The eAR eYe Media Center looks like a very interesting product, but as far as I can tell from their online product description, you must use it with either the eAR firewire/USB enabled preamp or int. amp, or with a USB DAC, as there is no mention of a coax or AES/EBU digital output.
So you still would need to use a Squeezebox or off-ramp, etc. to get the bits to your conventional DAC. This seems to be an oversight to me, as they apear to have done a great job to minimize noise, but then provide no means to get the bits to your stereo system unless you buy their other products.
I believe the idea of an all-in-one(or two)-box solution, with a CD drive connected to a storage drive and a digital out, is a great idea for those that don't want to mess with computers. For those with computers, it seems hard to beat a modified Squeezebox, though.
I'm still sitting on the fence, though very tempted by the current special discount offers by the modders here. I'm presently getting around some of the 'spinning disc' issues by using a Genesis Digital Lens, which stores the data in a RAM buffer, providing much of the benefits of having the data stored on a hard drive....
I'm just not sure I'm ready to give up my ritual of looking through my stack of CDs and placing one in the drawer of the transport yet, in place of searching through songs/albums on that tiny little Squeezebox LED (yeah, I'm over 50, and had trouble giving up LPs too, though I don't miss cleaning the records or the lack of instant track access one bit).
But as I said, I'm on the fence , and may fall at any moment, especially since I already have a Mac in the closet of my audio room.
