Hello Srajan, I'll add my voice to reader James who commented on your latest iMac feature. I too found it very enlightening. Even without your allergy to WiFi, I find your take on the subject attractive and financially sound. Really, your iMac works just like an oversized iPad or super-sized smartphone remote but adds a dedicated music operating system and a physical keyboard to execute convenient search commands from your seat. It's remote convenience with your hardwired mandate and does cost a lot less than a lot of the streamers I read about. I'm also intrigued by your insistence that with your USB and Ethernet accessories, sound quality is right up there with the big names you have reviewed. I assume that this opinion doesn't really make you very popular with their makers? [Rest withheld by request.] Charles
Actually, whenever I do get solicited to review a headless server/streamer, I lay out exactly what I use, how past comparisons against it fared and that unless they're bullish about their stuff making a decisive sonic difference, we shouldn't bother. That's if their stuff can even be operated without WiFi in the first place. If it can but still requires my iMac as the GUI and access point, I say no. Designing a music-centric OS and graphic user interface is part of this component category. Why should audiophile makers get a pass; or automatically default to Roon? So it's not that my opinion is unpopular. I'm simply the wrong type of customer to approach with this type product. There are plenty of others for whom it is tailor-made. It's all about knowing one's audience. Because I firmly believe that there is one for 'my' approach that goes beyond just our household, I already submitted a feature on the subject to John Darko for his audience. Of course a lot of it centers on actually still owning a library of local files. People from my generation and before grew up buying music, whether it was on cassette tape, CD or LP. It's an engrained habit and preference. My dad recorded to open reel tape on a Tandberg from FM radio on a Yamaha tuner, of classical music performances he wanted. People who grew up with cloud files may not see any appeal in buying music to own. While my hardwired approach can still work for them—you can use the iMac to stream any music you please—'the cloud' and 'mobile' seem inextricably intertwined. Now an immobile big iMac may not be remotely as attractive as doing the same thing from a small hand-held wireless device. But yes, I'm bullish that the hardwired iMac-centered approach with a premium music OS à la Audirvana plus external USB reclocker is sonically right up there. Finding Audirvana sonically superior to the legacy PureMusic I still had on my prior iMac, I'm now curious whether another software player can still upgrade what I use now. Rather than hardware, now we're talking pure software to control how good the hardware on hand can operate relative to sound quality. Srajan
