I pretty much agree with the ocd video. A music streamer/server are computers: period. Most run proprietary operating systems but that doesn’t make them better, and personally, I wouldn’t want a 1 off operating system. These server vendors have some people convinced that you need a lot of hardware to perform a simple, or basic task, like reading a file. Is running a proprietary Linux OS better than running OS X for a simple task for a music server/streamer, I’d say no.
It’s not just about reading a file, or a ’lot of hardware’. There’s a lot of processing that goes on in the CPU to play and process hi-res audio files. There’s a reason that companies use different types of computers with varying degrees of chip design, compute, memory, and networking to perform tasks like processing audio and video files and conversions, run machine learning algorithms, do high performance computing in areas such as genomics, weather prediction, etc. Each application requires a different configuration of hardware, software, and operating system. I’m not saying that playing DSD files for example is as complex as running extremely complex algorithms, but the choice of the right architecture and optimized usage is just as important to achieve maximum audio fidelity. Companies that are investing time and resources to optimize sound reproduction deserve to be paid more. Boiling the entire equation down to merely the cost of individual parts shows how ignorant this OCD Hifi guy is.
These companies are charging for their research and know-how. You don’t have to buy their products, and it might not be worth to you, but let’s stop with the snake oil accusations.