So far so great with my new T8. It has been playing almost non-stop over optical to my M1. The unit is ultra stable and sounds excellent through my M1 over Toslink. Played a combination of Apple Music (both, through Eversolo’s app and also through Apple’s app that I side-loaded), Qobuz (both, via Connect and also via the in-built app), and my own personal library housed on an M.2 SSD that I installed into one of the slots underneath the T8. I tested SMB access from my MacBook M1 over the WiFi to the T8 and was able to upload two Apple Lossless encoded albums over the air into the SSD inside the T8 from a Thunderbolt SSD I have attached to my laptop, and it worked reasonably fast and stable, so that works fine too! Very easy to use, just like copying files around between drives in or attached to the laptop itself in Finder.
The sole hiccup I’ve run into so far is occasional drop-outs when listening to 192KHz material (the drop-outs manifest as half-second long dead silences in the middle of playback). By limiting my optical output to 96KHz, this has so far temporarily resolved the issue. I’ve ordered a new and shorter cable that comes in Sunday to try again at 192KHz and see if it resolves the issue permanently. I’ve also ordered a USB CD transport that should come in later tonight, which I will attach to the T8 and try playing some CDs on. I will likely attach the drive to my laptop for ripping, but I can also give the T8 a go at ripping as well just to see what the experience is like and how well it tags the files.
-Ed