Bluesound Node 2i vs Raspberry Pi SQ

@usery THanks for the pretty thorough response. 

I'm guessing you meant "...use my phone, tablet and PC as a remote to control [the playback of] FLAC files [stored] on an external hard drive".

Correct.

Is the Bluesound 2i sound quality any good? Compared to what?

Well from what I read, compared to a stand alone DAC in the same price range. I read somewhere its not worth adding a stand alone DAC unless you're willing to spend upwards of 1k. FWIW.

I'm not particularly DIYy, but if its a one time thing that a reasonably smart person can do and that will bring down the cost of great SQ multiple hundreds of dollars, I can be dabble in DIY. How stable is the RPi stuff? Is it just do it once and enjoy the music or crashing and tweaking ad infinitum?How reliable is the hardware? And how long should getting the whole thing up and running take someone with no experience?

@usery 

I've got an iPhone and a PC. I'm probably going to buy an android tablet. No home network yet - I'm just moving so I'll be starting from scratch. What type of router should I be looking for? Just one that I can plug a hard drive into?

Thanks for the info on chips. But isn't implementation more important (as important?) as the chip itself?

What about the Katana 1.2? That's priced similarly to the ApplePi - have you heard it?

@useryI 

I appreciate the help, and Archimago's blog.

I'll probably go with the Bluesound Node 2i first since I'm impatient to hear my first nice system. I'll look at a Raspberry Pi DAC as my first upgrade when/if the itch strikes, or when I'm simply curious to do something hands on like that.