Cliff,

I think you have it. It is a tall order. I think you bring up a good point that M shouldn't waste any effort on a player at this point. I had hoped the could do a modified Oppo player, like the MSB. But I think you have it correct.

I imagine that an external whiz bang HD621 mk2 would be the easiest. My biggest concern is looking at the likes of Trinnov and Datasat systems, their hardware is PC based. So their systems are essentially built on traditional PC boards, allowing for a lot of noise, but also allowing for a lot of processing power. The existing architecture of the 861 seems to have a limited about of processing power, which limits noise, but limits its capacity.


Primary: MD600, MS200 (SpeakerLink to AES), Trinnov ST-2, Ayre V6-xe, Salk SS8 3x LRC.
Secondary: MC600 (whole house).
Zone one: 568.2, G57, MS200, Spatial Hologram M2SE.
Zone 2-6 (Awaiting assignment).