SeaNile

I'm beginning to make sense of things now. Since there are a few absolute things on my listening list, I will purchase them on CD. I'll research on how to put these various recording formats (SACD, DTS, 5.1 mixes, etc) into my harddrive, whatever that may be in the future. For now I am going to connect my computer via USB and use iTunes for playback. I will also connect my Oppo BDP83 via optical to the Hegel and listen to the CD's I just purchased. That will give me a bit of instant gratification and a few days to listen to the system and figure out what to do. I'm really thinking of going the Mac Mini and external HD route and connecting via toslink optical to the Hegel. Then I will use Jriver and distance myself from iTunes. Another questions. I keep reading about the ability to EQ and adjust levels...that is exactly what I do not want. I'd like to listen to the recording as intended, not with some wild personal house mix added. Will all my music be required to be EQ'd and thus changing the sound?

Just looked and at least 85% of my library is AAC and purchased AAC. Then a combination of AIFF, Apple Lossless, MPEG audio. Looks like I will be re-buying a lot of music??

Just bought Revel Studio2 speakers and a Hegel h300 integrated amp (has DAC). I have a pretty big iTunes library and have no CD's at all. Not sure of the format of the music files when I put my CD's into iTunes. I'd really like to get great sound out of my system and would like NOT to re-buy hundreds of CD's. I'm OK with buying a Mac Mini but not sure how to hook up everything. I'll transfer over my library to the Mac Mini but then I'm a bit lost. Best to hook the Mini up to the Hegel via USB? And then use something like jRiver to manage the music? What about wanting to buy new music that may not be available on a high resolution site, do I buy the CD and just import it to the iTunes library? Thanks for the help..