CD player/ MP3

First of all I don’t think what you want actually exists and second of all I don’t think that is what you really want. You say you don’t want a computer but the DVD machine you describe is just that, albeit one of limited function. It is using your TV as a monitor and a remote instead of a keyboard and mouse, but it is a computer.



A 100 gig drive storing MP3 will hold about 2000 CDs worth of music. At 10 minutes a disc ripping 8 hours a day it would take over a month. You don’t want to take the time to rip all of this only to have the drive crash or the machine die and lose all of that effort. Even if that doesn’t happen something better will come along and all of your music will be stuck on your old machine.

Don’t think short term. Computer based music servers are the future and you don’t want to get stuck in the past. Once you rip your CDs to hard drives in a lossless format you are prepared for any hardware improvements that come along.

Hard drives are cheap. An external 300G drive is less than $150. Don’t rip to MP3. You can get almost 1000 CDs in Apple lossless on a 300G drive or maybe 600 in native wave format. That is plenty to start with and you can always convert them to mp3 and put them on a portable player, but if you originally rip to mp3 you can’t go back to the original. I kick myself for ripping 400 of my CDs to mp3 for my portable player and then having to do it again in a lossless format when I decided to build a music server for my main system.

Buy drives in pairs. They do die and you must have a backup.

Search here and google for USB DAC and digital music server. You will find a lot of good info.