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The problem here is the price (you are paying for their packaging of commodity hardware and their brand name) and then the software (will it be updated and kept simple enough?).
I think the software part of this should just be an open-source server that sits on a cheap bit of hardware.
Perhaps there will be an open-source uploader part too... to create and manage the indexes of the cloud or NAS stored files.
But something like this should suffice at the cheap end:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/11/raspberry-pi-wolfson-audio-card/A Pi plus sound card for less than £100.
I've seen that there are projects in Go for dealing with FLAC and WAV already. Go is a good candidate for this given the low memory requirements, the ability to cross-compile to ARM as well as Intel.
A super simple interface on top of this stuff is all that is needed.
Perhaps v1 merely has:
- NAS/local files support
- Google Drive support
- Spotify API support
- FLAC support for files from local/cloud storage
- MP3 support for files from local/cloud storage
- A super simple web interface accessible via the local network for playing, searching, etc
Perhaps v2 has:
- Google Play Music support
- Amazon S3 support
- Dropbox support
I'd go for Google Drive first because it works out to be the cheapest cloud storage, Dropbox is 2nd (for the first TB) and Amazon S3 is third.
I'd open source the whole shebang, and yes you could use an external DAC or just rely on the on-board (depends on your sound card).
- NAS/local files support
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Velocio
This is one product that looks usefull, but I'm not sure of the specifics of it's software -
http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/products/network-players/stream-magic-6-v2