I have changed my mind about it due to it being "pull steaming" (even though I am not very likely to stream at all, I may change my mind further down the road).
It would for stored content. But for streaming, you need a different solution.
Yes, pretty much all. In my case, I can activate Qobuz streaming just by touching one "Q" button on the home screen. Easy. I can then go through my Qobuz playlists and control each playlist/song from the touch screen. Again, easy. Same for internet radio, push one button on the home screen and there you are (have it defaulting to TLIS in Slovakia). Takes a few more touches to reach Arc input for TV, or other inputs for CD or what have you, but again all pretty simple from the front panel touchscreen. I haven't yet loaded music onto the SSD, but A8 formatted it from the front panel touch screen just fine (not sure what others use, but I installed a Crucial P3 Plus 4TB PCIe Gen4 3D NAND NVMe M.2; note that is a gen 4 and the A8 only supports up to gen 3, but confirmed with Eversolo that gen 4 still works fine and indeed it seems to). While the plasticky remote control is a bit non-intuitive and takes some gleaning from the manual to figure out, the front panel touch screen is much more intuitive and does all I need (so far) including full control of streaming. Easy peasy.
Are you sure you’ve posted in the right thread ? This is Eversolo , one of those Upstarts as you say, certainly not a legacy luxury brand
But still that means the A8 has to remain compatible with the Roon App? I'm assuming the Roon App is actually stored & launched on the A8? So isn't it likely that over the years it's possible that the Roon App will no longer be compatible with this old hardware? I might have the wrong end of the stick, if so can you explain the connection diagram setup?
Having both a PC with Roon as well as this all in one streamer and server would seem a bit pointless. Either one or the other for simplicity. For this money I would want it to do everything and not use a PC or NAS with it. It would also have to be able to stream to and sync with all my other streamers in the house. Definitely needs a bigger screen in that case although maybe I would be looking to control this and all my streamers from my chromebook instead. Tablets don't really cut it due to the lack of built in keyboards and phone screens are too small (for me).
You don’t have to use a PC or NAS with it, you can simply add internal storage 4TB to the A-8, Wiim doesn’t ‘beat’ as streamers they sound identical, just ta question of features.
Well, it *is* a computer with app(s), isn't it, albeit a single-purpose one, like any other streamer?
Doesn't that depend on the OS/app running in that "simple endpoint" remaining Roon-compatible? (Crazy price of Roon is another matter.)
This needs to be stressed, regardless of any quibbles of how Archimago ran the test. We are talking about Apple's $10 adapter vs $3k Linn streamer vs $20k Linn streamer, and don't forget that only keen listeners are likely to take part in the first place.
