Well, there is always an ADC and amplifier stage involved, at some point you have to cross to the analog domain - and there's an absolutely wild difference betw

Well, there is always an ADC and amplifier stage involved, at some point you have to cross to the analog domain - and there's an absolutely wild difference between a central, decent and expensive ADC/amplifier and whatever crap ships in "active" loudspeakers that bring their own ADC/amplifier.