I think there are several reasons for this. The USB DAC concept is much easier for them to grasp. Much of that crowd is over 50, 60 years old and computers are a mystery to them. Setting up a home network scares the hell out of them. These are guys who quite honestly ask whether defragmenting their hard drives will make the music sound better and believe it 100% when somebody answers 'yes'. USB DACs are much closer to their comfort level. The computer sends the DAC a signal and the DAC makes sound. It's a simple diagram.
The other big reason is that USB DACs are relatively simple to implement by the manufacturer, and require minimal or no software development. This point is critical. Development costs rise exponentially once you have to develop all the software for the device. Just ask Logitech about this and see whether they had any idea what they were getting into when they bought Slim Devices. For the typical boutique audio company consisting of a half dozen employees, this is one of only a handful of avenues into the world of computer based music. The other is the standalone system, with internal sound card, and it too is being beaten to death by a lot of characters packaging off the shelf consumer components and making grandiose claims about the sonics. -- JJZolx Jim ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JJZolx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=66342 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
