I love my DAC-9, but wish it had streaming capability built in. I would LOVE to be able to add a simple wifi streamer in an STA-9 chassis with USB output that could sit right on top of my DAC-9. It should have either an internal linear power supply or an external power supply, allowing customers to use their own LPS via DC input. It has to be able to stream Tidal, and needs either AirPlay or RoonReady so that my wife and I can use streaming software that isn't clunky and buggy. And it has to sound GREAT, up to NuPrime's standard for the rest of the line.
In other words, I'm looking for a Sonore MicroRendu in an STA-9 chassis with wifi. If it had an option for me to add my own SSD, like in the Auralic Aries Mini, even better. For something like that I'd pay $700-$900 - as I think a lot of customers would. Just my two cents!
Have wireless built in is a very bad idea because it becomes obsolete quickly. If you have followed our discussion (too bad, I removed the Omnia topic), you can guess where the future looks like. When we were plotting our product road map, a year ago, I tell the team:
Don't think about what you want to do next year. Lets think about how our audio world will look like 3 to 5 years from now. Then we work backward from this vision.
Anyway, I wonder if you have noticed the NuPrime WR-100.
DAC-9 has a special port with [5V, S/PDIF, GND] pins. It is designed to power and communicate with any wireless dongle or device that we make. There's what we have today:
Bluetooth dongle - convert bluetooth (aptX supported) to S/PDIF for better result than typical bluetooth to analog receiver.
WR-100 - supports Qualcomm AllPlay and a growing number of streaming services. With the NuPrime app, you can stream music from DLNA server to WR-100. Or you can stream analog input of WR-100 to other WR-100s.
Higher end version WE-200 will support AirPlay, AllPlay and Bluetooth streaming up to 10 zones. You can mix and match WR-100 and WR-200.
So the vision is to have Omnia as the portable and all in one server + player, Raspberry Pi or other media servers for entry level system, and various receivers and speakers around the home as end points or renderers.