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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
1,253 posts
 
The more I use my Bluesound Vault 2, the more I’m impressed with its capabilities and features. I recently made a complete backup file to an external usb hard drive for peace of mind and it was super easy. The Bluesound is one of the best values in audio.
Totally agree with Uberwaltz.
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
rhljazz

Thank you, forgot to mention the ease of backup, all you need do is plug in a local 2tb usb hard drive ($60 off ebay) and just select backup in the settings. First backup will take a while ( depending on how many cds you have ripped) but even while it is backing up you can still play music through your system.
Versatile is not the right word here!
Are there higher quality units out there, sure there is, but at a higher price and some are much more complex to set up and use.
All boils down to how far you want to go and if like me you need to keep it all house hold friendly ( ie, my wife needs to be able to just push a couple buttons to hear music!) then the vault is hard to beat imho
Obviously YMMV.
Good luck and whatever you do, have fun!
reubent
6,978 posts
 
@uberwaltz @rhljazz - I'm very curious about the Bluesound Vault 2. I'm leaning in that direction. Question: Once you rip your CDs and have a backup, is the file structure a common standard and are the files portable to another platform if you change/upgrade to a different digital music server in the future?
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
@reubent
You can chose the encoder setting in the Vault settings for file type
Choices are

FLAC, MP3,WAV, MP3+FLAC, MP3+WAV

I have ripped all my cds to WAV.

Only thing I have tried so far is that I accessed the vault through my pc to copy some WAV files over to my phone so I can listen to stuff on the plane.
Not sure if that helps?
reubent
6,978 posts
 
@uberwaltz - Thanks. Looks like the files are standard, portable and independent of the Bluesound operating environment. This is goodness as I only want to rip my CDs once. As long I keep a solid backup, or two, should be good to go for years to come.

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