Quote Originally Posted by Feanor View Post
Personally I wonder with an 'network player' of this sort could work for me. As a classical music listener almost exclusively, I deal with multi-movement works so selecting single "songs" and random play are basically useless. Construction permanent playlists is also pretty useless. Further, I like to be able to have variety of music search approaches.

Wrangling discs is a process I've always disliked -- that goes back to the pre-CD LP days, and was probably the biggest single reason I abandoned LPs for CDs, (even though early CDs and CDPs sounded no better, if as good, as LPs). There is still disc handling in case of CDs though it much, MUCH less of a hassle.

So for me I really want the power of a flexible, full-scale UI that Foobar2000 or JRiver can provide. For me it seems effectively faster to boot my computer and use Foobar to locate the compositions I want to suit my current mood.

Be this as it may, the Marantz looks like a great DAC. I note in the Stereophile review that John Atkinson suggest that a USB link to a computer gives the best result vs. S/PDIF or Ethernet.
I read that about the USB cable giving the best connection to the DAC also. That's how I have my laptop hooked to my Bryston BUC-1 and then AES/EBU cable from the BUC-1 to the BDA-1 DAC. I was surprised when I read that as I never considered a USB port as top of the line connection.