[dwater]

I'm using a generic HiFiBerry clone that I got for $18 with a pi3b running Volumio as well. I'm using a 240GB SSD in a USB enclosure as the drive, and a cron job that keeps it synced with my fileserver. Only snag was finding a power supply that could reliably provide enough power, I've settled on an Apple ipad charger I had laying around. It's been great for a few months now. Sound quality is very good.

[tracker1]

Good power adapter options for the Pi is definitely one of my bigger complaints. Even determining a good one to get from Amazon is painful, considering how many cheap/knockoff options are out there.

If a company could get the kit price under $40-50, I would definitely use them for more one-off projects. Aside, I really wish that Docker for (Windows|Mac) ran as a service without requiring login so I could run background linux software with a little less friction. The linux on windows stuff is coming along, but similarly lacking initd/systemd startup. And while I know that a desktop os isn't a server, I've got a plenty powerful desktop that I have always on, and would just assume not have another computer running.