Building a Music Server that will play all formats

Why not buy a oppo 93 and go usb in from a hard drive. Also,why not forget about FLAC or any compression. With today's hardrive costing very little it seems unnecessary. You can get 2-3TB hard drives for $120-225. Back a few years ago when the same was not available or would have cost you $1000-1500, then it made sense. Today?....

Foobar 2000 or JRiver playing in wasapi mode are normally considered the best sounding players. Also, I've read fairly consitantly that Windows 7 has a better driver base and is typically thought of as the best sounding. Big argument between wav and flac files, then ASIO/Kernel streaming or wasapi. I am using wav, but haven't campared to flac. I went that way after reading several hundred forum threads, most thought they were equal, but a few held firm that wav had more air. Most, seem to think that wasapi was the way to go.
This should be enough to give you food for thought.
Good Listening, Tim

Thanks for all the helpful advice. To break it down:

Songbird or
MediaMOnkey or
Foobar 2000 or
Jriver

Which is the simplest, most itunes like player that handles all audio media formats?

Cast your votes!

Re the Oppo. How would you organize the music Itunes style... and how is the DAC?

About a month ago I bought a Music Vault Emerald from Sound Science [google soundscience audio] Neal has devised some beautiful PCs expressly for audiophiles. I piked his middle piece because it has very good DAC in its sound card. AB comparison's show up the DAC in my 14K Lexicon preamp. 2TB hd for storage, a second one for mirror back up. Solid state hd for operating. 17" wide fits nicely in rack. Very quiet, except when ripping cds. Runs cool. HDMI out so you can put its video interface anywhere. Cordless keyboard/trackball. Windows IR remote to teach my RF universal. Redbook cd's sound way better than from a transport. Decodes downloaded 24 bit music from HDTracks and WAV copies of hi-res DVD's fm Reference Recordings. Media Monkey will convert anything to MP3 or iTunes, if needed. USB port on front and several in back. Digital out/Anal out, wireless to your network but also enternet ports, so it also replaces my Sonos system since its sound is better. Just takes some work ripping, correcting megadata, setting up favs on internet. If you want your music to sound the way you used to think it should, this is IT. And all the music is instantly accessible. Nirvana.