All about Music Servers for a minute......

Hello All:

How is everyone this evening???

I did post under Analog last week, in the hope of getting some kind of handle in which I wanted to know which Turntable/Arm/Cartridge System to get, and to determine which Phono Stage I should consider as well.

It can NOW be said that I pretty much got a handle on things. My selection right now is:

(01). Turntable -- Rega P3-24/RB-301 Arm -- $895.00; or Rega P5/RB-701 Arm -- $1,395.00

(02). Phono Cartridge -- Grado Prestige Gold Mk II -- $225.00 (MM); or Sumiko Blue Point Special II -- $400.00 (MC)

(03). Phono Stage -- PS Audio GCPH -- $1,000.00 (New); $600.00 to $700.00 (Used)

And that is that.

And to signify that I am serious about that shit, I even went as far as to buy over $35.00 worth of used vinyl off of e-Bay today. And that is to add to the vinyl that I have already acquired either through estate sales, being passed down from friends who do not want to spin vinyl any more, or from my late father. I will continue to acquire vinyl here on out.

But now, what I want to know is what do I do about my existing CD Collection??? I have bought me an i-Pod classic about three (well, almost four) years ago (and love it tremendously), and I started either uploading some of my CD Collection into i-Tunes, and then onto my i-Pod, and the music that is on my i-Pod is also on my computer's hard drive.

And now, this gets to the situation right now as I am continuing to re-vamp my audio system.

Instead of investing into another stand alone Compact Disc Player, I am thinking of buying myself a Laptop Computer for Christmas this year, and then coverting my old PC into a large capacity Music Server, and then just buying a D/A Converter and connect my old PC to that.

And what I want to know is can it even be done at all, and if so, do I need to invest in a new sound card with digital outputs, and then connect my PC and External Hard Disk to the D/A Converter??? Or will my existing sound card be adaquate???

Right now, unless something changes during the rest of the year, my choices for D/A Converters will be:

(01). PS Audio Digital Link III

(02). Musical Fidelity M1

Well..... that's it for now.

Basically, my question is, can I convert my old PC to a Music Server??? Or do I need to go on and just buy a component that is designed to be a Music Server in the first place???

Thanks A Lot In Advance.....

Happy Shopping & Happy Listening.....

--Charles--