Why CD players will never be dead

Shakey,

Wayne at Bolder modded my linear PS and I am loving the result. He's got a Bybee mod that's supposed to be amazing. Too bad I'm over budget right now.

Thanks Shakey and point well taken Vhiner. I will wait more.
I do own a Squeezebox Touch and an Apple iMac into a Bel Canto DAC in my smaller second system. I will try your DB Poweramp idea and press on learning in my second system.

The biggest obstacle to a music server for me, beyond ripping over 1500 CDs, is the music selection process. When I look at the shelves of CDs it allows me to browse in a different way than any computer graphics can give me. I'm the sort of listener that seldom knows what I want to hear until I browse. This is the same issue I have with shopping for CDs on Amazon, which I usually do, but how I miss music stores. With Amazon and with music servers it works best if you know approxomately what you want. I'm, perhaps, too impulsive.

"I swear it is this bottomless black hole of cobbled together computer audio with all of its twists and turns that confounds me."

Granny - The best thing is to pick a manufacturer and stick with them. Good ones have all of the questions answered for you.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"are you so confident that you would make a wager that i would prefer your digital front end, over my favorite cd player ??"

Are we talking about a transport or player?

If it's a transport, I'll give you a money back guarantee that my gear will beat it. However, you must follow ALL of my advice for ripping S/W, playback S/W, format and use a Mac Mini.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio