It's an interesting gamble for them. I have one friend who is squarely in their market demographic. He's the sort of guy who's put more money into his home stereo than his car (and it's not a cheap car, either). He's gone through a variety of different D/A solutions, pre-amps, etc., all in search of that perfect sound. And, I have to admit, I can hear the subtle differences when he flipped back and forth. Anyway, I forget the brands, but he's presently using one decoder for Dolby Digital / DTS, and an entirely separate decode for two-channel stereo. Both were quite pricey.

To somebody like my audiophile friend, the question is whether he's already got a good-enough D/A, and thus only needs "good" bits to feed it (and, naturally, what the best source of good bits would be; the "clocking" issue seems to be a big deal for him). Also, he's recently been sucked into the world of vinyl (*sigh*), so it's hard to say where that's all going to lead him.