Logitech Squeezebox Touch Wi-Fi music streamer

*Lusts*

This looks like the natural successor to the Squeezebox 3, which was just under £200 at launch if memory serves. Fifty quid more for a touchscreen (and a newer better DAC perhaps?) seems not all that unreasonable. Having an integrated (and usable) method of control is a big plus as well, saves you having to hunt for the remote when you want some tunes.

A tough, unobtrusive little unit that does its thing simply and well. I'm always tempting myself to get another SB3, but this is looking like a serious contender for a wee bit more of my hard-earned.

hmmm

looks like a mightily expensive alternative to the o2 joggler, which is running at 49 quid right now.

Review FAIL?

Unfortunately this review fails to cover possibly the biggest difference between the Touch and the previous generations of SB devices. You do mention that you can add music from a SD card andt he Logitech page says "Access your music and photos directly from USB drives and SD cards" but fail to cover how this works. My understanding was that the Touch was running an embedded version of the Server software which the wiki seems to confirm: http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Squeezebox_Touch_as_a_Home_Music_Server

If you added your whole music collection on either a USB hard drive (or a large SD card) the Touch can supposedly operate as the server for itself *and* up to two additional players. ie - eliminating the need to run a NAS drive or leave a PC on all the time.

It would have been really nice to know what performance was like in this scenario as I think this opens the product up to a whole new class of users. This also completely (IMHO) changes the value for money vs the Duet. Additionally, the Duet remote has been rather superceded by the rather excellent 'iPeng' application for iPhone/iPod Touch.

@AC 18.04

Now that is an extremely interesting comment.

There was nothing in the reviewer notes or user manual that Logtech sent me about the unit being able to function as a server, nor did anything obvious show up when I plugged an SD card or USB key into my review unit - it simply opened up a menu to access the media on it.

Sadly my Touch has already gone back to Logitech but I will ask them what the deal is and update this comment or the review.

Part of me wonders if this was something planned for the Touch that never made it to the final production version - the Touch was due to be released in the third quarter of 2009 but was delayed by nearly 6 months.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Alun

the Touch is Logitech's latest

Cue fruity lawsuit in 3... 2... 1...

SB Touch

Had mine for a few weeks now. Great device, so far pretty stable. The review failed to mention the other apps available, like Napster. You don't buy a device like this unless you like music, and the SB Touch combined with a basic Napster subscription makes a compelling argument. The inbuilt SB Server makes this device very different from SB devices or a Sonos system. You just plug in a USB stick or drive, or an SD or SDHC card, it scans the device and then all the music can be searched for, browsed and played with no lag - no PC, NAS needed. The Internet radio function is not unique, but well implemented, and there are plenty of UK stations available with virtually no lag when switching stations. Sign up to a free squeezebox account, and you can even control the device from your PC or laptop if the remote doesn't grab you! At this price it's hardly an impulse buy, but it's very good.

Output

Nice set of outputs, but are they all line-level, or can you drive a set of mini-speakers off them directly? The only place I am ever likely to use this is the bedroom, where I really don't have the space for a big 'proper' HiFi, or any desire to buy one just to make this work. On the other hand, if it can drive a pair of passive speakers, that's another thing.

Touch as Server

Logitech has just confirmed to me that the Touch does indeed run a cut-down version of Squeezeserver and so can be used as a server for up to 3 other Squeezeboxes. Still not sure why the feature is getting less publicity from Logitech than a red-headed stepson, but there you go.

For those interested the relevant section of the Slim Devcies forum (which needless to say I shall now be reading avidly!) can be found here;

http://forums.slimdevices.com/forumdisplay.php?f=34

What are the alternatives?

I have all of my music on a Synology NAS running it's own itunes server, and what I'd like is almost this Logitech product, but with a built in speaker so it would be truly portable around the house.

Any products out there to recommend?

@ firedog

Fair comment, I should indeed have made more of the native support for 24bit/96Khz sampling.

Incidentally, if any Squeezebox owners have Android handsets I can recommend this..

http://www.squeezecommander.com/

Well worth the asking price.