My head hurts....

MAC or PC?

Well, what's on hand right now? Really? then try that first.

As has been posted there are many levels, and flavors along the way in ANY realm of audio.

Begin with what you have now. it might suprise you what can be done with it. It sure did me. Just picking out a different media player made the sound better! I'd never have believed that to be the case. But then, I'm eternally skeptical.

This ain't rocket science. We just think we're NASA engineers... no offense to those who really are of course. Much of what can or should be done with pc audio or digital audio is at this stage, simple plug and play. usually. now and then there's the needed download too.

I keep seeing rhetoric about noisey personal confusers so one should use an outboard sound card, or DAC. that aforementioned noise can be amelierated with little trouble. Just open up the case, for staters! A nice PCI card might be the way to go right off.

Just try something and see if that floats your boat. If not, then try something else. For under $150.00, you can get a M Audio Audiophile 24/192 PCI card that has several inputs and outputs for recording OR playing back music. For free you can get J River Jukebox. J River, BTW is well regarded as a favored media player by several of the top USB DAC makers.

Just getting in where ya fit in is always a good place to begin. Then.... think about what or where to go from there, and most importantly, how you want to utilize this new playback system. Whole house? Wireless? Remotely? USB?

Good luck... don't let it overwhelm you. it's not that much trouble... and remember, "best or better" is up to you to decide anyways.

"Begin with what you have now. it might surprise you what can be done with it."

Absolutely. try what you have before convincing yourself it ain't any good. You might be surprised.

You can and with the rate at which this technology is evolving, probably will always upgrade later.

I'm in the same boat. . .I've made the decision to build a computer based system feeding an external DAC.

Stand alone DACs are becoming the standard for digital music replay including computer and internet radio.
I'd keep your universal player and get a DAC. You can try other transports, computer, etc.

I was thinking of getting a better source or modding my Oppo and after research felt that a DAC was the most flexable option. I can upgrade to BluRay later and still have great music reproduction. I don't have to look for the best source in my price range. The DAC gives me almost state of the art no matter which way I go.

I just started a music server by enabling media sharing in Windows Media Player in Vista on a laptop. IT works very nicely. The Windows Media Player interface for ripping CDs to disk is very fast . I ripped the 5 CD Ken Burns JAzz CD set yesterday in about 30 minutes.

Once the song is ripped it is categorized by artist, album, and genre. I can then select to play a specific song, album, or set of songs by an artist or in a genre using the Roku Soundbridge on my system.

Last night I had several dozen classic jazz tunes playing randomly on my system via Wifi conenction to my Vista PC for several hours. Sound quality is very good out of the can.

I do have a new outboard DAC coming though in order to try something different and maybe even better. But the sound as is is quite competitive already.

Sweet......