I just couldn't stand the hassle, ticks and pops of vinyl, so I switched over to digital long ago.

I never thought SACD was a viable alternative, with all the paranoia about analog only out. What about bass management?

Is DVD audio, with 192kHz/24bit happening? I assume that would be an HDMI output. I assume that I would not be permitted to back up to hard drive or use anything like a Squeezebox to play it.

I just got my Bravo robotic ripper running. I put a stack of 25 of my CDs in at night and get 25 bit perfect FLAC lossless compressed albums out. Album art is included. That was a fun programming project! I don't know if it would ever be commercially viable and there is competition. There are questions about commercial usage of EAC, which I am controlling with the AutoIt dll.

The coaxial output of my Squeezebox feeds digital to the 990. This should correct any potential jitter problems that can happen when playing CDs. Also, there is nothing like creating a playlist rather than flipping through discs. With four Squeezeboxes around the house, I can sync them for parties or run them independently. For the moment, I think that that is as good as I can do.