You can buy a laptop or small"netbook" for under $400 and keep it for the sole purpose of music connected to your stereo. It is nice to have a larger screen to view your collection, vs the iPod screen.
ok jjf, we can chat ... but this might start to sound freaky QUOTE]Quote from jjf: [...] cataloguing 100s of CDs for high quality replay and before I rush out and spend money I would like to have a fair idea of what I am doing [/QUOTE] high quality ... how high? what r ur speakers? (brand, model) whats ur budget? what kind of music do u listen to? whats the size of ur room? basicly imo the technology is not well developed yet you may consider http://www.sonicstudio.com/amarra/index.html, starts at 5000$, no amplification you may consider http://www.ikbenstil.nl/Amplifier+Versterker-PC:::362.html, starts at 6000 EUR, computer with high quality switch mode amplification, you may consider http://www.psaudio.com/ps/products/detail/perfectwave-transport, starts at 2000$ + separate power supply starts at 2000$, no amplification or computer (dell, apple) + sound card and optinally external digital signal processor + multichanell amplifier please provide more info and please answer the questions or PM me if u got some time for a skype chat
I rip/torrent everything to a desktop stuffed with terabyte drives RAIDed together. Audio ripped to 320kbps, video stored as H.264. The material - both audio and video - is accessed with a AppleTVs and iPods. Allows for multiple simultaneous access so more than one "thing" can be enjoyed at the same time. Similar solutions are available for PCs with media "clients" from D-Link, Linksys and all the other usual suspects. Hope that helps.