I’m looking for ideas and input for an idea I’m mulling over. I’m a computer idiot, so I don’t even know if this is possible.

I have two Sony 400 CD mega changers that I use for my two channel rig and both are full. I have about two hundred more CD’s lying around. I can either buy another changer, or go all digital. I’m leaning toward the all digital direction. I would love to buy an Olive Opus media storage device, but I’ll never spend $4,000 on one of them. It’s just too much for me to justify. The changers work OK, but they have their obvious limitations. I’d much rather have my CD’s stored on a hard drive so I can sort and play and create playlists. I also find that when I play the changers in random, I don’t think it’s very random…..

I do not like ripped or compressed music files. They just don’t sound right to me. I know there are advocates for some of the formats, but I’d rather just store all my CD’s in a lossless, uncompressed format. Hard drive space is getting cheap too, so I don’t see any value with compressed formats.

So here’s my idea….

Buy a used laptop with enough processing power to do what I want it to do. Buy an external hard drive with ESATA or USB and at least 1T of space. Spec out and install a super fast drive that will let me copy all my CD’s onto the hard drive as quick as possible (RE: 1000 CD’s will take days and I’m impatient). I’d also like this drive to read / copy SACD/DVDA. Install a media software program (not real sure which one to use). Install a kick ass sound card with two channel DAC’s that I can plug into my pre amp.

I’d then use this laptop only for CD playback and firmware updates for the rest of my A/V gear. I’d also use it for my display calibration software. The laptop would have to have RS232 because some of gear has RS232 and no USB.

Is this even possible??

You're screwed on the ripping side of things.

a) Drives tend to top out at 52x, and that's all there is to it.
b) ripping can take serious processor horsepower.
c) No drives read or copy SACD/DVD-A.

Also, I wouldn't spend too much money on a "kick ass sound card" - the DACS in your current receiver/pre/pro probably kick as much ass as those you'd pay for in a sound card. Just a simple audio card with a digital out (S/PDIF) will work fine.

Oh sure.... pop my balloon!!!

I've got a D-Link NAS enclosure with 2 WD 500GB SATA drives in it for a total of 1 TB of disk space. This little things connect to my network and is available to any computer on my network. It contains about 400GB of mostly lossless music in FLAC or APE formats. I also have a SONOS system which wirelessly transmit all of my uncompressed music to other rooms in my house. The other rooms have a Sonos amplifier with speakers connected to it. The main Sonos unit connects to my Preprocessor via SPDIF digital out.

So, I walk around the house with my Sonos remote control and can play all of that music anywhere I've got speakers and a Sonos amplifier, of course, through my main audio setup as well.

Yes, ripping CDs will take a bit of time, but the convenience after is well worth it in my opinion.

I use a Rotel RB 1070 for a pre amp. It has no DACs. Just analogue inputs. So I reckon my grand idea of laptop interface is defunct…….

Second option that I’m now pondering is to just suck it up and buy a media storage device or a controller for my changers.

I found this one that looks way cool…. http://www.escient.com/products/dvdm100.html

I found it with a quick Google search, refurbished for $1000. It will control three Sony Mega Changers.

The product page says it will only control Sony 777 DVD changers, but I called tech support and was told it will control any Sony changer with S-link, but that in his words “Most” people don’t use it for what I want, with emphasis on the most. I reckon Tom and I are the only weirdo’s out there that use Mega changers and want to automat them. So while I had this guy on the phone, I asked him about media cataloguing and creating play lists like in Windows Media Player or I-tunes. He told me that all I had to do was hook this thing up to my changers and tell it to catalogue and it takes it from there. It will cycle each CD, grab data off the CD and then talk to their server and grab album cover and all the other info just like WMP. All I need is a monitor and I’m set. They sell a touch screen that works with the DVDM100 too. That would be way cool…

Tom, why don’t you buy this and tell me how well it works???

Riker,

Thanks. I'll look some more into what you are doing as well.

Have you looked at the offerings from slimdevices?

I recently got a squeezebox duet and am very happy with it. Busy moving everything over to flac which is taking a while but it is a one time deal.

Tell me some more about storage and interface with these devices from Sonos and Slimdevices fellas....

I'd rather like to have something independent from my main home / office PC that is convenient to use and interface with. I sorta like the idea of having a system where I could pipe some tunes to my garage and spa room.

Because I like iTunes and want to keep it integrated with my ipod use, I settled on the following solution.

1. 1TB hardrive of mainly apple lossless uncompressed music files ripped from CDs connected to my PC.

2. Slimdevices Duet with receiver connected to my stereo rig.

3. Wireless transmission of all music files through my router.

This setup lets me integrate the Slimdevices Squeezecenter with iTunes so I can seamlessly add files to either one and have it replicated in the other application. My hardrive is almost full with 40,000 tracks (4,300 albums) so its time to add another harddrive.

That Transporter from Slimdevices looks pretty trick. Not sure if it's $2000 trick though....

It looks as if I still need a computor for both the Sonos and SD gear to talk to after all the CD's are loaded onto the computor's hard drive. Is this asumption correct?? If so, the Esceint DVDM-100 might be my best option.