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Technical Details
- Connectivity technology: Wired & Wireless
- Interface: 802.11b/g Wi-Fi / Ethernet
- Ethernet LAN (RJ-45) ports quantity: 1
- Wireless connection: Y
- Audio (LR) out: 1
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Product Description
Product Description
Logitech Squeezebox Touch
Discover a world of music
The colour touch-screen Wi-Fi music player that lets you discover a world of music. Listen to your personal digital music collection, new music from online music services* and thousands of Internet radio stations—all through your stereo. A 11-cm (4.3-inch) colour touch screen makes it easy for anyone to use.
*Registration/subscription required. Fees may apply. Services subject to change.
Put music as infinite as the Internet at your fingertips
From the hottest online music services to free Internet radio stations from every corner of the globe, never has such limitless music been so easy to enjoy. Thanks to Squeezebox Touch and your Wi-Fi network, you're free to listen to anything you can think of, all through your home stereo. Just touch the screen to tune in to music, news and sports from local stations across the planet. Discover new music tailored to your tastes from a world of music services. Even your entire digital music collection is right at your fingertips. With Squeezebox Touch, your stereo isn't just a music system. It's the centre of the music universe.
Tune in to your limitless playlist over Wi-Fi
- Play free local stations from every corner of the globe
- Access music services like Spotify, WiMP and Deezer
- Browse your digital music collection stored on your home PC or Mac
- Plug in your flash drive to instantly play your favourite tracks
Now playing on your home stereo—the world
Your computer gives you access to virtually unlimited music choices from all around the world. Now your home stereo does, too. With Squeezebox Touch, your high-performance audio system can play anything your computer can in full, rich, room-filling sound, all streamed over your Wi-Fi or Ethernet network. What do you want to listen to? Live soccer coverage from a station in Barcelona? Your Gypsy Kings playlist stored on your computer down the hall? Hours of commercial-free classical radio? Browse and control it all with easy-to-use touch-screen menus. Just touch, explore and listen. It's that simple.
Features
Brilliant full-colour touch screen and remote for fun, easy music control
The easy-to-read 11-cm (4.3-inch) touch screen and intuitive menus put you in total music control. Simply touch "My Music", "Internet Radio" or one of your favourite online services like Spotify or Deezer to browse, select and play whatever suits your mood. Even album art is displayed so you can see what you want to hear. You also have a smart remote that actually knows where you are in the room. Move away from the touch screen over to the couch, and the menus automatically enlarge for easy viewing from across the room.
High-resolution encoding support for full, rich stereo sound
You like to hear it all, from the haunting high notes in a U2 guitar solo to the deep resonant bass at the bottom of a Miles Davis classic. With support for high-resolution encoding, Squeezebox Touch makes sure the important details in your digital music sources don't get lost in translation. Even if you're playing music softly in the background, you'll enjoy a high-quality sound experience—without missing a beat, note or nuance.
Add more Squeezebox players for a multi-room music system
Do you want to bring a world of music to other rooms—without running wires? Easy. Check out Squeezebox Radio all-in-one Wi-Fi music player with built-in speakers. It's small enough to fit easily on your bedroom night table or kitchen counter. And it works with your Squeezebox Touch. Simply add a handheld Squeezebox Controller and you can play the same music throughout the house, or mix it up with a different playlist in every room.
Seamless home network support, effortless setup
Squeezebox Touch keeps things simple from the start. Just plug the music player into your audio system, turn on the power and the player automatically finds your home Wi-Fi network. You also have the option to plug in to your Ethernet. Either way, in just five minutes you'll be listening to stations around the globe.
USB port and SD card slot expand your listening and viewing experience
Say you have a ton of favourite tracks stored on an external flash drive. Just plug the drive into the music player's USB port and your tunes are ready to play through your home stereo. You also have a built-in SD card slot. Just slide in your memory card to watch an instant slide show of your pictures, right on the touch-screen display.
Free SqueezeNetwork connects you to global stations and music services
Your Wi-Fi music player comes complete with the Logitech SqueezeNetwork, an online service that makes it easy to access all the Internet radio stations and music services you could ever want. Sign up for free and get connected right on your Squeezebox touch screen.
What you need
- Mac OS X 10.3 or later
- 733 MHz Pentium running Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
- Linux/BSD/Solaris/Other: Perl 5.8.3 or later
- 256 MB RAM
- Broadband Internet connection
- Stereo system or powered speakers
- Ethernet/Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g)
Product Description
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Customer Reviews
Setting it up:
I found that, as with all squeezebox products, it will work wonderfully BUT you need some preparation in advance. Specifically, you'll need your network ID and password (to grant access to the squeezebox), and it would be a really good idea to go to the Logitech website and download the Squeezebox Server (compatible with XP, Vista, W7 and Mac OSX). Finally, you should register at Logitech's 'my Squeezebox' page - but to do so, you'll need any passwords you already have from free streaming radio networks such as Live 365, Last FM, Pandora (if outside the UK), Sky FM etc. Once you've done all that, you'll find that the Squeezebox connects to any 802.11 b/g/n wireless network or via wired Ethernet - if your network doesn't broadcast your SSID then you'll need to key it in manually, but for most people it should be automatic. I tried Norton and McAfee firewalls and both allowed a setup with no quibbles.
Analogue audio outputs include a standard 3.5mm headphone jack and red-and-white RCA connections. Digital audio is output through optical and digital Toslink connectors. You can even attach a hard drive directly to the USB port on the rear of the unit. Of course, as the Squeezebox has no amplifier, you'll need an amp and speakers (or active (powered) speakers) or headphones to listen with!
Using it:
Sound quality is excellent - and wonderful for the price - with many audiphile websites commenting that the Squeezebox can output perfect digital audio at 16/44.1, 24/88.2 and 24/96 kHz. I used coaxial digital through my own amp and speakers and can confirm the sound was better than the Squeezebox 3 (Classic) and much better than the Squeezebox Duet. As always, you can either stream your entire music library from your PC using Squeezebox Server (downloaded in the step above) OR you can leave the PC switched off amd use My Squeezebox - a direct web connection made by your Squeezebox to Ligitech's servers through your router. Internet radio seems to be powered by Radio Time, giving most local and national UK and many hundreds of international ones. If you registered - as above - with Live 365, Sky FM, Last FM etc., then you can use these as well (Squeezebox calls them 'Apps'). There's a BBC iPlayer app (audio only) as well, so you can listen to live and past BBC radio programmes shown over a rolling 7-day period.
Issues:
The viewing angle won't suit everyone - it's been designed to be seen from above - and the web offers a variety of Heath-Robinson solutions. I put two black lego bricks under the back and changed the angle of the display from 45-degrees to about 85 degrees, which improved it greatly (and can't be seen).
The screen is bright, but by default is set up to auto-dim according to ambient light. I hated this. You can change it in the 'advanced' menus.
Text size changes immediately accoring to whether you are using it by touch or by remote. Very sensible, but it took me a moment to figure out what had happened (larger text being more visible at a distance BUT with less info on screen).
The default wallpaper (the green stripy one) conspires with the viewing angle and brightness to make it unreadable from more than a metre or so. You CAN make this much better - changing the wallpaper to a black one and adjusting the viewing angle (as above) improved it for me, and I can now sit on my sofa and see everything clearly from about 2.5 metres away.
Overall:
Take the time to set this up properly.
Get the angles and wallpapers right for you
...then enjoy excellent sound quality and a responsive interface.
It's a great product!
The Squeezebox Touch is essentially a player. It has audio outputs (phono or digital) which connect to your stereo. You then connect it to the Squeezebox Server over a home network, usually wi-fi. Once set up, you can choose what to play by touching the colour display, or by using the supplied remote. The user interface uses a menu system, and is fairly easy to navigate once you get used to it, though performing a search can be a little laborious. It doesn't matter too much because of the playlist system, which lets you select what you want to play in advance, so you get uninterrupted music. In addition there is a headphone socket which you can also use to connect directly to powered speakers.
That's the basics; but there is a lot more to say. The Touch can also act as its own server, if you connect a USB drive directly. Unfortunately this does not work very well with larger music libraries - though what "larger" means seems to vary for different users, and the situation seems to be improving as the firmware gets updated. Less than 1000 tracks should be fine; more than 30,000 or so will likely not work well, with lags and crashes galore; in between is a matter of chance. Try before you buy if you want to use this feature.
Fortunately there lots of other configurations. Many NAS devices - networked hard drives - will run Squeezebox Server directly. You can also connect to a Squeezebox server on the internet, for Internet radio, tracks from Napster (subscription required) or other streaming services, and some extras. Performance was great with these servers.
Squeezebox Touch can also work as a clock, or a digital photo frame, or other uses depending on what plugins and apps you install. The Flickr app is great - display random or tagged photos from Flickr while your music plays. Internet Radio works really well, and most stations ranging from the BBC to niche music stations seem to be covered.
I love the Squeezebox system. The best thing about it is that it is multi-room: you can have many players on your network, all connected to the same library, but playing different things. Enjoy your classical music in the living room while another family member rocks out upstairs, for example. The system is very flexible, and you can control the players any number of ways. Navigating to the server with a web browser lets you manage your library and players (though this does not work with the server built into the Touch). There is also a SqueezePlay app you can run on a PC that lets you control any player including the Touch; or you can control other players from the Touch itself.
The Squeezebox team seems to care about sound quality, which is impeccable whether using the digital or phono outputs. The Touch has higher quality than previous players (other than the much more expensive Transporter), and supports up to 24/96 digital with bit-perfect performance.
That said, there are a few flaws with the system, along with the direct-connected USB drive problem already mentioned. One is simple: why do you want a touch-controlled player, when you are sitting 12 feet away? I found myself using the remote more often. You can also get an iPhone app, or use one of the other methods. Another snag is that the display is not that easy to see from a distance, even though it automatically uses a large type size when controlled with the remote.
My final complaint is that the system can be tricky to set up, and the skimpy supplied manual is not up to the job. There's a better one you can download from Logitech. Squeezebox Server is good, free software, but does not handle tasks like ripping CDs or finding cover artwork.
It is worth getting it working though, because the system is outstanding once up and running, though you are paying a bit of a premium for the excellent sound and the flexibility of the system.
I had considered getting a DAB radio for my hifi, but as the reception is poor where I live, a DAB aerial would need to be installed on my roof. A Squeezebox seemed like a good alternative - in fact a far superior alternative with BBC iPlayer for radio programmes, LastFM, countless radio stations from around the world plus the ability to play music off my laptop.
When it works, it's great - in fact it's superb. I can do all the above- my favourite is LastFM tags - set up playing say, "female vocalist" tag (there are lots of others) and leave it playing all day an interesting mix of music. It's a great way of discovering new artists.
BUT. And this is a big BUT, a huge, enormous, mega-sized BUT. The Squeezebox is NOT like a radio. I expected to always be able to simply switch it on and listen - just like with my tuner. I first realised this isn't the case when I once turned it on and it insisted on doing a software update, no option to listen to Radio 4 and delay it. So 20 minutes of download, updating and PC-type palaver. However, this isn't the worst aspect. Often, for days at a time I turn it on and get error message "Service has been interrupted by host - then a scribbled text with squeezebox.com in the middle of it". I try to connect to my laptop, control it from my laptop, faff around ... mo luck. Suddenly it will work again. Then it won't. It is EXTREMELY frustrating, and the help is useless - I hate being directed to a blog help site - I want real help from Logitech. I often simply turn on my tuner with half a dozen channels as I can't bear the struggle to get it to work. It currently plays 2 seconds of LastFM tracks then moves on to the next, I have no idea why, and I've paid £3 for a month's access to extra LastFM functionality. So my advice is - expect trouble.
I'm on the verge of returning it as not fit for purpose.
I consider myself computer literate - don't buy one for anyone who isn't, and possibly only buying one for a real tech nerd who likes the constant IT challenge.
Now to put that opinion into context. About five years ago I had a storage problem for nearly a thousand CDs. Read more
Very easy to configure, and good features.
The visual interface is very nice, and easy. Read more
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