Well...I am taking the plunge into digital..

Touché serjio!

Thanks ghdprentice... I have 5 tube ham radios from the 1920's... which I restored to mint + over the years...I went over to state of the art solid state for that hobby and while I still use the tube stuff on occasion, 98% of my activity is with the solid state side now. I am completely refurbishing my Scott 299... love the amp, the sound, the look and feel... but I just want that system to be my " vinyl" room... 

Thanks for your comments... that's exactly what I plan to do... get qualified if u will on the home theatre side and really delve into the acrhitexture of what I am looking for and find the solution that I can really enjoy and be proud of...

in moving this system into from the engine room to the bridge, in addition to ALL of the audiophilic variables, I have to blend it into the room optics because harmony is not only a musical thing... I have a credenza that I am using to house the system, so all of a sudden component depth is a factor... speaker size, cable runs all need to be considered.... lots of fun so far... the variety, technology, engineering paths of these components are really interesting...

Streaming can be both frustrating and incredibly enjoyable. One can have relatively simple setup, for the curious many rabbit holes to go down. I'm in curious camp, steep learning curve in beginning,  network stuff can be very complex, over time things become clearer. If seeking deeper knowledge, audiophilestyle forum is the place to go.

@poke33 You have the proper attitude going in, finding the whole thing interesting is good!

Thanks for the tip on John... has any of folks use the netgear Ethernet over house wire to be better than a large wireless pipe ? Seems it may be more stable yet house wire has A lot of noise

I used a Netgear extender with ethernet cable to my Node.

Now I use Google Nest, a much better solution.