My first post here.

I'm a long-time Stereophile subscriber.  I have a nice "traditional" system, a dedicated listening room, a couple thousand CDs and several hundred LPs.  After years of resistence to anything Apple, i got an iTunes account after I wound up with an IPhone.  I've since downloaded a fair number of songs from iTunes and have ripped several CDs into iTunes so that I could leave the CDs at home and have music on the go.

Outside of my reluctance to really understand digital audio, I'm fairly tech saavy, with a good wireless home network, a monster (Windows 7) desktop, and a couple laptops thrown-in for good measure.

I want to make the leap.

I want my CDs and downloaded audio, at least, at my fingertips -- in my listening room, in my home theater, in my kitchen, basically anywhere I have speakers.  I want quality that I've come to expect listening to "old fashioned" software.  I see articles about PCM, and DSD, and lossless this, and codecs that, and my head spins.  So, I toss it aside, put on an LP and decide to figure it out another day.

I don't understand the path to get from where I am to where I need to be.  I don't really even understand where need to be.  But I know I missing out on the opportunity to enjoy more music, more conveniently.

Can someone give me some advice?  Point me toward a resource that will help me out? Provide a roadmap?  Give me a recommendation or two?  Most everything I pick up to read assumes a level of understanding that I don't quite have, or the existence of set up that I haven't assembled.

Thanks for any help.

Gary

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