[davout]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice on what kit to buy to transfer my 1,100 CD collection to a media server and new hi-fi system.

I don't have a lot of space, so I'm really looking for a mini/compact hi-fi system that includes DAB radio, CD player, wi-fi/network access and an ability to play music stored on a media server. I have around 1,100 CD's and I'm looking for a device to transfer these to, where this same device could be accessed by the hi-fi system. Finally, the icing on the cake would be a facility to control the hi-fi from my laptop, iTouch or tablet.

Any suggestions?

[larkone]

A Vortexbox device is the way to go then VortexBox user forum - About - you can either build your own from an old PC and free VB download. VortexBox user forum - VortexBox Downloads

It will rip your CDs, catalogue them and retrieve the album art and it is quick as well. Average CD rip is about 7-10 mins each with little or no intervention unless it struggles to find the tagging info which can happen on older or more obscure CDs. You can manually tag albums using mp3tag Mp3tag - the universal Tag Editor (ID3v2, MP4, OGG, FLAC, ...) and download any missing album art using Album Art Downloader | Free Audio & Video software downloads at SourceForge.net


or buy a ready made box such as VortexBox appliance or
VortexBox Mini Appliance

There are others available through a well known auction site as well.

These can be remotely controlled by a PC/i-thing/android/WebOS device. 1100 CDs should need about 500GB of disk space in flac format so you should budget for a 1TB drive to future proof and do get a 1TB backup drive as you would not want to rip all of those CDs twice if a disk ever failed.. An async usb DAC would be a good purchase to go between the VB box and the HiFi and there are many to chose from starting from around £160 (HRT Streamer II) or MF v-DAC II (£199), the sky's the limit after that.

HiFi choice is down to what you like and can afford as you have not indicated a budget. There are a lot of small form factor hifi units at a huge range of prices and quality.

[amcluesent]

Depends on your budget. Vortexbox makes good store and easy CD-ripper.

For the player, you could consider the all-in-ones with streamer,amp,CD-player, radio, including those mini-systems (which are Apple Airplay compatible so can use iTunes on a MacMini server) -

Denon M68DAB, Marantz M-CR603, Denon CEOL

Then there are middle range all-in-ones, Arcam Solo Music Neo, NaimUniti