CD is Dead (aka Home Music Server Revisited)

Someone wrote to me seeking stereo-purchasing advice and asked "which CD player should I buy." After thinking about it, I realized, I don't think you should buy a CD player anymore.

The time has finally come. A computer (in my case, a recent Intel iMac) running software (iTunes) can be as easy to use, and sound as good, as a CD player. (If you still want a CD player, here's what I'd recommend, in escalating price: Oppo DV-980H DVD player ($169), Cambridge Audio 640C v.2 CD player ($360 on sale), Rega Apollo CD player ($995 on sale, $600 used)).

More than two years ago, I posted my thoughts for those who wanted to rip all their music to a computer and give up on CDs. Turns out lots has changed since then, mostly because Apple released the the free Apple "Remote" App for iPhone (or iPod Touch), which turns my iPhone into a great whole-home audio remote control device (the sort of thing you used to have to buy a Sonos system to have).

So here's what you need:

1. Recent vintage computer with a big hard drive (500g should handle approximately 1000 CDs, ripped in a lossless format like Apple Lossless (aka ALAC) or FLAC. You'll also want a backup solution, because no one wants to re-rip CDs after a hard drive crash.

2. If the computer isn't near the stereo, then buy an Apple Airport Express with AirTunes ($100) -- this lets you stream your music over your WiFi network. Basically like running a long wire from your computer to your stereo, except without the wire.

3. Ripped copies of all your CDs. Use a lossless format. If you want to preserve the full quality of your CDs, and get sound as good as a decent CD player, you want to avoid any lossy formats like MP3 or AAC. I use Apple Lossless, for two reasons. First, when sending music to the Apple Airport Express, iTunes transcodes any lossless format to Apple Lossless for the transmission, anyway. Second, iTunes doesn't support FLAC, and metadata (album covers, etc) handling is better in Apple Lossless than in AIFF. (But here's the rub: if you want to also sync an iPod to this same computer, then those lossless files will mean you can fit less on your iPod. I keep two separate libraries, one in MP3 and one in ALA, but it ain't pretty.)

If you're serious about audio quality (i.e., could imagine yourself spending >$2000 on your stereo), you don't want the Apple Airport Express converting all your CD's ones and zeroes into analog audio (it can do it, and sounds fine, like a $100 CD player would, if those were still made). Instead, you want a quality digital-to-analog converter (DAC) doing that work. For example, the entire audio world loves the Benchmark DAC-1 ($995), which combines a DAC, a preamp, and a headphone amp in a small package. I owned one for a while, and it is amazing: sound quality like this would have cost three times as much a couple years ago. Cheaper, but also well-reviewed are the Cambridge Audio DAC Magic ($429), Musical Fidelity V-DAC ($299), and Music Hall dac 25.2 ($599, includes headphone jack!).

And, finally, here's what I use: iMac (2ghz Core 2 Duo) -> Airport Express -> Genesis Digital Lens (reclocks the digital output from Airport) -> Mark Levinson 390S CD Processor. The bits coming from the iMac sound indistinguishable from those take straight off a CD (but that wasn't true until I put the Digital Lens into the chain).