hey besides exact audio copy...what about burning

Also, apple is not the only company that makes a hard drive digital jukebox. I'm told that Just about any car stereo that is capable of
running an external changer can be set up to connect with an i-pod and
most other digital hard drive juke boxes. But, the Alpine is the only one
I know that will take over the i-pod's functions. So, most car stereos could be modified to connect with a hard drive, but the Alpine will keep
the i-pod charged, take over it's functions, etc. Point being, I am not trying to push Apple, although I love their digital music solutions, but
there are other companies that make similar products. Some of them are also less costly than an i-pod. I would imagine that in the future most car stereo companies will develop car stereos that can interface with these players.

Maybe someday someone will broadcast music, uncompressed.

I'm a dreamer!

i thought i heard something about FM radio switching over to digital (uncompressed). has anyone else heard this, or is it just a rumor?

Deluxe -- "my mental age is about 11 and i'd love the money..."

LOL. No, no, no. That won't do. When I run a child labor sweat shop, it
has to be real children or else it loses something.

The netgear USB NAS sounds very intriguing--is there public info on it anywhere? The one issue I have with that my bad experience with an external drive. My Maxtor 120GB drive crapped out after 6 mo., and while they replaced it, I just don't trust it. I'd much rather have a rack of SCSI drives... Prpixel, if I understand right, you can use an NAS with an audiotron, its just more expensive, right?

BTW, there are commercial companies that will rip your CDs for you. I looked at that, but the cost was pretty high and, at the time, you didn't get much control over how they did it. Didn't work for me.

PS--Deluxe, sorry about hijacking your thread on these sidenotes. (oops!)

Edesilva,

You can use IP adressable NAS with the audiotron. The Ximeta NAS drives will not work with Audiotron. The Netgear USB NAS adapter was introduced at CES and is scheduled to start shipping in May or June. Being in the computer industry for over 25 years I've found that the biggest threat to hard drives is heat. If they are not well ventilated they will bake themselves. In all that time I've only had one drive fail in my own computers; an IBM XP series drive. Luckly I caught it before it failed and was able to clone it onto another drive. Sent it back to IBM and they replaced it under warranty. So. if your going to do an external HD make sure there's a fan in the enclosure. Sometimes the fans in external enclosures can be noisy, so you might want to look into replacing it with a good quality low noise ballbearing fan.