Pat, I agree with your points - you highlighted many of the costs that impact margin. Allocation of cost (how much of department X goes to what product) is some of the toughest business discussions to have.
Like you I have a Transporter and two Squeezeboxes and actively use Softsqueeze. That is from a standing start 3 months ago - I had never even heard of SD until I bought an Infrant ReadyNAS for backup and saw slimserver in it. I had been working professionally on packet audio in the form of VoIP but had not really been serious about applying it to my CDs. But let me ask you something: where did you buy your Tp and SBs? At a high end audio store? I purchased mine through a Canadian computer store web page, shoprbc.com AFTER I tried the Softsqueeze/ReadyNAS combo out. Want volume? That's the way to get it. The SB will be the mass market approach. I have been showing some friends how to use SBs to avoid speaker cabling their new house build. One SB per room without laying cables! At 300 per room, its cheaper than cable pulls if the walls are up! The Transporter (or devices like it) will replace the sources of yesteryear in the stereo: phono, tape deck, CD player. Its simpler. And what is driving this? In my opinion it is on demand music available in any room I have speakers (which in my house is 4). The music quality, like any disruptive technology, is a side effect of the primary market metrics. For example, the MTBF increase in 3.5 inch drives is a total side effect of the disruptive replacement of 8" platter drives of the mainframe days (and took a number of years to get - initially 5.25" drives were less reliable). So nothing is for sure. But my spider sense is tingling :-) The stars appear to be aligning. -- Eric Carroll ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eric Carroll's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9293 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=31935 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
