pmbuko, that sounds awesome. I'd just add
- Analog outs for people who don't like the stereo DACs on their receivers and for those who want 6-channel audio (SACD, DVD-A), since most receivers have to get 6-channel this way
- Bass management, for hi-rez audio
- And, as an alternate feature, a single-disk transport built-in that can read and rip files from CD/DVD/DVD-A/SACD media, burning them of course to the massive hard drive.
The Yamahas have this approach, minus bass mgt and hi-rez, b/c they only seem to function on CD right now.
Basically I'm seeing what you see, but as a combo of your hard disk array (love the RAID setup and flexibility for upgrades) with a universal player for ripping, at least as an option. Clearly some people will prefer to save money by avoiding a transport on the server and just ripping files via their PC -- but it would be a nice convenience, and a necessity for thousands of buyers.
Apparently the industry is handicapping all these variations as we brainstorm. This series on
Multimedia Network Players recently written for "Tom's Hardware" says there are three approaches pending right now on PC-audio-video convergence:
- Network media players
- Multimedia servers
- Media center PCs
Network media players are an early adopter thing, but without hard drives they are not the future. Multimedia servers would appear to be the audiophile way, while Media Center PCs looks like a mass market solution .... With Universal Players on the horizon at <$150 and hard drives similarly cheap, some form of a mid-fi multimedia server would seem to me to be the natural first champion here. While a multimedia PC is not a bad idea, and may be the ultimate future, it seems easier for people to adopt multimedia-digital components into their systems than to have to go out an buy a PC system for the whole deal.
So I guess this means that once again Apple gets it on the design side. Of course, they won't make any money on their brilliant innovations, but that's another story ....
Birdman
