It turns out that a lot of audiophiles I know are also fly fishermen. A suspicious connection if there ever was one.
Baetis is the name of a genus of mayfly – an insect that trout feed on in most of the cold-water rivers in the continental U.S. Some species of Baetis are multi-brooded, meaning that the insects hatch in the spring, fluttering from the surface of the water onto a streamside bank. On these banks, the insects live for a day or so, then mate, then the females deposit their eggs into the waters of their home river, then die immediately after the egg-laying. These eggs can grow into life forms that live underwater for several months, then swim to the surface and metamorphose into the beautiful winged-flies that flutter on the surface of the water again, perhaps in August. These August flies then lay their eggs, starting the whole cycle over again, with the next brood of Baetis appearing in, say, October. The trout are there, all the while, eating the fluttering or dying insects as they become available.
In Montana, the fly that hatches in the spring is known, by its color, as the Blue-winged Olive. When the second brood appears in August, it is known as the Sulphur or Pale Evening Dun. And in October, its body color once more demands the name of Olive. Few fly fishermen have read enough of the entomology literature to know of this multi-brooded-ness. To most fly-fishermen, the flies are, because of their colors, different insects, not related members of the same family, genus, and species.
This is what a Baetis computer is all about. It is a machine that will perform very different functions for different owners. Or very different functions for the same owner at differing times of the day or in different places. Each function might go by a different name – a music server, an HTPC, a network streaming device, a ripping device, a multi-room movie server, etc. But the functions are merely differing stages or broods, all united by a common bond – the ability to put forth perfect streams of audio and video of the highest possible quality, without any artificial Digital Signal Processing, unless such processing is absolutely necessary. For this incredible flexibility and highest possible level of quality, there seems to us no other proper name.