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.
