Streaming appliances offer an attractive alternative to a PC that’s directly-connected to your Hifi.

They access your audio collection over a wired or wireless network, allowing you to banish the potentially large and noisy PC to another room and have a small, silent and easily controlled device as your ‘front-end’.

My favourite streaming appliance is Slim Devices’ Squeezebox 3. It’s a compact device with wired or wireless network links and the choice of analogue or digital outputs (both coaxial and optical) to your Hifi.

The unit is dominated by a large vacuum fluorescent display and operated either by infra-red remote control or a web browser. It also supports native decoding and playback of FLAC audio files.

The Squeezebox 3 already sounds pretty good, especially if you take the digital output direct to your Hifi and lock the variable output. But it ain’t high-end Hifi by a long margin. There are however several companies offering various modifications to the Squeezebox to improve its audiophile credentials. Colorado-based Bolder Cable offers a variety of options, including a number for the latest Duet model. I went for its ‘Squeezebox 3 Digital Only Mods’ costing $250 USD at the time of writing, which delivers a cleaner digital signal and fits a more substantial RCA jack for the coaxial output.

Another limiting factor is the budget mains power supply which comes with the Squeezebox. Bolder offers a number of modifications to third party power supplies along with its own high-end ‘Ultimate power supply’, although the latter was too expensive for my initial budget. Instead I opted for the more affordable VDC-SB power supply from Channel Islands Audio (also in the USA), costing around $259 USD and available with either 120 or 240v inputs; there’s also a version available for Duet models.

Bolder requires you to send a Squeezebox to them for modification, but if you’re based outside the US, consider ordering one from an online store in the US and having it delivered domestically as it’s cheaper than sending from abroad. Bolder can then ship the modified product to its final destination.

The modified Squeezebox sounded cleaner and more detailed than a standard unit even using the original power supply. Swapping to the new power supply further refined the output with steadier imaging. In each case it was as if a veil had been lifted, and while still no match for the more involving output from my Meridian CD 500 transport, it still sounded very good indeed.

Since then, Bolder has introduced new enhancements costing around $175 USD extra which equip a Squeezebox with a second power input (in place of the headphone jack), allowing a separate clean voltage to be fed to the digital section and clock. An external switcher costing around $200 USD connects to any Squeezebox power supply and splits the voltage as required.

Squeezebox fanatics may also wonder how the high-end Transporter compares. I haven’t had a chance to evaluate one in person, but I do know much of its cost is devoted to improved analogue output. So if you only intend to take a digital output to a Hifi DAC, you’ll probably achieve a better result spending a similar (or lower) amount on a modified Squeezebox or Duet with an improved power supply.

Gordon's other hardware configurations for great sound quality!

The sound card: an M-Audio AP 2496 running the right software.

The ultimate solution: the small but perfectly-formed Benchmark DAC1 PRE.