Taking My First Steps

The folks here are quite knowledgeable, but I would also recommend:

http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php

Here you will get "high end" sound recommendations. The other forums may be better on the hardware aspects.

I would recommend staying away from Apple lossless and going with a more universal (and less proprietary) lossless format, FLAC or APE. WinAmp has free plugins available that will play these formats natively.

You can also playback thru your main system by using something like the LinkSys Wireless MusicBirdge. I snagged one for $55 delivered and I really enjoy the freedom of having a huge music library available at my fingertips. I run it from my laptop and send the music that's saved on my external USB drive connected to my server out to my main hi-fi.

dbPowerAmp and Exact Audio copy are very good ripping programs and both are available free, Google 'em.

In addition, most of the downloadable, free music comes in FLAC or SHN format - see
[url]http://db.etree.org[/url]
[url]http://www.archive.org/details/etree[/url]

(I don't know why both these link *look* the same in this post, they go to different sites)

It's the Golden Age for free music right now, jump on the bandwagon, mate!

-RW-

I think I am becoming more confused. If I avoid Apple Lossless format and use FLAC, what software should I use to burn CDs? Is Exact Audio Copy one of them? Does EAC let me compress song files into an FLAC format?

If I use the FLAC format, can these still be played using iTunes?

Also, I don't know what it means to play a format "natively".

Obviously, I only want to rip my CDs once, so I want to get it right.

Thanks in advance,

Lawrence.