hey besides exact audio copy...what about burning

Hard Drive is the solution of the future. I see all of this stuff converging
at some point. Music, home theatre, computer, wi-fi. In fact, it has already begun to converge. It is taking some time to get it right, but we
are quantum leaps closer than just a few years ago.

You're welcome. Also, since Hard Drives are being made with higher capacities, there's no reason to rip CD's to your Hard Drive using a
compression or data reduction codec. Rip them to your hard drive uncompressed -- you can get an external hard drive, load your entire CD collection on it, uncompressed, and play it with your computer. Wi-fi just means "WIRELESS." You can put all your music on one computer, form a wireless network with other computers in the house and share the music, play it through your stereo, transfer it to a hand held device like an i-pod, plug the i-pod into your car stereo, etc. I find that a hard drive makes an excellent transport and if you rip a cd uncompressed it sounds awfully good on playback. Having said all that, if you simply have to compress your music, then use the highest sample size available, like 320 kbps. The less compression the better. The highest quality is no
compression, which is what I recommend.

Alpine is coming out with a car stereo that will interface with your i-pod,
take over it's functions and keep it charged. For me, that's a better solution than some of the others like Sony and Omnify. Sony and Omnify
make Hard Drive units that are dedicated to the car. The i-pod interface means you can plug your i-pod into your home stereo, your car stereo,
take it to the beach, etc. To me, that's the Holy Grail.

Also, when ripping CD's to a hard drive using Apple's AAC at 320 kbps,
one CD took up about 100 Megs. That's 100 CD's per 10 Gigs. With a
200 Gig Hard Drive, you could store 2,000 CD's.

When ripping them uncompressed, one CD took up about 500 Megs.
With a 200 Gig Hard Drive, you could store 400 CD's. You'd need 500
gigs to store 1,000 CD's uncompressed. That's two 250 Gig Hard Drives.

Just depends on your ears and how important are issues of sound quality
and Hard Drive space usage to you.

Another alternative is to prioritize. Perhaps you rip some CD's compressed and some uncompressed. A solution to the time expense of
ripping all those CD's is to pay a kid a few bucks an hour to do rip your
CD's. A child of 10 could easily do it and would love to have the money.

Also, apple is not the only company that makes a hard drive digital jukebox. I'm told that Just about any car stereo that is capable of
running an external changer can be set up to connect with an i-pod and
most other digital hard drive juke boxes. But, the Alpine is the only one
I know that will take over the i-pod's functions. So, most car stereos could be modified to connect with a hard drive, but the Alpine will keep
the i-pod charged, take over it's functions, etc. Point being, I am not trying to push Apple, although I love their digital music solutions, but
there are other companies that make similar products. Some of them are also less costly than an i-pod. I would imagine that in the future most car stereo companies will develop car stereos that can interface with these players.

Maybe someday someone will broadcast music, uncompressed.

I'm a dreamer!

Deluxe -- "my mental age is about 11 and i'd love the money..."

LOL. No, no, no. That won't do. When I run a child labor sweat shop, it
has to be real children or else it loses something.