my ignorance but whats the difference.I rip all my cds at lossless is theyre an improvement in terms of power supply or internals.I havent any high bit rate files yet.
07-03-2011, 10:13
Stratmangler

General consensus on the Squeezebox forums is that the stock Touch is better than both the Receiver and the Classic (SB3), both as a transport and as a stand alone player.
07-03-2011, 12:11
WAD62

Quote:

Originally Posted by wee tee cee

I need some advice on upgrading my duet.
what is the best route to take.
Upgrade the receiver or power supply.
I have recently made the transition from naim cd player as my front end to upgrading my dac to a mf m1 and utilising the duet.To be honest never thought I would move away from the silver disks but.... hey ho.
The wee power supply for the squeeze box duet receiver makes my system sound awfull if I plug it into my mains block with everything else.
On its own its ok.....would this be the first port of call upgrade wise,or a modified receiver.
wisdom greatly received

I have 2 receivers and one SB3, I've had excellent results on my receivers using this as an alternative power supply...

http://www.maplin.co.uk/ac-dc-multi-...r-supply-32754

Set it at 9V for the receiver, really cleans up the sound, for both digital and analogue, best value for money upgrade I've made.

N.B. The blurb states 5V as an option too, however it only does 4.5V, so it's no good as an option for the SB3 or the Touch for that matter. One of the reasons that the stock touch sounds better is that it has an improved power supply over the receiver and the SB3.

The touch does have a better DAC and more oomph for transcoding.

There are a lot of receiver upgrades to be had from Audiocom, I believe one of the guys is a member here. Rather than upgrade to a touch I'm thinking of spending the money on an upgrade to the digital stage of the receiver I use to feed the DAC on my main system.

I prefer the aesthetics of the receiver ;)
07-03-2011, 13:29
wee tee cee

Will,
Many thanks,got my local maplin to put one aside for me.I will give it a whirl tonight.I will let you know how I get on.
Just out of interest what digital connection do you use ie co-ax or optical?
07-03-2011, 14:50
WAD62

Quote:

Originally Posted by wee tee cee

Will,
Many thanks,got my local maplin to put one aside for me.I will give it a whirl tonight.I will let you know how I get on.
Just out of interest what digital connection do you use ie co-ax or optical?

Hi Tony,

I use the coax, interesting you should ask as the second best value for money upgrade I've made after the maplins PSU was to buy one of these...;)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Belkin-pure-av...1#ht_500wt_990

I bought a couple of these new from a seller on ebay about a month ago, he was selling them for about £9 including postage.

I reckon the guy selling the one in the auction bought one too and is trying to make a profit, but there'll be others.

I kind of blundered into it whilst in this thread...

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8581

...if you read it you will see that I bought it inadvertently thinking it was a pair if RCA analogue cables, however thankfully I bought the wrong one and now it's resident between my receiver and DAC (Audiolab 8000DAX).

The combination of the Belkin cable and the Maplins PSU have made a major improvement in sound quality, the depth, soundstage, clarity...and all for less than £30....which is nice!

Probably shows how poor the SB receiver's standard SMPS supply is, along with how poor my old coax cable was too...;)
07-03-2011, 17:36
leo

PSU and clock gave me biggest gains imo followed by other various tweaking. Audiocoms Superclock4 is excellent, Paul Hynes and Teddy Pardo's psu's work great (tried both)

Some details on here if your into diy for the clock http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6499 for the psu http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3161 , socket and bybee http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5669
If your not into diy Mark at Audiocom is your man to speak to ,he's also a member on here, the Duet responds extremely well indeed to mods , if your not bothered about hi-res a fettled Duet takes some beating for the price.
Certainly ditch supplied SMPS, its pretty poor tbh
07-03-2011, 17:51
magiccarpetride

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stratmangler

Get a Touch, keep the controller and sell the Receiver.:)

Before you sell the Receiver, be kind and remember to do the factory reset. Otherwise, the person who buys it from you will have a hell of a time trying to get it to connect to their network.
07-03-2011, 20:13
WAD62

Quote:

Originally Posted by leo

PSU and clock gave me biggest gains imo followed by other various tweaking. Audiocoms Superclock4 is excellent, Paul Hynes and Teddy Pardo's psu's work great (tried both)

Some details on here if your into diy for the clock http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6499 for the psu http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3161 , socket and bybee http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5669
If your not into diy Mark at Audiocom is your man to speak to ,he's also a member on here, the Duet responds extremely well indeed to mods , if your not bothered about hi-res a fettled Duet takes some beating for the price.
Certainly ditch supplied SMPS, its pretty poor tbh

Cheers for the info Leo...

Given the improvement I've experienced with the maplins PSU, I'm quite tempted by the receiver upgrades, particularly for the digital out side of things, the clock upgrade does sound interesting...:)
08-03-2011, 10:35
wee tee cee

I picked up the maplin psu and plugged it in played one tune,then went out on my motorbike to give it a couple of hours to come up to tempreture.I am delighted with what it has done.My room is quite bright sonically and any harshness in a recording is highlighted.The psu has done a lovely job of calming things down.It cant turn shite into gold recording wise,but in a night of listening it didnt get caught out.
Will,Like yourself I have settled on the co-ax,I use a flashbacksales one sounds an awful lot nicer than the mark grant optical I have been using.I think I will try to get a belkin and maybe a lorad co-ax to tune things.
The audiocom mods look very interesting,need to save my pocket money.
08-03-2011, 11:11
WAD62

Quote:

Originally Posted by wee tee cee

I picked up the maplin psu and plugged it in played one tune,then went out on my motorbike to give it a couple of hours to come up to tempreture.I am delighted with what it has done.My room is quite bright sonically and any harshness in a recording is highlighted.The psu has done a lovely job of calming things down.It cant turn shite into gold recording wise,but in a night of listening it didnt get caught out.
Will,Like yourself I have settled on the co-ax,I use a flashbacksales one sounds an awful lot nicer than the mark grant optical I have been using.I think I will try to get a belkin and maybe a lorad co-ax to tune things.
The audiocom mods look very interesting,need to save my pocket money.

Glad to hear the PSU worked for you too, I managed to get mine for £12.99 so it's even more of a steal, given that there are other options on the market for hundreds, it may not be the best, but it's certainly the best value ;)

I actually started a thread on the subject on the SB forum, but was treated a little like a witch!!! :lol:

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=84932

It would appear that most people use the SPDIF over the TOSLINK, I certainly prefer it.

With regard to the Belkin I'm pretty sure it highlighted the fact that my previous cable was rubbish. My DAC has BNC inputs so I was using a bog standard BNC to BNC with an BNC/RCA at the receiver end. Now with the Belkin I have an RCA/BNC adapter at the DAC end. So the Belkin may not be an improvement on your current one, but it seems like excellent value for money if you can get one for £10...

P.S. I've tried having the BNCs changed on my DAC but it doesn't seem financially viable...

I'm interested in the upgrades too, my collection is all standard resolution FLAC, and I reckon if I spent the cost of a touch on upgrading my main receiver, it would most definitely out perform a touch, for digital output anyway.

My other receiver and SB3 are the sources for mini systems, and are perfectly acceptable for that purpose as they are...;)
08-03-2011, 15:55
wee tee cee

Will,
I am over the moon with the psu,its sounding better and better.Regards your connections to the dac you could do an awful lot worse than have a look at flashbacksales website.He does all manner of cables and will custom build stuff for very reasonable money.I have all my cable made up with his premier stuff and honestly have tried it against stuff ten times the price and wasnt dissapointed.Both my sons dac majic and my own musical fidelity dac have xlr out, the premier cables on mine into 5 pin din and my sons phonos sound terrific.He does bnc coax at very reasonable money.Thanks again for the psu advice.
All the best Tony.
08-03-2011, 16:18
WAD62

Quote:

Originally Posted by wee tee cee

Will,
I am over the moon with the psu,its sounding better and better.Regards your connections to the dac you could do an awful lot worse than have a look at flashbacksales website.He does all manner of cables and will custom build stuff for very reasonable money.I have all my cable made up with his premier stuff and honestly have tried it against stuff ten times the price and wasnt dissapointed.Both my sons dac majic and my own musical fidelity dac have xlr out, the premier cables on mine into 5 pin din and my sons phonos sound terrific.He does bnc coax at very reasonable money.Thanks again for the psu advice.
All the best Tony.

Cheers Tony, I'll check them out :)
08-03-2011, 17:16
Stratmangler

This is an excellent S/PDIF cable http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Pr...dio-Cable-3-6m
10-03-2011, 09:09
WAD62

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stratmangler

This is an excellent S/PDIF cable http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Pr...dio-Cable-3-6m

Cheers Chris, I was lucky enough to pick up one of the Belkin pure white 1M coax's from ebay for £9, but I'll bare that in mind for the future :)
10-03-2011, 09:18
Stratmangler

Quote:

Originally Posted by WAD62

Cheers Chris, I was lucky enough to pick up one of the Belkin pure white 1M coax's from ebay for £9, but I'll bare that in mind for the future :)

NINE QUID ! NINE QUID !! :eek:
They saw you coming , mate :lolsign:
10-03-2011, 09:26
WAD62

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stratmangler

NINE QUID ! NINE QUID !! :eek:
They saw you coming , mate :lolsign:

Well £7.95 plus postage...outrageous! :lol:

The worst thing was I thought I was buying a pair of analogue interconnects :doh:

It's nice when you blunder into success :lolsign: