They're not. I guess it depends on what price point you're aiming. My headless Mac mini and external drive coupled to an Ayre Dac is a whole lot less than my Naim CD5x with Flatcap 2 PS. And the Ayre sounds incredible.
Why are server setups so costly relative to CDP's?
I have a Rega Planet cdp that makes great music. It was about $1k new. Why do server setups cost so much more? A cdp must read a digital medium, correcting for errors and so forth, convert it to analog and put it out to an pre- or integrated amp. These are all things that a media server or some other digital solution a la Sonos-DAC must do, yet it seems that to match my cdp quality I have to spend a lot more. I figure there is a logical explanation for this and my ignorance is preventing me from seeing it. Can anyone help?