Need advice on how to dip a toe into digital

I think the easiest way to dip a toe it to get a free player (jriver - free, itunes if a mac, or foobar) and get a audioquest dragonfly outboard dac. output this to a amp, receiver or what do you have? and try it out. I'd skip worrying about sacd or dsd or many other acronyms and see if you like it. I would take some care in ripping your cd's to your laptop. a couple minutes ahead of time may pay dividends later if you continue. several free programs like Exact Audio Copy will work just fine for you. If your a MAC guy consider ALAC and if a windows guy maybe FLAC. both are compressed but also lossless. Avoid mp3. very lossy. you can always go there later if you dont care but you cant go from mp3 to lossless unless you like fooling yourself! total cost about $250. option that may (depending on your system) would be other dacs like the HRT or peachtree idac. too many others to list here. just have fun.

Two questions ... what is your budget for dipping a toe, and what is motivating you to do so (or to put it another way, is it just a matter or curiosity or is there some particular problem that you are hoping to solve)?

Also, in my other post I neglected to ask ... what kind of device (wireless router or wired modem) are you using to connect your laptop PC to the Internet?

load iTunes on your pc and copy all your CD's to your computer in ALAC format (apple lossless - close to full CD quality).

Also get Pandora (free) on your PC so you can hear new music in what ever style your existing favorite bands play.

Whenever I hear a new band I like on Pandora, I buy the CD used on EBAY and copy it to my computer on iTunes. Much cheaper than buying new off iTunes at crappy MP3 resolution.

You can now do couple things -
1. transfer your ALAC songs to an apple or android smart phone. I have over 250 cd quality albums on my 64G Droid Bionic and play it thru my car audio, at the gym and when traveling.

2. Run your computer thru a USB DAC into your 2 channel system. There start at sub $200. You could also take the headphone out and split into RCA stereo and run thru aux channel on your pre amp, although that may not sound as good as USB thru a DAC. This way you can have all your CDs playing thru iTunes and never have to actually spin another CD.

3. SACD is worth it in my opinion, as you can buy a lot of SACDs used for 15 - 20 and it sounds closer to analogue than redbook. If you go this route consider the Oppo 105 as it also get's you a pretty good USB DAC. You can run your computer thru this and use the Oppo to play SACD. Unfortunately, SACDs are copy protected so no easy way to rip them to iTunes.

GZ.... I haven't decided on a budget yet. It seems the biggest cost will obviously be the DAC, which can run anywhere from $200 to the stratosphere. For example, I've seen used ARC DAC 8s going for $2K to $3K on A'gon. The ARC route is way, way too much for now.

Motivation: curiosity. If digital sounds as good as vinyl, I'm interested in exploring further. But .... if it's just a tweak or two better than redbook CD, probably will not pursue.