Read an interesting article on Win 8 recently, likely Microsoft's most hated OS offering ever. I bought 8 when it came out, loaded it, spent about 30 minutes with it, saw it's stupidity, and went back to 7. The disk has set for years, gathering dust.
Anyhoo, (as the universe does), a forlorn Dell Optiplex 760 USFF came into my possession. And the 8 disk has been taking up space....
Installed a 500 gig drive from another project, loaded 8, and hit the Windows store to upgrade to 8.1. No joy. A little more research, and actual instructions from MS on the process. Now when MS gives explicit instructions, with a publicly posted ISO, COA, and instructions on how to get 8.1, it's as close of an admission to 8 being a failure as you'll get. Another hour got me a loaded and updated 8.1, which is actually pretty nice. In retrospect, you can see the step from 7 to 10 in 8.1 . Fully licensed and all legal like it uses the original 8 COA from the retail package. And it loaded quicker than any other Windows OS I've ever done. Boot time is FAST as well.
Then I did this...
https://www.petri.com/optimize-windows-8-audio-setup-jriver-media-center, and the 30 day trial of the new JRiver 23.
All is well, sounds great, that is to say, the same as every other JRiver I've tried. This could become my new main player for the house.
Point is, there are just so many options now, a digital front end is within anyone's reach. I have 2 systems that anyone could assemble for around 100, and the cheapest USB DAC is about 25.00 on Amazon. Controlled with a smart phone or tablet, the majority of folks can get started with a digital jukebox right now, with hardware that other folks are discarding when they upgrade to the latest whiz bang stuff.