Help -- need Idiot's Guide to music server system


Squeezebox, FLAC, Mac Mini, lossy, lossless -- help, what does all this mean? I'm trying to find out more about taking a CD collection onto hard drive music server. Can anyone recommend a Beginner's Guide, whether online or in print? I'm not completely computer illiterate but I can't figure out the basic hardware needed. My main interest is not to broadcast music wirelessly to different rooms but to get a thousand-plus CDs into some more convenient and secure data storage system without loss of CD audio quality -- can it be done, and with what? If you can point me to an Idiot's Guide, I'd appreciate it.

If it matters, my current system (set up in a small listening room) is a Naim Nait 5i amp and Naim CD5i-2 player driving a pair of Spendor S3/5s. The rest of the room is filled with CDs. Thanks.
jhold
I,m also a computer idiot. I've been looking into Olive Opus 4. My question is I have an Audio Aero cd player, how much $$ to get the same quality of play back. I ask about the olive because it looks the simplest soulition.Another question is cost of cables.
I might be a retard, but it seems to me that none of this stuff could possibly sound any good. Get me back to my vinyl, quick.
I put together a computer with some old parts laying around, got it up and running and ripped a couple cd's in wav lessloss, run it out of the coax to a pre/pro. God what a horrid sound. My $.02 if your thinking about this route.
Slikric - Wav is not lossless (much less lessloss) . It is not compressed format. Try to run coax to DAC instead of pre and sound might be a little better.

Jhold - music server doesn't do anything different from CD player. Music is stored on hard disk instead of CD and the DAC is outside and not inside of CD Player. Don't listen to people who express negative opinion but never heard it.

Chasmal - I agree 100%