After 15 years, the Squeezebox Touch Remains Undefeated!

I have very fond memories of these. Had them all over the house back then, along with a Transporter which later got the Modwright tube upgrades. Great stuff all around. 

I'm really surprised we haven't seen any dedicated audio brand come out with a big touchscreen based streaming player. Seems like that would have been an obvious niche to fill. I guess the newer Hifi Rose streamers come close with the big widescreen on front but it's not quite the same. 

For a while there, I had several Squeeze Boxes around the house in different systems. It was a great system for the time. It's a real shame that Logitech abandoned the product. 

After a while mine started to fail. With no support, I knew I would eventually have to abandon the system. Since streaming has come a long way. I still have my hard drive, with thousands of ripped CDs. Really good ones.

But there is very little on my drive that I cannot find on a streaming service. I use Qobuz, Tidal and Spotify. I love the sound and interface Tidal affords best for music.

Spotify has the deepest library and great algorithms that have helped me find new artists. Spotify is also great for audio books and pod casts. I use it in the car mostly, but also for listening to books when I am puttering around the house or doing a project in the garage. 

Qobuz sounds great and their unique interface, though the least intuitive, also gives me fresh insight into music that is new to me. Plus great sound. I have to say, as a classical fan, that Qobuz has a poor catalog of Classical music. Considering their format, I find that disappointing. 

I would love to have a top notch streaming setup. Something like Aurender (maybe someday). But I am getting excellent results from my WIIM Pro units. They are very inexpensive and function similar to the old Squeezebox. And I think they sound much better. 

Sadly, with Logitech shutting down their server, they long ago decided to abandon the SBT as a streamer.  However, as a standalone digital music player it is virtually impossible to beat.  It is truly a self-sufficient device, as I will never need wi-fi, a cell-phone / tablet, or anything outside of the unit to choose my music.  I can also play up to 24/192 digital files via EDO, and better yet, I don't need a network, ethernet, external RAID data storage, or run the latest version of unsupported LMS to handle that.  I simply use a 1TB USB stick plugged into the back of the SBT that contains all my FLACs.  As far as digital sound quality, I have had the Bolder digital mods done along with an upgraded linear power supply.  I don't think there is anything out there that has such a beautiful touchscreen and GUI with amazing music search capabilities.

So my experiment with a cheap touch screen was a total failure, it ended up shorting out my Pi 5 as well.  Fortunately the old SD card was salvageable and it "only" cost me another Pi 5.  Installation of the Ubuntu OS, and Roonbridge was pretty straightforward, again. 

I'm still going to try this, but next time I'll use an HDMI touch screen and stick to Ubuntu instead of trying to use Ropieee, mainly because it's a lot easier to install custom drivers on Ubuntu.  

Also, just FYI, the Linux 6.8 kernel appears to have fixed an HDMI bit depth problem.  It used to only "see" my receiver as 16 bit capable, but after the OS upgrade it now shows it as 32 bits. 

HDMI is not as good as ASYNC USB but it’s the only way I can avoid another ADC/DAC conversion step.