SurroundByUs.com

Have to agree with Zeerround here. Never, ever had an issue related to an internal CD-ROM, or playing DTS files of my HD. I would say you can proceed with Foobar, ITunes, etc. without any sort of concern over playback.

I stopped burning CD's and DVD's entirely. What I use now are 1.5 TB HDD's and a docking station http://www.sharkoon.com/?q=en/node/1273

I have 6 HDD's at the moment. One for HD movies and TV series, three for lossless sound files (FLAC, APE etc) and two for surround stuff. When these are full I just spam more HDD's, they are quite inexpensive these days.

I've indexed them with Disc Explorer Pro http://www.tjelinek.com/main.php?section=da (donation ware) and labeled them. So when I want to find something, I just use the Disc Explorer index and put the HDD with the file(s) I want in my docking station. I use Windows Media Player Classic for movies and Foobar for the sound files, they play anything, never had an issue with them.

Hi Blake71,

That was hugely helpful. Actually that looks like the easiest way, cause I can do the surround sound conversion, cut out the middle man (CD burner, etc., etc.) and also make good use of my HT Claro card. And I'm with you on the $/GB pricing now being so favorable; it wasn't but a few years back we were looking at US$1 per GB.

Skipping, change of speed, etc. are no longer factors to consider, then, in using HD over high quality CD changer?

It's definitely worth a try - both time and cost effective.

Much, much appreciate

One more question (always): I have read that MediaMonkey has more features than Foobar, i.e. is better than Foobar2000. Is that true?

YW. But no, skipping etc, is absolutely non-existent when playing files from a HDD. From an audiophile perspective I think it will be pretty hard to find a player with a mechanism that performs as well as a HDD. Unless you want to fork out a lot of $$$ that is. Of course a SSD is even better at that, 'cause no moving parts at all anymore! If it weren't for the spam of these things...

As for MediaMonkey vs Foobar, I don't know, because I never really used the first. Feature wise it's possible, but Foobar is a very good bit-perfect (that's very important for playing DTS files correctly!) player with a shitload of supported formats and lots of 3th party plugins, should you feel you do need more features. But you may have to try for yourself what you like best. If MediaMonkey is capable of playing bit-perfect too, then I guess it all comes down to which one you prefer.

Don't worry, you will get all the help you need. Just install everything first, set up your system and yell if you're ready to continue, or if you should run into other issues. There's a day and night shift around here, so it will never take long before someone sees you waving that flag.