The Logitech Transporter network music player fills an otherwise vacant space in the custom AV market, writes Stephen Dawson.

Convergence continues apace. Blu-ray players are as much specialised computers as they are consumer electronic devices. And computers are increasingly the centrepiece of home entertainment systems. So it isn’t surprising that there is a strong market for devices that bridge the remaining gaps.

Home entertainment has its fair share of users who demand the very best. Called ‘audiophiles’, they insist that devices not just work, but provide a certain subjective level of musicality that they believe isn’t available from mainstream equipment.

So, once again absent surprise, makers have made ‘audiophile’ bridges between the world of computers and the world of music in the home. One such device is the Logitech Transporter.

Merging the traditional and the modern
Logitech comes very much from the computer side of things. More precisely, from computer peripherals, first becoming widely known for its computer mouses. Much more recently it has introduced a range of ‘Squeezebox’ computer music interfaces.

Its Transporter could be regarded as an audiophile version of this.

So what, precisely, does it do? It connects to a computer network (either wired, or with its built-in WiFi 802.11b/g support) and from that can play music from any computers on the network running suitable music server software, and also suitable forms of network-attached-storage.

It decodes the music format to PCM – it offers wide support for Apple Lossless, FLAC, WMA Lossless, AIFF, PCM, WAV, MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, MP2, WMA and MusePack. Those ought to cover most needs. In fact, WAV, MP3, WMA and AAC will cover most needs.

Once these formats are decoded, it employs a high quality AKM digital to analogue converter to deliver two channel stereo analogue audio. Logitech specifies an extraordinary -106dB for the noise and distortion produced by the system at the analogue outputs. That’s definitely in ultra-high fidelity territory.

There are no built-in power amplifiers so you need to plug it into an existing home entertainment system. The analogue audio is available from regular unbalanced RCA outputs, or from balanced XLR outputs. These last could be used with the very high-end, very rare analogue amplifiers that provide these inputs. The unit has a volume control so it should work with a power amplifier, even if it doesn’t have its own level control. They are not likely to work well with sound reinforcement gear unless a direct injection box is employed, which is not really a good idea for audiophile sound. The RCA plugs into the line level inputs of the mixing desk would be better for that.

Alternatively you can use the digital audio outputs: optical, coaxial (with RCA plug), coaxial (with BNC plug) and AES/EBU. This last one is a professional standard that uses an XLR socket and is like the S/PDIF used at the consumer level, except that it has a separate clocking signal.

The Logitech Transporter decodes the music format to PCM – it offers wide support for Apple Lossless, FLAC, WMA Lossless, AIFF, PCM, WAV, MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, MP2, WMA and MusePack. Those ought to cover most needs. In fact, WAV, MP3, WMA and AAC will cover most needs.

Since the unit has a pretty high-end DAC built in, it also has a set of digital audio inputs at the back: optical, coaxial (both RCA and BNC), AES/EBU and an external word clock input. I used the RCA coax input with both CD-level and full-blown 24 bit, 96kHz stereo signals which the Transporter happily accepted.

Surprisingly, what you don’t get is a USB socket. This unit would have worked nicely with a large external USB hard drive carrying all your music.

There are also control facilities for installers: RS-232C and IR inputs and outputs. The unit can also act as a bridge between a non-WiFi networked device and a WiFi network, simply by plugging the device into its network port and setting the ‘bridge’ configuration.

How did it go?
When a device is broaching new ground, users tend to feel rather uncertain and worried about whether it’s all going to work. Especially if they’ve spent thousands of dollars on a device. So it’s probably a good idea for the setup process to avoid the unexpected and engender of a feeling of confidence that all is going well.

This one didn’t start that way. A card included in the carton was quite insistent: ‘Before getting started, you will need to download and install SlimServer’, and gave a web address. The manual however said that SqueezeServer was the software to use, and gave the same web address. When I typed in that web address, a page for (I think) a SlimServer download was displayed, but only for a second before the browser was redirected – without explanation — to a Logitech site for downloading SqueezeServer.

The download itself was 50MB, and soon I had SqueezeServer 7.5.0 loaded onto my computer. Then it was time to configure the Transporter itself. The first step was to ‘Set Up Networking’. The first 3 steps are general, and at the end of this step the instruction says that if you are using a wired network, ‘skip to step 7’. WiFi reception in my office is a little iffy (the access point is in the house, some distance away) so I usually use a wired network.

But there was a problem: there was no ‘step 7.’ Step 6 was about encryption protocols for WiFi, and there things ended. I managed to work my way through things anyway, fortunately, whereupon the unit informed me that it needed to update itself, and told me to press and hold the ‘Brightness’ key. I did. Nothing happened. The same message remained in place. I tried it on the remote control as well. Still nothing happened. The power button wouldn’t work either.

I pulled the power cord, waited a bit, plugged it back in and went through the setup again. This time the ‘Brightness’ key worked and the upgrade was performed (very quickly indeed).

At this point, all seemed to work rather nicely. After I had identified to SqueezeServer where I keep all my music (does anyone really keep tens of gigabytes of music in a folder under ‘My Documents’?), it scanned through the whole lot incredibly quickly, finishing within a couple of minutes. This then immediately became accessible to the Transporter. I hit the ‘Browse’ key, then could choose the usual things such as ‘Artist’, ‘Genre’, ‘Playlist’ and so on. I chose ‘Artist’.

The front panel display on the left side of the unit shows what’s happening here. The top line gives you instructions, while the second one shows your choice. You can use the remote to make a choice, but the prominent ‘TransNav Knob’ on the front is the way to go if it’s within reach.

You scroll through lists by rotating the knob, and press it to make a selection. Nothing special there, of course, except for two wrinkles. First, it’s speed sensitive, so the faster you twirl it, the quicker you get through the list. With this unit I have for the first time found a device that navigates through long lists better than an iPod’s click wheel. That’s impressive.

The other wrinkle is that the knob has an active clamp built in, which resists movement at the top and bottom of the list. You can twirl as fast as you like because it will stop when you get to the end. You can force your way through the clamp if you like to go directly from the top to the bottom of a list or vice versa.

Access to my music was fast and reliable. Since the device is said to be an audiophile unit, I used its analogue outputs to take advantage of its digital to analogue converters. I used high quality home entertainment equipment, rather than pro audio gear, so I used the unbalanced outputs.

It sounded fine. I know one is supposed to say more, but the main variations in sound quality – assuming proper digital decoding – are due to differing levels of competence. If the DAC and analogue output states are competently designed, equipment is essentially indistinguishable in sound quality (when tested blind – people often convince themselves otherwise when they know what equipment they are listening to).

Well, on the audio side, everything was very competent indeed. There was never the slightest stutter, inadequacy of MP3, lossless WMA or FLAC decoding. There was no detectable noise emanating from the unit, either via my loudspeakers or physically from the unit.

So, as I said, it sounded fine.

While its playing you can change the size of the text display on the left side of the unit to the point where you can read it across the room. The right panel also has a display. It defaults to a pair of old-fashion analogue style ‘VU’ meters, presented using bitmapped graphics on a digital display of course! Pressing the ‘Visual’ key on the front panel cycles this through bar graphs showing the momentary levels for the two channels, a spectrum graph with or without the artist and album title overlaid (or these without the graph) or just switching the whole thing off.

You can do some tricky stuff, like shuffle or set ‘cross fade’ characteristics between songs. More importantly, you also get access to Internet radio. This also worked fine, largely due to that beaut TransNav control which allowed me to slip through hundreds of radio stations rapidly.

But oddities remain. Exploring the menus, I found an item to create a ‘Squeezebox Account’. I went into it, chose ‘Create an account’ and then tried to back out. I couldn’t. I switched off the unit and switched it back on. I was stuck at the same place. I scrolled down to the ‘Help’ option and backed out and the display went black. I had to switch it off and on again to restore the display, and found myself back at the ‘Create an account’ stage. I pulled the power, plugged it back in, and was at the same place.

Creating an account is free and involves entering your email address and a password, but even so you should have the choice to escape from it (you can – you do a full system reset outlined in the manual, and then go through the whole setup procedure again).

If you proceed, you get access to additional goodies through the unit connecting to ‘mysqueezebox.com’, including podcast streaming and more Internet radio stations.

Conclusion
My only real problem with this unit is that it is simply dreadful value for money. Admittedly I’m not aware of any other device that offers such good navigation of long network lists (even the remote control has a usable acceleration function if you hold down the arrow key). But several high quality brands offer – for fewer dollars than this unit – full blown 7 x 130+ watt home theatre receivers with support for HDMI … and network music and Internet radio. They don’t have wireless, but they do have USB sockets, and a great deal more.

Still, if you already have a really high quality home entertainment system and want to add network music support of a similarly high standard, the Logitech Transporter could well be what you need.