In fact I have the previous version, the S1000. It's about a year old. I have some very specific and odd requirements, which outweigh some of the normal selection criteria. I needed something multi-voltage (I move a lot), and something that would integrate with my Linn multi-room audio system. That narrowed the field to two units - the Linn Kivor (at USD 20,000, just a tad out of my budget) and the Imerge.

I went with the Imerge. Good points:
- does exactly what it says on the box, and does it well. No operating problems at all in first year
- sound quality is fine, but I haven't done any true A/B tests against my CD player. Also you can choose to store uncompressed.
- outstanding service and support. Had lots of walk through help with a setup problem (turned out to be an intermittent fault on my Ethernet hub)
- Multi-room stuff works well with my Linn system
- rip and compress is all background, so I get a new CD, I put it in,it auto-rips and compresses it, all while I'm playing something else. Very easy to use.
- PC control software is effective

Bad points:
- UI on machine and PC software is very clunky. It has a real v1.0 feel. It's stable, and it works, but it's not very function-rich. eg, there's no search facility. I believe the new S2000 model is a big improvement.
- no VBR support (again I think fixed on the S2000)
- no backup / obvious hackability (though someone competent could presumably sniff out a way onto the machine). So if my hard disk goes up in flames I have to start all over again.

So overall a succesful purchase, and I would recommend it.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Regards

Mark