Interesting question and a good sample of perspectives supplied so far.
My take is: it's still too far away from easy adoption when considering cost, technical complexity (either to set up or in terms of ease of use), and performance.
It's more like pick any 2 of the 3 above.
I'm not technically expert nor technically dumb, but it is vexing to me how many barriers there are to getting a turnkey system topology that performs well and is integrated well, that does not cost like Linn or Meridian prices.
From ripping, encoding, format conversion, format support and playback, remote control, library integration, metadata organization, storage, effectiveness of digital transport, power supply noise, cabling, platform diversion - it can all be overwhelming and bewildering!
Seems to me the critical space is the hardware side of things upstream of the DAC, effectively what Squeezebox tried to solve, and needing lower cost turnkey solutions to addressing that. I'm hopeful that the Auralic Aries streamer will usher in a new wave of more affordable devices that address these tasks without overly compromized engineering.
My take is: it's still too far away from easy adoption when considering cost, technical complexity (either to set up or in terms of ease of use), and performance.
It's more like pick any 2 of the 3 above.
I'm not technically expert nor technically dumb, but it is vexing to me how many barriers there are to getting a turnkey system topology that performs well and is integrated well, that does not cost like Linn or Meridian prices.
From ripping, encoding, format conversion, format support and playback, remote control, library integration, metadata organization, storage, effectiveness of digital transport, power supply noise, cabling, platform diversion - it can all be overwhelming and bewildering!
Seems to me the critical space is the hardware side of things upstream of the DAC, effectively what Squeezebox tried to solve, and needing lower cost turnkey solutions to addressing that. I'm hopeful that the Auralic Aries streamer will usher in a new wave of more affordable devices that address these tasks without overly compromized engineering.