The $4,995 Fortuna's Maestro appears to be an inspired, well thought-out attempt to crack the future of the home theater, at least for the affluent classical music audiophile. It leverages great metacontent to create excellent value-added organization. I also like how the hardware comes free if you buy a collection of 5,000 classical works called The Cornerstone Collection. I have a modest classical music collection (about 50 CDs), but this system is the kind of thing that would entice me to explore the genre more deeply.

Maestro also opens the way for value-added services and, although I understand the rationale for Fortuna wanting to rip consumers' CDs, I don't think it's a very convenient system, even for customers who could easily afford a few dollars per month. I'm also a bit surprised that the company isn't supporting other lossless formats such as FLAC and Apple Lossless. Still, I think this will be a big hit for the custom installer market.