Well,

I have the seagate 120 Gig HD coming, I have the outboard USB 2.0 Plextor DVD-RW coming...

I was thinking of getting the M-Audio outboard USB 2.0 sound card, M-audio Audiophile USB. http://m-audio.rjmg.com/index.cfm?pid=3372 ... Is this good for both a HTPC as well as just for a music server? I need DTS complince, 24/96, etc... Is it possible to get DVD-Audio passed through the digital coax output? I don;t believe digital coax is limited in bandwidth simply because DVD-Audio is only 10 Mbit/sec... Any soundcards that wil pass the MLP output because I have a Meridian 861... Either way I would appreciate advice on which high end sound card to get, or else I'll get the one in the link above I guess. Any problem running 60 feet of coax from the sound card to the Meridian??

So, that leaves me mostly with picking and chosing through many ripping software. I'll worry about how to rip DD and DTS stuff later, but for now, I need help figuring out how to best way to store/play/rip my CD 44.1 music to the hard drive. As someone mentioned, I don`t want to do this very often, if only once! This is a huge effort.

Since I know I am not interested in any lossy compression, which method do you recommend: Uncompressed or lossless? Although don`t you 'technically' alter/lose something going through the lossless encoding process? Not a big deal, but technically, lossless compression doesn`t mean identical to the master, only the ability to make perfect generational copies once the encoding process is complete? Or am I wrong? Not a big deal...

Knowing I desire lossless or uncompressed storage for my PC, what would you recommend? I have Roxio 6.0 DVD/CD which came with the Plextor drive. I don`t know what limitations there are, nor do I know what advantages other software has... I know eventually, very soon I want to rip DVD to get the music from the VOB files on DVD for both DD and DTS. I will also likely want to edit the music for better fades. I used to use Turtle beach software a while back for that... I even had the original Multisound Card from Turtle beach when it cost $995.00!! It seems I hit medical school, and then residency, and I have amnesia as well as don`t know what happened to that wavw software, but now it seems that software for this purpose is abundant and even free... I don`t mind paying for good software, but if share/freeware is equal or better, that`s great.

Could someone please summarize what I'll need for my purposes?

1) uncompressed or lossless compression?
2) Sound card?
3) I will use 60 feet of Coax cable from the digital output of the M-Audio to the Meridian 861 in another room. (Should not be an issue.)
4) Which software to use for said purposes? EAC, FLAC, Windows, Roxio, aye carumba!!!

I'll get a USB 2.0 drive for backup.

I would really appreciate advice on questions 1, 2, 3, 4

Thanks!

Chris

7.1 System