Why You Can Trust CNET Logitech Squeezebox Touch review: Logitech Squeezebox Touch
Logitech Squeezebox Touch
- Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
Editor's Note: As of 8/31/2012, Logitech has discontinued the Squeezebox Touch in favor of the new Ultimate Ears platform, but the company says it will continue to support the product and provide updates.
Logitech Squeezebox Touch
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
While hi-fi manufacturers such as Pioneer and Marantz have started getting on the digital-streaming bandwagon, companies like Sonos and Logitech (nee Slim Devices) were there from the beginning. While Sonos' products are the more usable and popular option, I personally prefer the Logitech Squeezebox due to its high versatility and audiophile-friendly appointments. Think of Squeezebox as Android to Sonos' iOS.
The Squeezebox Touch was released in December 2009 but the product has changed quite a bit since then, morphing from a grown-up MP3 player to a sophisticated music streamer. Logitech has subsequently released Android and iOS control apps, as well as support for most of the popular streaming services. While it's a little antiquated compared with the likes of Roku's products in that it still needs a PC or a Netgear NAS to run the system, it still holds up well among more modern systems.
At $250 online, the Squeezebox Touch costs more than multimedia players like Roku boxes and Apple TV, but half as much as dedicated audio players like Pioneer's N-30. While it doesn't look "all that," it's small enough that you can hide it away if you want and control it solely via any number of apps. While I wouldn't recommended it for people who want a plug-and-play music system -- Sonos products are so much better for that -- this is a highly tweakable system that really delivers sonically. I have personally been on a mission for a standalone music player, and I think I have found what I was looking for.
Design
The player consists of a main unit with a 4.3-inch touch screen with a stable metal base that prevents it from sliding around when you use it. Despite a brushed-metal stripe across the bottom, the device looks a bit plasticky and the touch-screen overlay means the screen isn't as vibrant as an iPad's, for example. This screen is a little small to read from across the room, where its touchability becomes useless anyway.
The device ships with a chunky black remote that feels decent in the palm and enables most of the functionality you'd expect. However, I'd imagine most people would just use their phones or tablets instead.
Features
The Logitech Squeezebox Touch is a music streamer and Internet radio component that features wide format support and 24-bit/96KHz playback with support for up to 192KHz. If you're interested in getting higher quality and support for USB DACs you can try this 3rd party 192kHz Squeezebox plugin The fact that, in this way, the Touch is able to play back almost any file differentiates it from the otherwise-excellent Sonos systems, which only support CD quality and no higher -- important for music enthusiasts.
Until recently, the only file type the Squeezebox didn't support was Windows Lossless, but an update at the end of 2011 means all major formats are now playable. Unless you invented your own file type just a little while ago, odds are your library is supported.
Though a few features have been added since the device first appeared, arguably the most high-profile one is Spotify support. But it's not the only online music-streaming service covered; the Squeezebox works with dozens, including Pandora, MOG, Sirius, Last.FM, and Rhapsody. The device also supports Flickr for music slideshows and Facebook, though sadly it lacks Spotify/Facebook integration. If you're interested in a full list you can find it here.
So you have the player, how do you connect it up to stuff? First you'll need the Logitech Media Server software, which is available for PC or Mac and Netgear NAS. That's right, you'll need to leave a server of some kind on to use the Squeezebox if you want to use your own music. On the other hand, streaming-music services like Pandora and Spotify don't require a NAS or computer, since they stream directly from the Web. Logitech provides a Web-based interface (mysqueezebox.com) for juggling all the various log-ins, which may looks a little "techie," but it's right up the alley of digital audio tweakers.
As we mentioned, the device can be controlled, though not served by, iOS and Android devices, and tablets of both OSes enjoy a double-wide control scheme with "big" cover art. The app interface is a little "daggy," to use an Australian word (meaning: lovably out of fashion), but it's still easy to use.
With that sorted though, connectivity is provided by digital coaxial and optical, stereo RCA, an Ethernet port, 802.11g wireless, USB, an SD card slot, and a headphone jack. Serious audiophiles will want to connect the digital output to the outboard equipment of their choice, but the onboard DAC isn't too bad: according to the Hi-Fi Vision forum the device uses the budget AKM AK4420 DAC capable of 24-bit/192KHz conversion.
Interface
In terms of digital entertainment we are at a tipping point, with more and more streaming services coming online -- at higher quality than MP3 as well -- and the need to keep your music on your hard drive will soon disappear. The beauty of the Squeezebox Touch is that it can seamlessly combine online sources and your private collection. Whether it's the use of the "favorites" button or creating dynamic playlists, it's easy to blend Spotify in with your lossless, 24-bit FLACs, and this is the device's greatest strength. While it's currently up-to-date in terms of services it would be great to see it add further apps such as Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player for futureproofing.
I found the best control method was with a tablet -- whether Android or iPad -- with the left side dedicated to your library and the right side for cover art and playback controls. Holding down an item on the tablet brings up a context-sensitive menu (Favorite, Play Next, Play Last, and so on) that doesn't appear on the less-flexible PC/Mac Web controller. One problem I encountered though was that the Squeezebox app on the Sony Tablet S was very slow to browse through large collections while on the iPad it was silky-smooth. As an addendum to this, the software is prone to slowdowns; a good way to minimize bottlenecks is to use wired connections and a dedicated PC. While I used an officially supported Netgear ReadyNas Duo in my testing, I'd suggest considering upgrading to the more powerful ReadyNAS Ultra series with its Atom processor.
Though most people won't use it, the touch screen itself is also fun to use, with a fast interface and fast scrolling. Swiping left to go back is natural and the screen is precise, making typing easy with keyboard search.
The Logitech software is quite smart and if you don't scan your library that often, Folder view is best, as it uses the well-established Artist Name > Album folder format to guess file names when it comes across files without ID3 tags. In comparison, the Sonos doesn't read the raw folder data, just its own cached version of it, and if it can't find ID3 tags -- for example on new WAV files -- it skips over them completely.
Sound quality
I used a number of different outputs for testing the Squeezebox, including the Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus, the Denon AVR1912, and the Marantz SR5005. The first thing that I impressed me was how good the onboard DAC of the Squeezebox sounded, and I found that there were only incremental benefits to using the $600 outboard Cambridge Audio DAC.
Whether it was the deep bass of a dub-step track or the extra vocal details and treble nuances that well-recorded 24-bit music can bring, the Logitech's analog output sounded great. Using the DacMagic Plus enabled more control over the sound and provided more precise stereo images, but the differences weren't as great as you'd think. Audiophiles will probably want to use an even better DAC and the Logitech's high bit-rate support will enable the sound quality to scale very well.
While the Squeezebox only supports 96KHz, it will play back higher sample rates and halve them. Our 192KHz FLAC test file played back fine at 96KHz, and remember that bit depth (24-bit in this case) is more important to sound quality than sample rate. I have not yet tested the 3rd party output upgrade.
But you may find that you're happy with just streaming your music, and with support for Spotify's 320Kbps Ogg Vorbis tracks you may not miss lossless music at all. Whether it was streams of Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" or the haunting sounds of Perfume Genius, the Logitech was able to deal up plenty of detail via both the analog outs and the digital connection.
Conclusion
If you haven't gathered by now, the Logitech Squeezebox Touch isn't for casual users: if you don't know what a NAS is, for example, don't buy this product. If you want something easy then get something from Sonos, it'll be fantastic. If you are a hi-fi enthusiast, though, you'll find plenty to tinker with in the Logitech Squeezebox, and despite some occasional server slowdowns, it's a great product to use.
Updated 6-19-2012: Have added support for Windows Media Audio Lossless