Better components?
Let’s look at the Innuos Statement - a flagship streamer. What is the CPU they use?
An Intel Quad Core N4200 - link
Launch date of Q3 2016. This processor is a 7 year old design. Recommended customer price of $56.00. It looks like Intel will stop broad support for this processor on Sep. 30, 2023.
I don’t think this is state of the art.
The operating system running the streamer is Linux-based.
If a streamer uses Linux, it’s most likely using open source software called ’mpd’ for playback. It probably uses other open source projects to handle streaming protocols like shairplay (AirPlay) and umpdcli for UPnP.
So what are audiophiles really paying for?