I tend to agree with the OP’s premise and I too have noticed that a $40 firestick should be some sort of guidepost for what should be available in the audio world. This is tempered by what I suspect is a vast economy of scale that a firestick enjoys, versus a dedicated music streamer. Then we have to acknowledge the ethos of audio hobbyists- careful attention to power supplies, etc often well past the point of audibility. And uncertainty- a person who has already spent $10,000 or more on a carefully selected audio system my look skeptically on a $35 or $40 streaming solution, acknowledging that it will work, but asking will it work well. After all, we seek “balance” in our system and where we might have a turntable at $1500 and a CD player at $1000, a $35 streamer seems, as a knee jerk reaction, way off. Of course the cynic (or realist) may just shake their head and realize our well intentioned hobbyist has gotten ensnared in the audio industry’s trap. Who knows. Years back I had a set of pricey xlr cables where a connection failed. Being handy with a soldering iron I moved forward to do the repair myself. And what did I find under the tech flex, then the audio cable company’s outer casing and the the actual cable which was clearly marked Belden. Now of course nothing wrong with Belden but this turned out to be a fancy high priced cable wearing layers of ‘gold’ to conceal its humble but perfectly adequate origins. What was more upsetting is how poorly the “factory” terminations were made. My take away is that for us hobbyists, since we do like solid cabinets, robust linear power supplies, good user interfaces, and we are not buying a product that is being made in the millions, we are going to pay more- and most likely a whole lot more.
Why audio streamers are so much more expensive than video streamers?
I am a newbie in Hi Fi, and just got into the process of setting up my stereo system. In budgeting the audio streamers, I found it's interesting/hard to really understand that the audio streamers are way much more expensive than video streamers. From technology perspective, video streamers offer 1080p/4k video, with extra decoding of dolby vision/HDR, with built in HDMI and USB port, and same time offers audio streaming capabilities. Not to mention some even have fancy function like voice control. If you look at the audio streamers, pretty much all we talk about is the MQA unfolding, and DSD has been around for many years. Amazon firestick is only $35 while the most affordable audio streamer starting from $400-$500 range (Node 2), and most of streamers will need extra DAC, which adds another several hundred bucks, just to give you the audio. Am I missing something here? Are audiophiles paying way too much to preserve our self esteem and distinguish ourselves from regular people that pay minimum to get regular entertainment through video streaming?