These two options just scratch the surface of what the SMS-200 can do. From the Eunhasu control page, you can turn it into a Squeezebox and control it with the Squeezepad app. In that scenario it behaves very much like an MPD client but with a friendlier more elegant user interface. When run as a Squeezebox, the sMS-200 can also stream Internet radio and retrieve music files stored on shared drives of your network. It's really a major step-up in convenience versus MPD. There's just one major caveat. When playing music, especially DSD128, it is not recommended to browse a very large music collection at the same time. This will overwhelm the processor in the SMS-200 and music will cut out. I had over 1.5TB worth of files on the external drive attached to the SMS-200. I could consistently cause playback failure when browsing whilst playing a high-resolution file. SOtM are aware of the issue. They confirmed that it does not happen in any of the other modes. It  just demonstrates how much more taxing the Squeezelite environment is on their chosen processor.

In the latest software version, SoTM added the option to configure the SMS-200 as an Apple AirPlay client via Shareport. Once activated, the SMS-200 will show up as an AirPlay endpoint for all your Apple devices like iPads or iPhones. Although very convenient for my kids to throw their phone-carried music onto the big system's grill, it was not audiophile-grade playback. I simply applaud anything that makes it easier for my kids to share in the experience of music; and share their tunes with us. For that reason alone, it was a very welcome addition. All I needed to do was pop up Eunhasu.local on my iPad, switch the SMS-200 from MPD to Shareport (about 10 seconds) and my kids were ready to stream music from their phones to the SMS-200. Finally SoTM also offer the option to turn the SMS-200 into a client for HQPlayer. Since I do not own this program and its price precludes buying it just to try out, I didn't test this feature.

SoTM are working on a number of additional features that will come as future firmware updates. One of them will be a full-featured web-based controller to skip having to purchase apps like MPaD and Squeezepad and allow management of files on an attached external drive, one feature the SMS-200 currently lacks which others like Aurender offer at much higher prices. Speaking of firmware updates, the Eunhasu controller offers a very easy convenient update feature via a single click that downloads and installs the new firmware automatically. I successfully updated the SMS-200 twice already without a glitch.

As it should, the sonic section of this review will be very brief. A music file player is nothing but a digital transport. You'd expect it to be absolutely transparent and have very little sonic signature of its own. Once run off the optional battery pack, the SM-200 was exactly that. I am not sure why the non-switching power supply made such a big difference on a file player but it did. It turned a solid unit that just lacked in dynamics and transparency versus my Auraliti reference into an almost identical performer. If splitting hairs, the Auraliti sounded a little warmer, richer and harmonically developed whilst the SoTM was a tad leaner and drier. Those were very small differences that will likely not drive anybody to pick one over the other based on just sound. One area where the SMS-200 consistently edged out the Auraliti was on file type changes. Now and then the Auraliti fails to properly signal to the DAC that the file type has changed from FLAC to DSD or from 16/44 to 24/88. This results in ugly distortion. The SMS-200 never suffered this issue. Considering the price difference in favour of the SoTM and its greater flexibility and feature set, the sMS-200 easily takes the top spot in my list of recommended file players and walks away with a well-deserved value award.

SOTm Audio website