A couple months back I bought a good DAC (Halide hd - rated class a here) to complement my turntable. I too have a large although old CD collection. It took me some time but I ripped all my CDs to flac which is a lossless format and saves around half the file size.

This is great because I don't need a CD player anymore and can use a media player (I'm using JRiver) on my laptop to control it. There is also a free android or apple app to control jriver too if your computer is not near your listening position.

You can download HD files that surpass CD quality but I honestly am very happy with mp3s I download from Amazon which are variable bit rate and essentially 320k sound quality.

I love the simplicity of this setup and with the outboard DAC you eliminate the issues a CD player could potentially have (moving parts, sub par DAC etc....

In short, yes I think the technology is at a point where accounting for digital media is a must. Quickly I think it will become easy to consistently surpass CD quality. That's my 3 cents.

For ripping your CD library I highly recommend dBpoweramp.
Its cost is V reasonable & it insures the process of transferring all you music to digital format is one you will only have to perform once.
All the metadata (disc information such as artist, track titles, cover art, etc) are copied.
I have used it for over two TB of CD's on my music server with out one regret.

I also agree on using FLAC format which is essentially uncompressed.
Even if you do not feel it is a necessary requirement now, you will not have to re-convert to looseless later should you have a change of heart.

Bill - on the Hill
Practicing Curmudgeon & Audio Snob
- just an “ON” switch, Please

I am torn on whether there is a noteworthy difference in quality from various "lossless" compression formats and uncompressed. Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) and Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) are two versions of compressed file formats that, when "decompressed," recreate the original file, bit for bit. Formats like MP3 and AAC compress in such a way as to never be able to fully reconstruct the file, and they use some clever techniques that are noticeable even if you can't put your finger on what is wrong. The photo equivalent is JPEG - you can never get back the original file once you create the jpg file.

FLAC and ALAC files tend to be 40-60% the size of the original files depending on super nerdy factors I don't understand. The traditional 128kbps mp3s tend to be about 10% the size of the uncompressed file! for reference. But some say that the processing power required to decompress them detracts from the processing power to convert those bits into some oscillating voltage. Those some say they can hear the difference. Audio is a fickle thing, and I am not one to tell you there is no truth to something I have detected myself. I can say memory is cheap these days, so consider going uncompressed, and not just lossless.

Incidentally, where mp3s cause problems is largely in dynamic range and frequency reproduction. If you are wondering about streaming services, I think they all stream "lossy" codecs, but some may be better than others.

The mp3 codec was developed when Windows 3.1 REQUIRED 6 whole Megabytes, but recommended 10, of HARD DISK SPACE. So 2 average radio singles would take up the space required for an entire sloppy operating system. The thought was never to stuff the whole freaking Library of Congress in you pocket (back then). Ergo, I tell people to splurge on music storage space and don't compromise on compression quality - because we just don't have to anymore.

It (FLAC) gets it.
The compression works sort of like this:

the file language is binary.....just 1's & 0's.

If a segment of the code is 11100000000
then FLAC compresses it to 1(3x) 0(x8)
this is why FLAC can be both lossless & compressed at the same time.

Bill - on the Hill
Practicing Curmudgeon & Audio Snob
- just an “ON” switch, Please