Bingo!

That's exactly what I thought.

So given a PC with suitable HD space and the media hub device all networked nicely together, the DAC becomes the critical piece. Now this all makes sense to me.

As far as the cost being comparable to a more conventional setup, perhaps. But...there has to be some value in the flexibility afforded by the jukebox over manually loading up a CD.

So...assuming this is all technically sound...how would a company like Naim (or any other high end CDP maker) plan for the future? They have a great DAC already (let's say CDS3) but now the transport becomes perhaps redundant. If they make the decision to sell the DAC separately due to market demand, how can they sell it for anything even close to the price of the full CDS3?

-Peter