Crash Jan 29, 2007
As my number of CDs continues to grow, and grow, and grow, I started wondering about the merits of setting up my own music server. Basically, what I was thinking of doing was extracting all of my CDs to the hard drive of my old computer (either keeping the music as WAVs or some other lossless format), and converting that computer into a music server. I could hook up a primo sound card (maybe an external one?) with digital outputs, feed the music through a DAC, then through my receiver and out to the speakers.
I've seen some music servers on the market these days, but either the hard drive is too small (I would probably need 500+ GB to hold all the music I have right now, and I would need some headroom for future CDs), or the unit is too expensive. I would only use it for one room, so I wouldn't need wireless capabilities.
Has anyone here done something like this? If so, I have a couple of questions:
1. Is there any way to extract a CD with gapless playback? I have quite a few nonstop megamix CDs (Super Eurobeat, Dancemania, DDR, etc.), and want to keep those CDs gapless. It drives me crazy when I try playing one of these CDs on the computer, and there is a little pause instituted between tracks (which is why I switched from Windows Media Player to Quintessential when playing CDs). I want to retain the track spacing of CDs when I extract them. This is probably my most important concern, and if there is no way to do this, I will likely abandon this project.
2. What programs do you use for ripping the CDs? Does it automatically populate the CD title and track names, or do you have to enter them in manually? How about for the playback interface? It seems that most people who set up their computer as a server use some Linux OS, so I might have to try that out.
Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.
