So I am a software guy during the day, living in a small NYC apartment. I struggled and struggled to resolve my internal conflict between the usefulness of MP3s and the obvious sound quality issues. So I decided to go with a PC-sourced system and the FLAC comrpession format because the benefits of being able to use a software jukebox are, in the end, huge. I also managed to get a lot of funtionality that you would normally have to pay a custom installer tons of cash for. The computerized parts of the system:

Big file server, about 600G of storage, running Linux. This is in my office, always on, and runs Samba to expose some Windows-accessible file shares.

LAN (wired as well as WiFi) throughout the listening area as well as the entire home.

The audio server contains all of my CDs encoded to FLAC files (lossless compression). It took a while to rip everything (months), but I used Exact Audio Copy and the FLAC tools and I have pretty excellent source material at this point.

Main system is fronted by a laptop connected via USB to a MAudio Audiophile unit with coax digital outs. The digital out runs into the Perpetual DAC, and from there through the rest of the analog gear. The laptops run DbPowerAMp, a Winamp-like player that has great native FLAC support. I chose this because it has a library component that is much better than any I've used (musicmatch, winamp, windows media player, etc.), and it supports FLAC tags natively.

So the benefits of this system, in my opinion, are:

- sound quality, using a good encoding package, a lossless format like FLAC, and a pure digital out from the PC, are as good as anything I've ever heard from a CD transport. I don't have the tools to measure jitter but in my opinion this is a great digital source.

- for folks with a lot of music, as most of us, the ability to point and click and listen to things you haven't pulled out in years is amazing. You can also do all the cool stuff like randomly play from your collection, play specific genres, etc. -- the FLAC tagging is just like MP3 tagging in terms of features.

- the analog side of the equation is nice enough for me

- of course you can play internet radio and stuff as well, if you want

So at this point I'll never go back to a non-digital sourcing option. I've since put all my CDs in storage (still have a rack for those I've bought since the encoding, and will send to storage in buckets). I have also built some otehr software tools to browse my collection via the web and dynam,ically transcode FLAC to MP3s that I can listen to from the office. I'm now working on getting an old laptop wired into my car system as well.

Things I am in the market for:

- any kind of cool software to support systems like this

- some speaker cable (using DHLabs now, thinking of AnalysisPlus Oval 9)

- front-end options like some of the new tablet PCs

I'm interested in any opinions from others who have done stuff with software front-ends, played with different lossless compressions, or used other variations ont eh home theatre PC theme (my interests primarily being in space/noise pollution, which is why I'm using a quiet micro laptop).

I realize the stand and positioning situation is not ideal, c'est la vie, I'd rather be married.

Will