It's worth it to me specifically as a 100-percent-uptime networked music server and ripper. I can turn on my Rio receiver(s) any time I want and I don't have to leave my hot-running and noisy PC on in order to serve the music. It does fine no-brainer ripping and tagging, each time I buy a new CD I simply stuff it in the Central and walk away. I haven't ripped a CD on my PC in over a year. And with the latest release of Jemplode, it's possible to completely remove the MP3s from the PC's hard disk and just use the Central and the Empeg be the backups for each other.

But if you've already got a quiet PC that's your networked music server, there's a lot less of an advantage to having one. Personally, I could build a networked music server PC myself, but the Central is much nicer and more reliable.

Note that the above comments must be taken with a grain of salt, as my Central is a beta prototype that I didn't have to shell out 500 clams for. I say this in the interest of full disclosure, even though I personally don't believe that my opinion of the device is any different because of it.