@Paul… I am sure you are familiar with the EtherRegen? Can you confirm the Airlens basically provides the same galvanic Isolation and therefore would render the EtherRegen unnecessary? Also I would like your thoughts about using the Airlens to drive the DS JR? Should we expect a large improvement in sound quality?
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Napster started in June 1999.
Winamp started in 1997.
Shoutcast started in 1998.
Gnutella launched about 2000
People were ripping CDs, sharing music files, and using desktop clients late 1990’s. Heck, I worked in an office where we had a “music server” anyone could access and people were pushing downloads to it constantly. I don’t recall how many gigabytes of mp3’s were housed on that server when I left but it was not insignificant. That really was the birth of streaming and the start of the decline in music sales. The first iPod launched in 2001 and its popularity had nothing to do with Apple’s ecosystem (which was pretty poor at the time). I knew more Windows users with iPods than Apple users. CD sales peaked in 2000 and quickly fell from that point forward. This had everything to do with the software I mention above and others adding additional options over time.
Rhapsody was the first “legal” music streaming service in 2001. Pandora first launched their streaming radio service in 2004 which brought consumers a fairly powerful recommendation engine (DJ in the cloud was really what people wanted). Slacker started in 2007 and was the first to try and sell you specific hardware to take your radio on the road. This was before smart phones and data plans were fast enough to handle the task. It wasn’t until about 2010 that an application on your phone was available to be used for streaming.
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I think I argued this some time ago but let me expand on it a bit.
Audio software sits in 2 camps with respect to funding. Either it’s funded through hardware sales or subscriptions. I truly believe anyone model funding software via hardware sales is doomed. Software moves too quickly and you need real cash to pay people to maintain both bug fixes and features month after month. People are not buying new hardware every month so the only viable solution is software subscriptions.
BluOS can present as a hardware sales business model but they have two advantages. First being the amount of brands and hardware they sell is significantly higher than others. Additionally, they have a whole arm of the company focused on licensing BluOS to other manufacturers. In a way, they are subscription based they just don’t sell subs to consumers.
Sonos is hardware based but their software architectures puts most of the development onto the partners. This reduces the amount of development resources Sonos maintains.
Roon, Audirvana, GentooPlayer, moode, Volumio, etc. all these pure software development houses with monthly subs is the right way to keep the cash following to maintain fast development cycles. In computing we quickly moved to commodity hardware. There is absolutely no reason why your digital playback chain cannot use a commodity “box” to serve files running software which is constantly updated. Custom solutions are a waste and will get more difficult to maintain as time goes on.
Not to mention there are plenty of “open source” solutions which forces some of these products to compete with something that costs the user time vs. cash.
So, back to your point, I think the market is ever expanding but you’ve got to get the revenue model right. Right now, the vast majority of listeners are simply using the software provided by their streaming service of choice. And that software gets better every quarter. Honestly, if Spotify would get off their rears and go losses / hi-res I could use that platform and their software exclusively. I won’t, I prefer Roon, but I could.
Any manufacturer who believes they will be developing software version 1.0 for a box they will sell for 5 years is doomed. Software does not work that way. As much as we might think these are embedded devices they really are not. The capabilities need to evolve with the services and, if you’ve got a front-end, that has to continuously improve with customer expectations. Plan for a release a month or even more. If you’re unwilling to fund that pace of development then the product is doomed.
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Very well said. Agree 100%.
Agree 200%. That’s why I think Innuos Sense is such an achievement. It must be driving a lot of hardware sales.
Wireless doesn’t keep the noise out of a DAC, which is generated inside the streamer and linear power supplies don’t either. They just generate less of it themselves.
And if wireless would at least keep the noise of network components out, which are used prior to the streamer, there would be no noise optimized network components available as Inuous offers. So I think you just think you kept the noise out.
So far my understanding.
Roon has a lifetime. if you add that with the cost of a NUC or even more expensive Nucleus, you have a FIXED hardware cost. Say $1500-2500 depending on what you buy. in my book that is not bad for the features you get. As I have said in the past we talk about LPS cables that cost that much here on this forum.
Now for the BluOS, Innuos, Lumin and all the others are what I would consider custom software. They only work on their respective devices. Makes it easier to support since you are control of both, but still that is custom. I would consider Roon less custom as they are an open arch that others can license. BTW speaking of that, does a hardware manufacturer have to pay Roon for that? Usually yes.
I do not own any of them so I would ask how many years has it been since the big streaming companies mentioned above have changed their UX or program since inception? Probably not that much. Just have to make sure it works with latest OS levels on platforms they support.
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There’s not even an official inside picture of the Mk II yet.
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This was in Paul’s video this morning. I just zoomed in on it. Nothing official about it 
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@Vmax is already thinking where an absorber sheet could better fit, I suppose, looking at that cable on the pic!
You have a good eye, thanks for sharing!
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Good guy 
Paul has completely changed the information policy since the server and speaker issue. It seems that since then, even halfway valuable technical teasers are only published after the release. Even some of us have been recommending this for a while, so we shouldn’t complain.
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I was loving so much uncle Paul’s announcements about future things coming from the past! We are becoming too serious…
Searching deeply just into this wonderful forum there would be enough material to write next Paul’s book “Back to the future guide: The (out of time) Stereophile!”
And I love and respect him, also for that! Passion doesn’t always follow rules…
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Yeah those ribbon cables with absorber strip work wonders. I cover those with horizontal strip and the ICs past the jleads. Did wonders on my router switch.
That SMPS that might be a challenge. I try to avoid those but will not be a option here. I never tried full wrapping one with a shield layer absorber.
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Is there a transformer somewhere? absorbent will help for sure. Oh, streamer has none.
No toroidal.
This appears to perhaps be a wound Bobbin. These typically a re not influenced much unless fully wrapped with a shield layer
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Since it has an AC socket for a power cord my guess is that there is a power supply transformer in there somewhere.
SMPS not transformer.
How do you know that it uses a SMPS?
Paul has stated that about 6 to 9 months back.