I'm not denying the AMR is a Swiss Army Knife.Its features are wowonderful and the interconnects, powercords and extra bixes it makes unnecessay makes it a good value if you our these things to use as you obviously do.
For those of us that use it solely as a DAC, however, I think similar or even better results can be had cheaper. I won't name people, but I've spoken privately with a handful of former AMR owners who reported similar findings with less expensive competition. In fairness one of then hated the Metrum Hex but still slightly preferred a DAC in the sub $1500 range that even did DSD.
Look, I'm not suggesting the Octave is better, but if your needs are limited to a dac, you are still paying for the unused features so it has to be compared MSRP for MSRP.
As a compliment to AMR, I significantly preferred it to the LampizatOr I previously owned, which was beautiful and seductive, but so colored and romanticized as to play a large role in dictating what I listen to.
Oh and for the record we compared both DACs with the LampizatOr Transport and a Bolder Cable Co Modified Squeezebox Touch with Deluxe power supply and Music Rail upgrades .