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Digital Audio for Dummies

As I have stated before, I'm a bit of an audio dinosaur.  I love simple.  I love reliable.  I love a high performance/price ratio.  So no surprise I'm still happily spinning discs.  Give me a nice CD player direct to an integrated and I'm good to go.

But it is 2018.  Reading on this forum about the demise of Oppo was a bit of a wake up call. Also the Lyngdorf 2170 has inspired me.  An elegant all in one box product that is ready to connect with many of the digital options now available.  So I'd like to get educated on what's out there and what you suggest.  Basically I would want to know about ripping all my CD's--exactly how that is done.  Dedicated audio computer?  How big of a hard drive/other considerations?  Wired vs. wireless.  And then what streaming services are out there?  Cost, quality, ease of use?

PLEASE keep things simple and don't assume the reader knows, for example, what Roon is.  I've seen it mentioned, but would want to know exactly what this does, how it functions, etc.

THANKS!
corelli
rhljazz
1,255 posts
 
The Sony is $800.00 more than the Bluesound plus you then need to buy a PC to copy your cd collection.  It is certainly not as simple to setup as the Bluesound and is considerably more expensive.  That may not matter to some, but was important to me.  I would rather play music than play with computers.
wiscoguy
20 posts
 
I dont want to go off topic from the op but I have a similar question.
I have a dac.  I have ripped all of my cds in FLAC form to a laptop.  I want to stream those music files from my laptop to my DAC via my wifi.  I bought a chromecast but cannot get the right apps to do this.  Any help would be appreciated.
glupson
7,842 posts
 
I have no experience with Bluesound. However, SONY can rip CDs directly to the machine. Just connect a CD drive ($25 at Best Buy) to it. It is $2000 so that may be the limiting point that OP may need to decide for himself. Otherwise, as non-computer-savy person as I am, I can say that the computer part, if you do not rip directly to the SONY but transfer it from the computer, is as simple as it gets as is the operation after the music has been transferred. Sound is great, too.
echolane's avatar
echolane
109 posts
 
I could have written your thread opening  message down to the last period.  I’m firmly planted in the two channel analog past too and much interested in converting my CDs and maybe my LPs to digital.  I’m at the stage where it’s difficult to know which questions to ask.  

Just to get started,  I am so confused about what to choose for ripping and then  how to merge streaming  into my several stereo systems. And what if I want to do LPs too?

I have had recommendations for the Naim Uniti Core for ripping and storing digital music.  I’ve heard that Roon might be better.  Or maybe it’s just different.  I’ve just today heard about the gear recommended in this thread, Bluesound and Sony.  How to choose??

  Virtually all my music is classical or opera and I’ve read with increasing despair that it can be very hard to get the right tags on classical music, so that’s one issue.

  Which one preserves the audio quality best?

Which software is best for managing playback?
rbstehno
1,453 posts
 
I listened to both the Sony and the bluesound and I bought the Auralic Aries which blew those 2 away in sound and especially the DS Lightning iPad software to control it. I bought the Auralic Aries mini for the living room which I think is superior to the Sony or bluesound, the Aries mini uses the DS lightning software. Also, you can hook up an external usb drive to the auralic. The drawback to all of these units is that it doesn’t support MQA. I sold the Aries and went with the ps audio directstream with bridge which is excellent as a dac and streamer. I use Roon as the GUI iPad interface and you can’t get better than that. Roon allows you to integrate Tidal songs/albums with your ripped music collection so when you shuffle an artist you don’t know if you are playing ripped music or music from Tidal, integrates it perfectly. I do use a dedicated Mac mini with external disks for my ripped cds and the Roon server part. Btw: Tidal has the best quality music from redbook to MQA
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