Computer system

iTunes on MAC Mini->DAC->pre-amp/processor/integrated-amp/etc.

You will need to consider how to backup your collection. If it is small, ou can just use the internal drive in the MAC Mini and keep the CDs as a backup. However, it takes considerable time to rip a collection to disk, so you need to consider external disk and a backup disk. I haven't set mine up yet, but I have 2 1G firewire drives that I'm going to use. One is the primary and one is a backup. They are now cheap and firewire is fast and takes the load odd of the USB bus which I'll be using to connect my USB DAC.

Use iTunes (simple, free, sounds good) and make sure you use a lossless file type like Apple Lossless or AIFF. Go into the config and turn on error correction.

That's it. It's really pretty simple and you can get excellet results if you use a good DAC.

Reubent - I have three 1TB drives just in case if something goes wrong during copying and I loose two drives. I can imagine one drive interface (electronics) or firewire itself going bad and copying garbage to another making two disks unusable. I keep two drives at home and one at different location (work) just in case of disaster (fire, theft etc). Each of my Firewire drives was $99.

Computeraudiophile.com has a ton of information about setup options. Chris there is very helpful.

My setup:

1) Drobo multiple hard drive storage system. Automatically creates a mirror copy of files in case one hard drive dies.
2) Additional external 1 TB hard drive that duplicates the music files on the Drobo through an extremely user-friendly program called SuperDuper.
3) Mac Mini that runs iTunes.
4) Altmann DAC connected to the Mini (through the mini earphone jack) via optical cable.
5) I use my iPhone as a remote control. It runs the program "Remote" which uses my home network to access iTunes on the Mini

I rip my CD's through iTunes as lossless (AIFF) files.

Total cost around $3,500, everything brand new. This setup sounds significantly better than my Naim CDS-3 which I sold for $7500.

Turboglo - why don't you use Mac Mini remote?

why don't you use Mac Mini remote?

Hard to see what you are doing if the Mac doesn't have a screen attached (or one that is off when not used).