Auralic Aries mini

[GuillaumeB]

The main reason is not SQ and not money: it's that I don't want to be locked into a single control point app.

Surely you could have used pretty much any UPnP control points with the Aries? That's quite a range, right?

Guillaume

Right, and I did try some. But did not like any (e.g. Kinsky, Lumin). The list of their shortcomings is long. Some don't even provide adequate support for the Composers view. And only JRemote (with JRiver) can give you the ability to build custom views, and use custom library fields. Also, JRemote's visual design is the most aesthetically pleasing (to my eye).
Also, Aries works better with the OpenHome protocol than with UPnP. Which limits the choice.

I don't have any issue with you preferring JRiver, control points and usability/ergonomics issues are very personal after all. 

But I did find your post a little misleading since with the Aries you are not locked into a "single control point app" but rather an open source ecosystem (UPnP). And I don't believe that their list of shortcomings is quite as long as you make out, although to be fair you don't provide that many details so I don't really know what I'm arguing against (!). Regarding the various fields these can easily be configured in the UPnP servers such as Minimserver or Twonkymedia. One of the primary objectives of Minimserver was to provide better support of classical music metadata.

By way of an example here's a quote from Minimserver's website (http://minimserver.com/features.html):

"Intelligent Browsing in MinimServer allows you to make any combination of selections in any order. For example, you could search for a violin concerto by artist, then composer, then conductor, then orchestra, then album. Alternatively, you could search first by composer, then select violin concertos, then artist, then orchestra, then conductor (or any other order of selection). At each step you see all the music that matches your previous selections."

As to your advice regarding a Mac Mini you seem to be unaware of all the DWN (Dreaded White Noise) issues surrounding Macs too. Our very own online surveys did show that there were lots of problems with AIR and Macs. I regularly hear from frustrated Mac/Devialet users.

Guillaume