Geoff, what I gathered here about the Auralic, or similar, is that it would be better to not directly connect your PC to your DAC because of all kinds of noise and interference in your PC potentially also getting through to your DAC.
In this thread there is more detailed explanation, especially by andy.
To Kevin, yes McIntosh holds its value a little better but not as well as it does in the US (I am in Europe). Especially now with the currency situation all US gear is getting ridiculously expensive. Think of the US price doubled. Due to this the dealers are slower in trading in.