Personally, I don't think bringing internet into high end audio was a good idea. This was to incorporate a highly complex system with multiple devices, and each one producing very high amounts of noise, digital garbage etc. There was no way of preserving audio quality in a cheap or simple way, and in the end it means a large system of expensive servers, switches, cables, and possibly filters/isolators, to try and counteract all noise and jitter introduced to the format. It's probably wiser to counteract the problem with high quality hardware as opposed to tweaks, but these add up. I have more components on my digital side than analog!
For some might be the question of "Why should I care?", but if you are already accustomed to CD/SACD playback etc the answer is obvious: streaming and associated network hardware are a big step backwards. People are shoveling money into solutions just to make streamed, or even stored files, have the same playback quality as optical disc, or a simple old school HDD player. And it's a lot of money, and a lot of annoying little parts, any of which can have a problem with compatibility, or receiving an IP address from the router etc etc etc, for what has yet to ever match disc playback.
The most annoying thing about this is the cost and technical headache are for essentially remedial solutions. We aren't getting better sound with streaming, we are paying multiple times the cost to get back to the audio quality we already had.
I think it would be better to just have a really nice server with local files and a remote control, no internet. But here we are, having to use a noisy as hell LAN just to play files off a hard drive.
