I love the suggestions in this thread. Once I've got these CDs ripped, my next question would be how and where to play! I'm a newbie to all this, so not familiar with NAS' etc. Some useful tips in this thread, so happy it's taken off from the basic ripping program I initially asked about.
DbPoweramp has also played nice ever since and I'm having a blast with it. I've been ripping most of the last few days and am probably 15% through my collection at a guess...
Glad it worked out with dbPoweramp
re. playing it back..
To start with don't worry too much about a NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices. It's just a name for a PC like 'home server' device that you
manage over network/via a web browser more focused on file storage and server type tasks.
Synology and
QNAP are the main vendors, But at the end of the day they are just a PC with additional hard drive slots. In fact given how cheap and large hard drives are now there is less benefits to using them than there once was. The main benefit now is probably that they simplify the setup of server type tasks/software and need less maintenance once setup and can just be hidden away in a cupboard or another room.
As mentioned earlier in this thread, music management software like LMS (Logitech Media Server) and Roon can run on your current PC, a small form factor PC like an
Intel NUC (which make a nice for a nice quiet/compact form factor) or a NAS.
The good news is you can try out the main music management software packages on your current PC for free (or at leats the trials) right now to see if they work for you, without forking out any extra cash.
Here are the download links, LMS is free, the others have trial periods.
They all will index your FLAC library and let you control it via a nice interface,
web based in the case of LMS (you can also get mobile apps like
iPeng to control LMS) and
desktop or mobile (
iOS/
Android) apps in the case of Roon. Audirvana has desktop and mobile apps. There are obviously other packages out there and people will have their favourites, but just trying to give an example of what is out there.
LMS and Roon then present your music collection in a nice interface with
sleeve notes,
artists pages or
discovery interfaces. Think iTunes on steroids.
LMS has similar interfaces, but not quite as polished, on the other hand LMS is free and hugely configurable, whereas Roon has a yearly or lifetime subscriptions costs. Audirvana is much more basic in terms of interface and features, but it might be all you need right now. There is also
Foobar2000 but that is much more of a stand-alone audio player.
You can then connect your HiFI directly to whatever PC or device is running your music software (as you are now) or depending on your existing amp you may be able to stream directly to it over WiFI using the DLNA, Chromecast or AirPlay protocols. But if not and you want to cut the wire between the PC and the HIFI you can get cheap devices like a
Raspberry PI or Chromecast Audio to act as a wireless bridge between the machine playing the music/running the software and your HiFi. Which bridge device to get somewhat depends on what software you chose.
The nice thing about this route is you can start using the software right way, making or migrating playlists and playing music and then move the software to a dedicated PC or NAS later on if you need to without wasting the effort you have put into organising your collection now.
----
That's only one route, you can also get all-in-one devices from various audio hardware vendors like the Bluesound Node 2i or
Teufel Connector as well as similar products from the likes of Sonos, Denon or Yamaha that come with their own software that you connect directly to your hi-fi. These are more all-in-one units, unfortunately you can't really try out their apps/interfaces without owning their hardware. Their interfaces tend to be slightly simpler, focusing more on genre/artist/year browsing over rich 'discovery' type interfaces. They also tend to offer less in terms of music discovery and recommendation features. On the plus side they are a lot simpler to setup if you want an easy life, esp. if you only have one room or speaker. A lot depends on your budget, existing hardware, needs/usage, single room vs multi room, how much you value 'rich' user interfaces, how much music discovery or rediscovery is to you and most importantly (aside from budget) how much time you are willing to waste (or maybe enjoy wasting) on getting it all setup
I'd probably start with LMS and may be a free trial of Audirvana and Roon (just to see what a good interface can look like for comparison sake) and then see how you get on from there.