Build High-End Audio System w/ Hard Drive Storage?

nganju asks: "Hard Drives have finally reached the size where I can rip down 1000 CDs directly to WAV files, and skip the compression step (read: headache) altogether, ensuring that the audio playback is what the original CD author intended. Now the question is, how do I get that WAV data off the computer and into the amplifier with minimal distortion? Are there D/A PCI cards comparable to high-end CD players? Or is the best solution some direct digital output card (SPDIF) and a standalone D/A converter component? Specific model names would be greatly appreciated."

Comments

simple

[Keruo]

Just use optical output at the soundcard such as sb audigy.
The signal will be in totally digital form, until your amplifier D/A converts it back to audio.
That way your computer/soundcard won't affect the sound quality at all.

Re:Lossless compression does exist.

[Matt Perry]

right, and at a 1000 cds, compresseion time certainly is a factor. even with lossless.

Write a script or use one of the many existing tools to mass convert the files for you. That way the computer is working, not you. There are scripts already written to do this. I'm doing this with my music. I re-ripped everything to FLAC when I noticed that one of my oldest CDs was developing cracks inside of the plastic. I used the script to convert all of the FLAC files to MP3 files. If the format de jour changes I can update the script and reconvert and let my CDs rot away (which they appear to be doing anyway).

Hifi-Link

[PurpleFloyd]

A company called Xitel makes the "Hi-Fi Link," a USB-based audio-out gadget. I haven't used it, but it looks like a good solution: USB has several major advantages when outputting analog data. First, it lives outside the electromagnetic noise storm that is the typical computer case. Second, it acts as a second audio device: this means you can, if you wish, hook up cheap speakers to your soundcard for system sounds, and output nothing but music to your hi-fi system (I use this system, with two soundcards, and it is far better than having Windows or Gnome intersperse your music with noises).

Another solution is to get a card with S/PDIF digital output and an amp which supports it. This is a good solution if you already have such a soundcard, but the soundcard upgrade can be expensive. On the whole, if you're starting from scratch, I'd go with USB.