New Apple TV -- Anyone planning on it?

Banyon100, can you please clarify what you meant by "First impression is the sound is much better than the older version. More depth and detail.." Were you talking about the sound quality with music through a dedicated DAC in a high-end systems, or just sound quality in general through the built-in DAC when you watch movies?

for anyone who actually owns both the old apple tv with hard drive and the new $99 apple tv, can you please compare the sound quality through an external dedicated DAC? thanks!

@Ballan: please again clarify, are you saying that the new apple tv sounds better than the previous one out of the box, or through a dedicated high-end DAC? Are you saying that the new apple TV through optical connection to a high-end DAC sounds better through streaming than the older apple tv through optical connection to a high-end DAC playing apple lossless files off its hard drive rather than through sreaming?

just to clarify, i'm mainly interested in using the apple tv as a music server, connected to a ps audio DLIII dac, in a 2 channel system playing only apple lossless files. not really interested in the video capabilities. i was leaning on getting the older apple tv with 160gb hard drive. but if you guys are saying that new streaming-only apple tv sounds better than the old apple tv in a music only system through a DAC, then i might need to consider getting the new apple tv instead.

@Ballan: thanks for the reply, that's very surprising to me, streaming actually sounds better than off the hard drive. can anyone else confirm this finding? my guess since the new apple tv has 256mb of memory and 16gb od SSD storage, the sound quality difference is perhaps due to the type of storage? SSD is better than hard drive in terms of noise level and jitters?

well, i picked up the old apple tv with 160gb hard drive since i wanted to keep the music files on the apple tv hard drive so i don't have to leave the computer on with itunes open all the time to stream music. so far i have to say that it's not really as easy to use without a tv screen as i had expected! i know it's not really designed to be used without a TV, but i've read plenty of people using it solely as a music server and using iphone/ipod tough/ipad to remote conrol it. i'm using the free apple remote app, but still, without attaching it to a tv, it's hard to change settings on the apple tv. plus, there's no way to put the apple tv in standby with the apple remote app. i also notices that if the apple tv gets disconnected from the wireless network, i really don't have an easy way to check the wireless setting on the apple tv without a tv screen. i thought there's a third-party iphone app that shows the entire apple tv screen on your iphone, but i can't seem to find it. any suggestions?