CD ripping

Not a Mac guy, but I would assume all you need is an external CD/DVD drive, probably connected with USB. Your player may have the ripping software or you can get dBpoweramp or some other ripping software.

Correct, no special hardware needed, just a standard external disk drive. 
Cheers,
Spencer

blang11

The model of the Buffalo burner is the BDXL Blu-ray Burner.

The BRXL- 16U3. I already had a CD burner for my new mac book air but purchased this one from Office Depot on line. Seems much faster then my separate mac burner that I had already purchased. The Buffalo seems much faster. In addition if you do buy a Melco N 1 ( hopefully from me ) which stores 2 tera bytes, the Buffalo ripper is made by the same company and plug and play. I had to give up on using my Air Book to play music. J River is to complex for someone old like me. Plus when I demo music in my shop I really don't want to open my lap top. It just feels wrong, on so many levels. Long and short is I would do the BRXL. 

A little confusing regarding the model number here but I think you  can sort it out on Office Depot website. 
Give me a call if you would like.

Jim
soundsrealaudio