Music server recommendations needed.

I have an Innuos Zenith Mk III that is well regarded and has excellent user software. It also has a CD slot for ripping, but not playing, CD's to the internal drive.

My suggestion however is to keep your CD player, get the best Innuos unit that you can afford, a subscription to Qobuz, and skip ripping all of your CD's. Use that for awhile and see if you are missing anything. I have all my CD's ripped and stored on mine, but rarely use them. Quite frequently a newer or better version of a recording is available on Qobuz.

You need something to rip your CDs, a means of storing those ripped files, backup storage so you don't lose all those ripped files if the hard drive storing the files dies, and a server/dac to play back the files.  These can be combined in one or two units.  I don't have any specific recommendations.  I own a Naim ND 555 server and their UnitiCore ripper/NAS (network attached storage); I also own two back up storage hard drives.  All of the storage drives are 8 TB units. 

I have about 5,000 CDs ripped this way.  I don't know how anyone with a large collection easily accesses the collection without a server.  With just a sliver of information about a CD, I can find it by searching the meta-data that is also stored with the music files.  

Look at a 432evo Aeon highest performance server out there for the money, we have found.

very advanced design separate low noise cpu, of its own electrically isolated motherboard, electrically isolated clock board and usb card, two external sbooster power supplies, custom OS designed to maximize sound quality.

We tested this server against a 27k Innous Statement next gen. and found the much less expensive Aeon to sound just as good.

also tested vs a 12k Aurender where we sounded better.

fully modular hardware allows for future improvements as better hardware becomes available

Dave and Troy

Audio Intellect NJ

432evo dealer

I ripped all my CDs ten to fifteen years ago. Lots of work and I haven’t listened to one of them in several years. In my system and in those assembled at many different levels of investment streaming from Qobuz (or Tidal) is indistinguishable from the physical disk or a locally stored file. For $14.99 / month you have access to over ten million albums of which half a million are of greater then red book resolution. I would find a great streamer (I recommend Aurrender)… get it in your system… then if you find a few of your CDs are not available from your streaming service… just rip those and store them on your streamer. But after you have access to all this high quality content, don’t be surprised if you don’t start exploring new music or different performances and leave the old stuff behind.