Squeezebox product range being discontinued (?)

[johnb]

It looks as though the Squeezebox product range is being discontinued by Logitech. The devices are no longer listed on the Logitech website and the view in the Logitech forum is that Logitech are scrapping them and going for something simpler .

Squeezebox was always an uncomfortable fit with the rest of the Logitech range, though they did introduce the excellent Touch, so I suppose this shouldn't have been totally unexpected.

Anyone with a Squeezebox product and who mainly uses it to play music from their HDDs should be all right for many years to come. Probably the 3rd party developers will also continue with their very valued contribution for some time but it is likely that they will eventually become disheartened and their attentions will drift elsewhere.

So what to do?

Existing users should be fine for many years to some.

If someone had been thinking about taking the plunge and getting, say, a Touch - there is still merit in doing so as the Touch is still an outstanding bargain, but they will have to be quick to snap one up before existing supplies run out.

For anyone thinking of buying additional Squeezebox products to expand with their existing system needs to act before retailers run out of stock.

[Globaltruth]

It looks as though the Squeezebox product range is being discontinued by Logitech. The devices are no longer listed on the Logitech website and the view in the Logitech forum is that Logitech are scrapping them and going for something simpler .

Squeezebox was always an uncomfortable fit with the rest of the Logitech range, though they did introduce the excellent Touch, so I suppose this shouldn't have been totally unexpected.

Anyone with a Squeezebox product and who mainly uses it to play music from their HDDs should be all right for many years to come. Probably the 3rd party developers will also continue with their very valued contribution for some time but it is likely that they will eventually become disheartened and their attentions will drift elsewhere.

So what to do?

Existing users should be fine for many years to some.

If someone had been thinking about taking the plunge and getting, say, a Touch - there is still merit in doing so as the Touch is still an outstanding bargain, but they will have to be quick to snap one up before existing supplies run out.

For anyone thinking of buying additional Squeezebox products to expand with their existing system needs to act before retailers run out of stock.

Thanks for the info John - somewhere on their forum is a series of posts from me predicting similar due to the number of different ways of skinning that particular sound cat including now heavily discounted Sonos & inevitably AirPlay & its integration with Apple products. I stuck with it because I do like perfectly synchronised music throughout the house - main benefit, although Sonos does it too.


It doesn't give me much pleasure to be proved right - there are some good guys developing the software, and their iPlayer support was pretty good. I hope theyll find somewhere good to go.

I've just bought a £15 solution which allows me to load a USB stick with mp3/WMA & play it thru my car FM radio at an acceptable quality...That's what they're up against.

[amateur51]

Oh the joys of being a worry-free technopeasant

[johnb]

I use my Squeezebox Touch to:-

- Play captured aac, mp3, mp2 files through my audio system.
- Use cue sheets so that I can divide a single aac file (in a m4a or mp4 wrapper) into tracks (i.e. works, announcer, etc)
- Play iPlayer and Spotify through my audio system (using Triode's plugins)
- Play ripped CDs and downloads (up to 24/96)
- Play music without having to have a noisy PC in the room
- Bypass the Windows Mixer and the (usually) poor quality PC sound cards.
- Play files sitting on my HP Proliant Microserver (running Linux ubuntu)
- I am just about to attempt to get Digital Room Correction software running on the Logitech Media Server software that feeds the Touch. (This should iron out the peaks and troughs in the bass region caused by a less than ideal listening room.)

I'm not sure that there is a replacement product that will do all that. There are devices that do some of those things, but often at much, much higher prices and, often with restrictions.

So, I'll stick with the Touch for at least a few years. (I am also debating whether to buy a second Touch as a reserve, in case of hardware failure.)

(Incidentally, for anyone thinking about getting a NAS it is worth considering the HP Proliant Microserver. The normal price is around £220 but HP do regular £100 cash back offers which lower the price to around £120. It is built like a tank, has more processing power than a NAS. It comes with 1 250GB drive and three unoccupied bays but no operating system - some users have installed Windows Home Server, others have used Linux. I installed the free Linux Ubuntu - my first foray into Linux.)

[VodkaDilc]

Oh the joys of being a worry-free technopeasant

Are they talking about accordions? I sometimes like to listen to them.

[Globaltruth]

I use my Squeezebox Touch to:-

- Play captured aac, mp3, mp2 files through my audio system.
- Use cue sheets so that I can divide a single aac file (in a m4a or mp4 wrapper) into tracks (i.e. works, announcer, etc)
- Play iPlayer and Spotify through my audio system (using Triode's plugins)
- Play ripped CDs and downloads (up to 24/96)
- Play music without having to have a noisy PC in the room
- Bypass the Windows Mixer and the (usually) poor quality PC sound cards.
- Play files sitting on my HP Proliant Microserver (running Linux ubuntu)
- I am just about to attempt to get Digital Room Correction software running on the Logitech Media Server software that feeds the Touch. (This should iron out the peaks and troughs in the bass region caused by a less than ideal listening room.)

I'm not sure that there is a replacement product that will do all that. There are devices that do some of those things, but often at much, much higher prices and, often with restrictions.

So, I'll stick with the Touch for at least a few years. (I am also debating whether to buy a second Touch as a reserve, in case of hardware failure.)

(Incidentally, for anyone thinking about getting a NAS it is worth considering the HP Proliant Microserver. The normal price is around £220 but HP do regular £100 cash back offers which lower the price to around £120. It is built like a tank, has more processing power than a NAS. It comes with 1 250GB drive and three unoccupied bays but no operating system - some users have installed Windows Home Server, others have used Linux. I installed the free Linux Ubuntu - my first foray into Linux.)

Interesting tip about the NAS, I bought a Netgear & wouldn't recommend it - noisy, hot & performance was abysmal. I might hack it & turn it into an Ubuntu server -any tips? Where did you download it from?

Your use of Squeezebox is sophisticated - as you can see from the comments, their products are too technically demanding ( and too infinitely configurable) for most users who quite rightly demand plug-and-play functionality. Nowadays I do too.
If Logitech had developed a works-straight-out-of-the-box product a few years ago they may have stood a chance.
The tragedy is I believe they thought they had done that with the Boombox...

I've got one of those & a Duet (dates me I know). When the Logitech kit fails or is no longer maintained (Triode seems to have to regularly tweak the BBC plugins - hope he sticks around) i will hope reasonable converters have arrived to let my lovely Quad speakers be used for AirPlay (Griffin have pre-announced a converter but not delivered which is odd) & solve the synch requirement with either Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil or standard IoS 6 (rumoured to be a new feature)

[johnb]

The ubuntu OSs for desktops and servers can be downloaded from here. (I created a bootable CD containing the server OS and then used it to boot the Microserver.)

As Netgear NAS devices are already linux based I'm not sure whether there would be any performance advantages in installing ubuntu.

In any case, it would be a good idea to backup your existing setup on the NAS in a way that enables you to revert to the original Netgear system. Linux takes a bit of getting used to and the server version doesn't have a graphical interface but by using Samba and Webmin you can access most features from a Windows PC.

When installing ubuntu I used a guide I found on slimforums and updated it with my own experience. You are very welcome to a copy - though you might already be a Linux guru.

[Globaltruth]

The ubuntu OSs for desktops and servers can be downloaded from here. (I created a bootable CD containing the server OS and then used it to boot the Microserver.)

As Netgear NAS devices are already linux based I'm not sure whether there would be any performance advantages in installing ubuntu.

In any case, it would be a good idea to backup your existing setup on the NAS in a way that enables you to revert to the original Netgear system. Linux takes a bit of getting used to and the server version doesn't have a graphical interface but by using Samba and Webmin you can access most features from a Windows PC.

When installing ubuntu I used a guide I found on slimforums and updated it with my own experience. You are very welcome to a copy - though you might already be a Linux guru.

The Netgear NaS uses Large Frames as a packet size - I think these get fragmented during transmission & are therefore a prime cause of poor performance. I believe Ubuntu doesn't -will confirm that & if true will use your link, thank you. If i get stuck I will gratefully accept your offer of doc.

This is of course exactly the trouble with Squeezebox kit - takes up too much time.

[johnb]

I am an raw novice with Linux, and I know you will have already thought of this, but if I was going to install ubuntu on a NAS that was already set up with an OS and HDDs full of data, and perhaps running some version of RAID, I would make absolutely sure that I had a backup of everything beforehand - a backup that I was certain could be used to restore the current configuration and data.

[johnb]

Globaltruth,

Just a thought, if the main problem you are having with your Netgear NAS occurs when LMS is transcoding to a format acceptable to your player one (admittedly time consuming) solution might be to transcode those files to FLAC. Other solutions might be to run LMS on a PC, using the music library on the NAS, or to invest in a NAS, server, etc which is capable of doing the job.

I think it is a bit unfair to blame your Netgear problems on Squeezebox. The cheaper end of the Netgear NAS range is reputed to be woefully underpowered to run the LMS.

[Globaltruth]

Globaltruth,

Just a thought, if the main problem you are having with your Netgear NAS occurs when LMS is transcoding to a format acceptable to your player one (admittedly time consuming) solution might be to transcode those files to FLAC. Other solutions might be to run LMS on a PC, using the music library on the NAS, or to invest in a NAS, server, etc which is capable of doing the job.

I think it is a bit unfair to blame your Netgear problems on Squeezebox. The cheaper end of the Netgear NAS range is reputed to be woefully underpowered to run the LMS.

That's a thought - I bet I could find some software to transcode it semi-automated.

No, It absolutely wasn't my intention to blame Netgear performance on Squeezebox - apologies if that's how it read.

I moved from NAS to a tiny cheap little net book from Asus & an external HDD- no perf. Probs at all. I just want to get some use out of the NAS which is currently switched off...thanks again for the suggestion - probably the simplest & lowest risk.

[johnb]

Are you running LMS 7.7.2? For what it's worth, I've seen some reports that it performs better on Netgear NAS boxes than some of the earlier releases (and it is very stable).

From time to time I do bulk file conversions which I automate as follows:

- I first find command line utilities to perform the tasks I need (e.g. faad to decode aac to wave, FLAC to encode to flac, Mp4Box to create mp4 or m4a from aac (and vice versa), FLVEXtractCL to extract aac from flv, etc)

- Then get a list of all the files I want to process by creating a batch file called, say, "list_files.bat" containing the following, and running it from Windows Explorer:

dir "Y:\music\*.aac" /s/b > F:\Music_Misc\aac_files.txt
PAUSE

- - this lists all aac files (with their full paths) but can be changed to list any filetype
- - "Y:\music\" is the bottom folder of the directory tree where the files are and the enclosing double quotes are to take care of paths and filenames which contain spaces.
- - "F:\Music_Misc\aac_files.txt" is the full path to the text file that I the list written to
- - the /s enables it to search the subfolders and the /b just lists the files, without header details or sizes, etc.
- - PAUSE lets you to check for any error messages before the window disappears

- I then import this list into Excel and use a text formula to construct the command lines I need and then, finally copy those over to Notepad and create a batch file (a file ending in ".bat") which I run from Windows Explorer.

If it is any help I can upload a small Excel file giving an example to a file sharing site.

[Globaltruth]

Are you running LMS 7.7.2?

I'm avoiding LMS upgrades as long as poss - think I'm still on 7.4....were there any probs when you upgraded?

[johnb]

I too have been very cautious about upgrades since being caught with 7.6.0 some time ago but 7.7.2 is very good. There are a couple of features associated with cue files that (as far as I know) haven't worked work since 7.6.0:

- cue files no longer work with mp2 files (though they work fine with flac, mp3, m4a, mp4, etc, etc). This can be got round by converting the mp2 files to flac and editing the filename in the cue file. Mp2 files still play without a problem, it is only the cue files for them that don't work.

- if you browse your music via the folders and if there is a music file plus an associated cue file in a folder neither of them will play. Browsing via Album, Artist, etc or searching all work perfectly. Of course, this is only an issue if you use cue files and then only if you browse via the folders.

The consensus seems to be that 7.7.2 works extremely well and is very stable - certainly that is my experience. Also scanning times are significantly reduced compared to versions pre 7.6.0 (probably because it uses a different database engine).

There shouldn't be any problems with upgrading as long as you uninstall your current version first (to ensure a clean install) and your tags/artwork are in good order.

PS From memory, I think one of the features that have been introduced after 7.4 is 'seek' for m4a/mp4 files, i.e. you no longer have to play them start to finish and they can be used with cue files.

[johnb]

Just thought I'd mention that the HP Proliant Microserver (that I mentioned earlier) seems to be, once again, on a £100 cash back offer. Some online retailers are offering this server for as low as £200 (£100 net of the cash back)! This seems to be a remarkable bargain.

The full scan time on my older and slightly slower Microserver (running the free "Ubuntu Server" OS) is slightly less than on my 2.9GHz 7 core desktop and the response times for searches, etc are equivalent.

Many people in the slmdevices forum community seem to have been delighted with this machine - so much better than a NAS, and much cheaper than many NAS devices.