I logged in again, after a long time and saw this thread. First sensible reply is yours. Good to see this!
Rant:
1. As long as, long distance signals stay in "digital world" they rule. Reasons, being well established TCP implementations and even various tuning variants which have their own parameters to optimise for requirement.
2. Other interferences (except EMI b0mb) can't affect non mission critical devices, because the acceptable error rate by most manufacturers is way low than our expectations. And EMI affects analogue devices too. So, if EMI is a problem... Better, protect electrical and connected devices first.
3. A dumb device (full electronic or maybe an electric device... link from OP) can't do anything in digital world.
4. Analogue is way superior than, the digital world can ever imagine, in short distance (At least in context of signals)!!!
5. If, one is streaming content. The focus should be on latency and bandwidth, and maybe subscription plans .Everything else is already being taken care by basic devices.
6. There were either placebo affected folks or the folks who bought snake oil.
7. Good DAC (that's where magic happens) and brilliant speakers are atlas of music devices.