Takedown of pricey servers, streamers OCD HiFi guy

+1, @arafiq

Great post!

Anyone who tells you that you require dual 10 core Xeons with 20 threads to run a server for home audio might not be selling snake oil but he is selling you a Ferrari to drive through a gated retirement village at 25MPH. An i5 Intel with 8 gigs of memory and a 128 M.2 drive in a NUC will run Roons free OS ROCK, keep music files, handle meta data, convolution files and PEQ if wanted and do so without breaking a sweat.

“.....he is selling you a Ferrari to drive through a gated retirement village at 25MPH”. 
@djones51,

Thanks for the wonderful analogy. If you’re thinking it then you still have time to act. Cause when you get to that retirement village stage, you will regret not buying a Ferrari. Life is too short to be settling for a smartcar 😂

The point is you’re paying for someone’s time, research, knowledge and know-how. Not to forget the opportunity cost as well as the cost of running a business. Actual cost of parts is a small part of the equation.

And this sort of thing is not just limited to the audio business. Early adopters are willing to pay more for products that are sold in a niche or emerging market segment. Most audiophiles understand that they are paying a lot for what others might conceive as incremental improvements, or even no improvement if your system is not capable.

If you cannot afford it, or don’t see the value, that’s fine. Save your money. But, let’s not disparage innovators and risk takers who are trying to move the needle. And be open to the fact that there’s a lot of experimentation going on in the digital audio world. Some might not bear any fruit, and that’s to be expected. Doesn’t necessarily mean these companies are fleecing unsuspecting customers. That’s the price we pay for progress.

I have never met anyone that I agreed with everything on every opinion of everything. I just try and find the logic in everyone’s opinion, and correlations with consensus and/or my own subjectivity.
 OCD HIFI Guy, who apparently had a background in the manufacture of hifi gear, has merely pointed out that it appears to him that some of the margins of profit seem to be disproportionate to costs of doing business. He is reporting on apparent greed and value. He’s not necessarily questioning value to quality of sound ratio to cost. He acknowledges that there may be quality of craftsmanship, for better reliability, ease of maintenance, or pride of ownership that transcends the value to sound ratio, that there might be exclusive research, tooling and manufacturing costs. What’s the problem with that?