These are way better than a computer. The remote and display are great.. I love listening to a random playlist and when something comes up that I want to hear, I just de-shuffle the playlist by pressing a button and it continues with that cd/show.
They do have a 30 day return policy.. Have you tried the server software? It is all free. You can use it with 'softsqueeze' and it will emulate the actual hardware. If you're thinking about doing it, you might as well get started with the software. These things hold their value pretty well, so you could always sell it.
Unlike most any other product, it is continuously being developed and improved.. They're releasing a pretty major improvement to the software this week. That version is in final beta.
I ran mine wired for years and ran on wireless for a couple years. I now run wired. My sb3 is directly connected to my amp so there is no way I'd risk wireless. Ethernet cables can be up to 300', BTW.
I did the wireless before they offered that feature by using a linksys bridge (ethernet to wireless adapter). That was on the first gen slimdevices hardware (pretty crude, mp3 only). The wireless was really solid and worked great.. But that was with mp3's that required far less bandwidth than 24 bit files..
A couple years ago we had issues getting an sb2 wireless version to work reliably with a friend's windows based system. We didn't want to spend much time on it and after some effort debugging just used a cable.
A few years back they switched from a UDP based protocol to TCP. Basically, if the data gets there it will be correct and bit perfect, even on wireless. But you could still have interference that would stop the music once the buffer is completely empty.