Northern_Canuck

I use IsoBuster on problem discs that the mainstream rippers fail on. If IsoBuster can't rip the disc then nothing probably will work either. It has a good surface scanner that will detect corrupted sectors so you know what your facing. Edit: IsoBuster is a Windows only program.

As a first time Audirvana user and have to say I'm impressed. After a few days using Origin, I'm finding the sound quality, UI interface and Plugin support to be excellent. I like to use digital EQs and the plugin implementation (VST3) in Origin thus far has been flawless and effortless to setup. Love the folder view option (essentially a file explorer) as all my music is sorted in a folder structure. I won't dwell on the myriad of other media programs I have used in the past (I think I have tried most of them 🙂) including multiple DAWs and find Audirvana to have as good as sound quality as the best of the them with one of the easiest setup/User interfaces. Using an Intel I9-12700K CPU/32GB-3600Mhz Ram and the CPU/Memory usage is extremely low (not oversampling). So far the program has "ticked-all-the-boxes" for me.

Try to listen to a pair of Totem Tribe speakers. Small foot print with a big sound signature within your budget. Just demo'd the Tribe, Fire and Metal and was impressed through out the line. Moved around the demo room with the Tribe and they have one of the widest listening arcs I have ever heard - did not matter where I sat they sounded good. They have probably one of the best fully magnetic drivers in the market. Worth a listen.

If a .ISO file corrupts then try ISO Buster program to extract the individual files within the ISO file. Unfortunately the program only works on a PC.

I often rip CD's using two instances of dbpoweramp open at the same time (only have two optical drives installed). Just select a different CD drive in each instance of dbpoweramp. I have never seen a performance degrade using this method. Not sure how many instances of dbpoweramp you can have open at the same time but 2 instances works well.

I like dBpoweramp for Windows. I can open multiple instances of dBpoweramp and in turn rip multiple discs at the same time which is a huge time saver for large ripping jobs. +1 have a backup process in place.

Have a look at the Das Keyboard 4 Professional. It has rotary volume control and multiple key types. Also has an apple layout option. I do not own it personally but its in my Amazon saved list. There are many detailed reviews on the web.

I was in your same position (upgrading from an Xonar STX II) and looked at various options. I'm fortunate to have a good local hi-fi shop in my city and they spent hours going through various external DAC upgrade options. I found in my testing that a DAC's output stage had the biggest effect on the sound quality in my system. I found a class A output stage in the DAC resulted in the best sound quality. You might want to explore DACs with a class A output stage (FYI they tend to get pricey but can be found on the used market for reasonable prices). Good luck on your upgrade quest.

I get the best results by ripping the blu ray disk and open the file in Adobe Premiere Pro. Then export the audio track to Adobe Audition. Once you are in Adobe Audtion youi can do anything you want to the sound track. This is the best processing chain I have found for extracting audio from DVD\Blu Ray discs. Only draw back you are limited to PCM editing and the software is not cheap.

My advice would be to find a good PC builder and go custom route. An experienced PC builder will help you spec the right components for your needs. You will probably have better success with a custom built PC than trying to find an "off-the-shelf" solution.

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Look at the Bryston BDA-3. It is getting pretty solid reviews.

Ozone is a VST plugin and requires a host program to operate. It was desgined for DAWs but will work in some media players that accept VST plugins. Please note Ozone is a mastering program designed to make changes to an audio file. You should be safe to run it as a VST plugin in a media player but if you run it in a DAW/Wave Editor you can make permanent changes to your audio file if you are not careful. Best to always backup your original audio files. I have used Ozone for years in Foobar with no issues. Just a FYI if your going to be using plugins it is best to stick to FLAC/WAVE or ALAC file formats as these formats have the widest compatability.

I tried to incorporate Ozone with JRiver a couple of times but could never get it to work. All I could accomplish was harsh static. JRiver indicates the program is compatible with VST plugins but I could not get it to work with Ozone on my PC. I do use Ozone with Foobar2000 and it works great. You need George Yohng's VST Wrapper component and your good to go. I love the Ozone EQ and the tube option is great way to mellow out harsh recordings.

You can try Directory Opus (google it) which is a very robust file management program (windows only). The program has a metadata editor (click on file and select Properties Tab and edit metadata option). Its not free but it does have a lengthy demo period.