Heya Bud,
I use the old model with an dot matrix LCD screen. Not the Touch. However, I'm very happy with the sound quality. I feed mine into a receiver so I like that it stays digital all the way through my network and then the last item, the receiver, does the conversion to analog. I tried the analog outs just to try out it's DAC and to be honest, I couldn't tell the difference.
Is it the one to get? I used to stare at the buy screen to upgrade to a Squeezebox Touch but since I now mostly use my iPod touch and Sharon's iPad to control it, I no longer feel that urge to upgrade.
I use iPeng and the iPengHD version on the iPAD. I love it. Rick mentioned another choice here that I have been meaning to try out but have not done so yet. Either way, swiping through your music collection while sitting out in the sun with a beer is simply AWESOME.
I never create playlists. I listen to albums or shuffle an artist or shuffle the entire genre I feel like listening to. Sorry, I'm just too chaotic in that way to provide advice on playlists.
Most of my music library is in FLAC but the MP3 folder is growing. I convert all my CDs to FLAC but also make an MP3 copy to load to my iPod. Therefore what I do is this.
d:\media\music\flac
d:\media\music\mp3
The above music folder is automatically synced up nightly into the Squeezebox library (or manually, if I add stuff). It also syncs into my TVersity library for streaming through my PS3. I also use Winamp Remote to listen to my library when I travel from anything with an internet connection.
Then I have
d:\media\mp3 duplicates
This is where I put the MP3s that also exist in FLAC format.
My iTunes library is a combination of
d:\media\music\mp3 and
d:\media\mp3 duplicates
because iTunes will not accept FLAC.
Hope this helps
