Takedown of pricey servers, streamers OCD HiFi guy

I use  a new M1 mac mini as my roon core and run nothing else on it. I feed my dCS bartok over the network input to avoid any possible noise over the usb and for convenience sake. The mac mini cost me $650 and I could also use it as my media center if I wanted to. 

hilde45,

"One thing you could do is learn how to scrub through a video quickly so you can see if it has what you want in it."

You are correct. I will be more careful with following your (mis)lead in the future.

As @jond said, 4xBOM cost for retail is hardly out of line. When I worked for a small-run electronics firm making medical equipment, it was priced at about that . . . and we didn’t have dealers taking a cut. R&D are expensive, as is small-run manufacturing in general.


Also, expensive streamers usually come with expensive tech support. Live people answering questions are costly.

He has a point... I am a 30+ year IT professional and was scratching my head about what some of these network streamers / music servers costs.  I am sure higher end units provide better experience but it is definitely way past the point of diminishing returns.  I say... if it is worth it to you, go for it... I am ALL FOR Free Market forces at work..  Just like people buying $500 turntables vs $50K turntables...  $1000 speakers bs $1M speakers...  Same diff....

I have been streaming now for many years and I have gone through MANY streamers. From £300 in the early days up to £17,000 and it is clear to me that the more I pay the better the result. Value for money is subjective so that does not enter the debate for me. I just listen. I am taking delivery of the Taiko Extreme next Wednesday, so will be interesting as that is my highest price point so far!