I apologise if anything I asked is covered already-but all my searches on here haven't really answered my questions. I will be eternally grateful for any straightforward advice!
I am updating my Hifi system into the 21st century and need advice. I will do my music collection at the same time! Here is what I have now:
Music: a ton Vinyl and regular CDs
Sources: Project Perspective Turntable/Sony CD player (started as an X303 heavily modded into a Transport)
DAC: Meridian 24 bit
Amplification: Musical Fidelity preamp - Korato valve power amp
Speakers: Dynaudio Contour 1.3 MkIIs mounted and marble/concrete acropolis
Wiring: custom BBC grade interconnects, Audioquest Forest speaker cables
4 year old PC with expensive sound card and Windows Media edition (slave to be?) also have a Mac Mini
What I want to achieve: the user-friendliness of MP3 with sound quality I am used to, all accessed via remote control!
Proviso: at the moment, I do not really have funds I want to work with what I've got. So advice could come into 2 streams: (1) what I can do now and (2) what I could buy later to make it even better
Next is the bit I want help with as I am still fairly oblivious to all the possibilities... please forgive all ignorance!
My plan: (A) to find a way to write all my CDs (maybe vinyl afterwards) onto the PC or an offboard hard drive BUT in original size no compression. (B) find a way to manage/access playing those easily-ideally using the Media centre which works off my PC remote control. © connect the PC to my Meridian DAC using optical or coaxial cable. (D) enjoy high quality music/playlists without getting up to load CD after CD in the dark/whilst making love etc...
So many possible questions spring out if it: Am I on the right track? Is this all possible? How much of a drop in quality will I experience playing from a computer? How much difference would a newer sound card make? Might my Mac Mini (similar age/spec) be a better tool for the job? Can software to do what I need be found free? Will it take ages to write them all as "raw" full size files? Once I have it all on the hard drive full size, would it be easy to convert it all to MP3 to go on my mobile phone etc? What new technologies, SACD/Blu-Ray/DVD-A would be worth looking into, and do these transfer well onto hard drives or are the files too big? I'll stop now...
Wow! Lots of questions people, I hope I have not overstepped the mark. Rather I hope that any advice and answers here will help others, who might also have recently joined CA or in a similar predicament!
PS. I ALSO have a network backup power supply (damned heavy!) which I picked up clearing out an IT company that went bust. It has a lot of kettle 3-pin outputs. So if appropriate, I thought of running all/some of my system off/through this might reduce power contamination and improve the sound?
