Slim Devices Squeezebox December 9th, 2003 | by Jeff Fila

Testing

The home theater that we tested with had all of the digital and analog inputs that the Squeezebox used. One nice feature of the Squeezebox is that all outputs are live at all times. This means that there is no switch or selection that needs to be made for different outputs, just plug the cable in and it works. Because of this, we were able to easily switch from analog to digital outputs during our testing to hear the differences. Digital audio really did sound better and fuller. We were able to notice the difference, especially at high volumes.

Besides the digital outputs, the headphone jack is a nice addition also. Being able to plug headphones into the unit makes it truly useable in all situations in your home, business or office. Unlike most devices with headphones, the other outputs are not muted when you plug headphones in. You'll have to turn off or mute the other devices if you just want to listen to headphones.

Testing was the fun part. We tried every function that Slim Devices says the Squeezebox can do and it handled everything we tried. We had two servers running at once and the device found each one. We had one server running via our wired network and one running via 802.11g wireless and each worked flawlessly.

One great function of the SlimServer software is its ability to serve content to multiple devices at one time. We were able to easily do this with the Squeezebox and a SLIMP3 player. This function allows you to play different music in different rooms or synchronize multiple units to play the same music all through your house or business. Of course, we tested it both ways. We tried to slow down the server by playing different songs on each player and changing tracks at the same time. Both the wired and wireless connections handled this with no problem and try as we did, we could not get the players or server to hiccup. Synchronizing the two units worked just as well. Once you synchronize, you can control all synchronized units by one remote control.

Our music was encoded in what is commonly thought to be the best quality MP3 encoding scheme. All of our music that we tested with was legally ripped from our own CDs using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) and the LAME encoder at 192kbps variable bit rate. We also had a few songs that we ripped at 128kbps and at 320kbps and some uncompressed WAV tracks. One feature that the Squeezebox boasts over the SLIMP3 is its ability to play uncompressed WAV or AIFF files.

Our testing comprised of listening to music from MP3s at different qualities, uncompressed WAV files and directly from CDs to our home theater. We actually conducted “blind” sound tests of the same songs where the subjects we had listening to the music were not told what quality of music they were listening to. We used three different people as our test subjects.

The Squeezebox looks at home in a home-theater cabinet or in the bedroom with a Bose Wave Radio.

In our tests, subjects were able to easily point out the difference between CD audio and a 128kbps MP3 played via the Squeezebox. The 128kbps audio file was noticeably muffled sounding and not as clear, which was to be expected. However, when we played 192kbps VBR files and 320kbps CBR files, our subjects could not notice a difference between them or the CD audio. The same was true when playing a WAV file of the same songs. A difference in sound quality was noticed when we played audio through the Squeezebox's optical and analog outputs. The sound through the optical outputs was described as being more “full” but not necessarily always better than the analog sound — just different. That difference may be attributed to the digital sources better use of all five speakers. Two of our three test subjects did say that the sound from the optical outputs was "better".

We also hooked the player up to a set of computer speakers via the analog RCA outputs and via the headphone jack. With all of these connections, the Squeezebox can certainly connect to any output device you may have.