fonix232

Before you carbonate the whole batch, separate a cup/pint glass worth, and nitrous it. Just to check the difference.

An mSATA or small NVMe in a USB enclosure is the best way to go. No wasting a precious internal slot, and they can be super tiny (2230/2242 enclosures are dime a dozen).

Windows Server exists.

It really shouldn't, but it does.

You can buy ESP32 boards with built in DACs, just FYI.

Also there's a handful of Pi Zero shaped ESP3 boards as well, which you could use with the existing DACs.

But again my point was that Sendspin requires even less hardware than Snapcast (and while technically you can indeed run Snapcast on an ESP32, last I checked it uses up a lot of resources, making the ESPHome given extras like BT proxy and usage in real time BT based location, unusable).

I am using it on a handful of devices (mainly voice interfaces), and it's quite seamless, even in the beta stage.

Not up to Sonos level controls yet, but it's getting there slowly. Music Assistant is gaining a lot of UX improvements recently, so it will be soon a viable alternative to not just SnapCast but Sonos too.

And you did it all in time just to have it be upended by SendSpin - which can even run on an ESP32 level MCU so you don't even need a Pi Zero.

To be perfectly fair, a proper wheel of Parmigianino Reggiano IS quite hard...