Comment by oliwarner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by oliwarner | Hacker News Reader

Obligatory: SlimMP3/Logitech's Squeezebox[0] was the best.

Very similar line-up to the original Sonos boxes, except they released a lot more speakerless hardware. Open source server (that could be run from the Touch model) which is still maintained and improved. Streaming options. House-wide sync. All for half the price of the Sonos.

It's especially galling reading that list of Sonos complaints. We've got regain support, good .cue handling, 24/192 and higher playback depending on your hardware, you could even do bidirectional Airplay and bluetooth (with some kicking and screaming)... And oh yeah, you could make your own players because it's all open source, open spec.

And a feature (for me), none of this smart rubbish.

For those of us that have a household full of it (and spares) it's still an amazing system... but Logitech ultimately binned it. I guess only selling one pile of kit every 15 years didn't seem good enough business for them.

Le sigh.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_(network_music_play...

"Obligatory: SlimMP3/Logitech's Squeezebox[0] was the best."

It has been a while since I thought about this but I think the primary reason that I opted for a Sonos system (in 2006) vs. the squeezebox system was that the squeezebox required server-side software to function ... whereas the Sonos could connect to any old SMB share you pointed it to.

So in my case, my FreeBSD fileserver could (and still does) feed my Sonos system - with no software to be installed anywhere.

The Squeezebox was my fave too. I owned the v1, v2 and v3. The audio was pretty amazing for the time. In the end I ended up using it as a digital streaming service.

The closest I've seen around now is https://roonlabs.com/ -- it's pricey but does many of the cool the things Slim/Squeeze used to do (and a little more).

As another longtime fan (with an apartment full of Squeezeboxen) I was reflecting on how Slim Devices's main competitors at the time, Sonos and Roku are still around whereas Slim is a ghost in the Logitech graveyard.

I've only used Squeezebox and Roku pivoted to video so I can't compare there, but was Sonos' unhackable yet easier to set up approach better, or could Slim have improved their product more to compete in some way?

To Logitech's credit they are continuing to keep the server updated, but it does seem like the big obstacles in the long run will be keeping it integrated with an evolving world of streaming and podcasts.

Given all you need to run LMS is a Raspberry Pi 2 era CPU and some storage, they could very easily, and very cheaply make a WPS/bluetooth/NFC pairable device you just drop in your network and you've got LMS with a writeable Windows (samba) share to store music. And an app for fruitier configuration (as well as the current webapp).

Streaming services are already largely integrated. Logitech could formalise these relationships to protect them in the long run.

Basically, a few engineers there could pivot on what they've got and have prototypes out in a week. As I've said elsewhere, they really do have all the pieces of the puzzle, sitting gathering dust... They just choose not to do anything with it. It's infuriating.

>"24/192 and higher playback"

Utterly pointless and a waste of time and resources to implement.

https://www.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

In DIY circles, that ecosystem seems to be still somewhat alive (with client software running on Raspberry Pis etc), which is pretty telling about the alternatives...

Oh definitely. Yeah, I've got 4 real ones and 4 DIY squeezelite's in rotation at the moment.

And even while you can build you own, the used market is still strong. Hardware that's been used daily for 10 years selling for 70% its original retail pricetag. Practically unheard of for consumer tech.

Basically, Logitech are idiots. They could keep selling what they did and still make money but it'd be trivial for them to step back in and pick up development, but hey ho.

It's certainly alive. I have two of the hard players (including an original ethernet SLIMP3!) and two soft players. You can turn any spare smartphone/tablet you have lying around into a player by hooking it up to a cheap BlueTooth speaker dock and installing an Android app.

The "downside" of course is you have to run your own server. For those of us who want to have control, want to maintain our own music libraries, and want everything to be open source, this is an advantage. But I can see why this is not for everyone.

You can pick up the old players on eBay although some of the rarer/better ones are not cheap.

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