What in your mind represents real technological advancement.

I think a real advancement is the placement of the renderer in the DAC thus allowing a very simple file to be sent via options such as wifi to be sent to the DAC and then opened and played. The significance it seems would be that the music rendered is not required to be sent over the internet/wifi to the DAC rather simply the data. 

Any thoughts on this?

+1 cd318

While I had a grasp of Ed’s audio accomplishments, I wasn’t aware of his profound success elsewhere. Fun read, thanks for sharing!

Speaking of speaker designs:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_line_loudspeaker

I have a pair of Vertex in Burl Walnut finish from W.B.
Other equipment:
Pair of EKSC Eagle 11' monoblocks on Acapella Isolation Platforms & Acapella Couplers/Footers 
Sutherland Engineering N1 Preamplifier
VPI HW19 modified with parts from Analog Emporium (George Merrill)
   RCC Plater Mat, 4-60 Durometer Decoupling Feet, with George's       proprietary spindle bearing lubricant
Ortofon TA-110 Tonearm w/ Cadenza Blue phono cartridge
Custom made W7 Silent PC w/ M-Audio Delta 2496 PCI Soundcard for all digital signals
Kimber Bifocal Speaker Cables 1.83M
Custom Interconnects 5 Feet Length

More info than you probably wanted but it is incredible. 
Cheers, 
perazzi

perazzi
I bet that sounds great...