I'll give it a shot. Here is what I'm doing, and by no means am I an expert - started less than a year ago.
My setup from the bottom up, PS Audio P500 for power, Accustic Arts MKIII DAC, SinglePower Supra Headphone Amp and Sony Qualia 010 headphones.
I use iTunes for Windows sending wireless digital data (Ethernet) to a WiFi OffRamp with battery supply (this is a modded Airport Express, with superclock 4 etc...) which is connected to the RCA input of the Accustic Arts DAC. Ive also used a stock Airport Express toslink connection to a Monarchy DIP Upsampler (to reduce jitter) then BNC to the DAC. This also sounded very good, but I havent really sat down to perform an A/B test. I could also be the Accustic Arts DAC is forgiving when it comes to transports I dont know.
I rip CD's using a Plextor PX-716UF USB external drive. It's my understanding the ripping process is the important piece. Plextor drives seem to have a good reputation. I upgraded to the PlexTools Professional XL software to rip CD's. I rip to WAV files with error-correction set to the highest level. I dont believe WAV files have tags. I then make a copy of the WAV files and convert this copy to Apple Lossless using dBpower Amp Music Converter and then use Tag&Rename to retrieve tag information and CD art.
iTunes is set not to copy files when importing. All the Apple Lossless files are in one folder. I tell iTunes to import from that folder and within seconds the new tagged songs appear in the music library ready to play.
Foobar for playback and EAC for ripping are two open source programs that seem to have a strong following and good reputation, but their setups were a bit to complex for me.
My setup from the bottom up, PS Audio P500 for power, Accustic Arts MKIII DAC, SinglePower Supra Headphone Amp and Sony Qualia 010 headphones.
I use iTunes for Windows sending wireless digital data (Ethernet) to a WiFi OffRamp with battery supply (this is a modded Airport Express, with superclock 4 etc...) which is connected to the RCA input of the Accustic Arts DAC. Ive also used a stock Airport Express toslink connection to a Monarchy DIP Upsampler (to reduce jitter) then BNC to the DAC. This also sounded very good, but I havent really sat down to perform an A/B test. I could also be the Accustic Arts DAC is forgiving when it comes to transports I dont know.
I rip CD's using a Plextor PX-716UF USB external drive. It's my understanding the ripping process is the important piece. Plextor drives seem to have a good reputation. I upgraded to the PlexTools Professional XL software to rip CD's. I rip to WAV files with error-correction set to the highest level. I dont believe WAV files have tags. I then make a copy of the WAV files and convert this copy to Apple Lossless using dBpower Amp Music Converter and then use Tag&Rename to retrieve tag information and CD art.
iTunes is set not to copy files when importing. All the Apple Lossless files are in one folder. I tell iTunes to import from that folder and within seconds the new tagged songs appear in the music library ready to play.
Foobar for playback and EAC for ripping are two open source programs that seem to have a strong following and good reputation, but their setups were a bit to complex for me.