ripping, music server. playback, logistics - good reference sources

Gerard52 · January 17, 2010

Looking for a lot of information. Essentially everything I need to know to go from a wall of 2000 cd's to everthing loaded on hard drives and easily accessible from sitting on the couch. I have always used pc's and would only go to mac if there is an extremely good reason. The system will be dedicated - no other uses. First concern is perfect rips. I have heard that EAC is the way to ensure this. I am not concerned with space - do not want to risk loss of quality by using any compression. Second concern is data backup - I don't want to rip twice. My idea is to store everything on two sets of external drives and simply set the other set on the shelf. Third - need to know how many cd's I can get per gigabyte / terabyte so I now the number of drives I will need. Fourth, want to be able to access everything from sitting on the couch. If this requires a laptop accessing a separate desktop (sitting in another room) that is fine. Just need to know how to set it up. Fifth, I am starting at ground zero, so a source, in the form of a book, would be nice, but everthing I have seen is too general i.e. "digital music" and "computer music" type titles (I do not need a primer on digital logic and d/a conversion principles - but a more application oriented approach); if anyone knows of such a text, please make a suggestion. Thanks