mike.s

You are good: all of these attributes are stored in the files themselves. No need to "point" Jriver at iTunes in the least. JRMC is set up out of the box for Mac to look in your typical music folder but as part of the initial install, it will ask you where to look. Just point it at your music files. Not at iTunes. What you will lose in the move to JRiver: What I mentioned previously for tags, Playlists in iTunes, DRM'd video (i.e. all video from Apple Store), sync to any IOS device, combined views of an album that include the music and the pamphlet (most relevant for me with classical music). Assumptions: 1. you are not keeping your iTunes music "in the cloud" and everything is actually on the drive you indicated. 2. your music is not still under DRM protection

When you configure import, just point it at the folder(s) on the mount point where the music files are. You can run both concurrently for a while (or forevermore) and file discovery should be just fine. Metadata from iTunes is a partial win... The normal tags are just fine, but some (e.g. Composer Sort, Artist Sort) do not come through and I believe ratings don't either.

4 different iTunes libraries with 1 shared between people. All but one room will need access to each library. This looks like an excellent choice! I've been looking for an excuse to toy with an RPi system, and the audio solution is clearly interesting, but I don't know where to start with it, nor in this case understand it's role. Is it a replacement for the Airport Express? Is there a link to some kind of cookbook or parts list? A thread?

Distance and layout make cabled layouts not feasible. So Wireless, simple and small is best and a key design point.

No! There are 4 rooms with macs that have near field systems for each family member (wife & 2 kids). Then there are 4 other rooms that are used for various states of work/homework/play/creativity (wife is an artist). The other 4 rooms are what I'm filling with music. The Onkyo sounds interesting (have 1 Dayton right now... wife likes minimalist approach that's easy to cover from flying clay and paint), I'll dig into that.

So far, it seems that, until I can find a great deal (50% off amazon pricing on V-DAC or DACMagic), I'm relegated to analogue?

OK, so glass cable connects from APEX, but what exactly would that glass cable connect to? (the DAC is "TBD" --> to be determined by this thread).

I'm looking for a Toslink DAC connection under $200 to connect to a setup I have for room audio (8 different rooms & 4 different macs): Mac ==> Airport Express --> DAC (TBD) --> Dayton DTA-100a --> Pioneer SP-BS22-LR For the most part there will be minimal direct active listening, but instead quiet passive listening while reading, studying and writing with some active listening while relaxing over a glass of wine. Budget is less then $199... FIRM (remember, this is 4x and primarily passive listening).