I am always surprised by how interpretive these forums are. Of course Slim Devices and its technologies have evolved - brilliantly!
The issue is that the overall digital audio ecosystem has evolved more rapidly - look at all the codecs on different platforms and different sample types. As you say, the consumer product industry is caught in cycles and those cycles are primarily driven by hardware implementations designed to create a productized interface. The pure computer solutions does away with the cycles and also does away with a productized interface. I can support my set-up because I have more than average expertise but I could not support the same configuration in a friend's house 100 miles away with two kids in the home using the same computer server! I could support that person with a Slim box (server not so sure ;-) ) Yeah, I know: computer technology evolves too. That evolution tends to be slower and with more flexible upgrade steps. Let's say that you want WiFi 802.11N to maximize the performance of a shared wireless link to a Transporter with large high sample rate files. You could pop the top and try to swap out the mini-PCI WiFi card or stay with 802.11g. On an old computer you could buy a card for $50. We are still stuck with DACs - finding a good quality DAC. In my case that was okay as I could look for a DAC that suited my desired sound and it was not tied to certain source formats or network standards. The AKM DAC used in the Transporter is first rate and also widely available if you happen to have a preference for it. Why be defensive? Slim Devices is great and their use of an open source Slim Server was excellent. I use them! That does not mean it is all things to all people. It is not so elegant in the productized interface, but some people may have perfectly reasonable justifications for consciously not buying a Slim solution and going with a computer solution. That is what this thread was about, or did I miss something? -- PNCD ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PNCD's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10778 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40647 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
