Digital media server/players for a Skeptic?

Oh come now. I can’t be the only one here that thinks spending more than $20 on a USB cable is a waste of money and has some actual technical background to understand why. A lot of the stuff sold in the hi end audio world is comically ridiculous.

I’m a EE by training and have been a musician most of my life. I know what a piano sounds like and having a bass player in my ear pretty intimately, or what a cymbal’s shimmer sounds like because I’ve played nice ones often. I also know what it sounds like to hear music in a studio setting and then listen to it at home. Probably a lot of you do too.

I took my time researching and picking out the system I have and enjoy quality on a budget that makes sense for me. And I'm not immune to picking through details to improve it within reason.  I might not own the yacht others here have but I can still enjoy my time on the water!

I welcome opinions of those who might know more than me. I’m not opposed to rescanning the music I own on CD. I use mp3 because it fit on the portable players I’ve owned. I like to run so I’ve probably owned 20 iPods of every era.  If you think I’m beneath you because I won’t buy a Pono then sure, don’t waste your time. When a Pono can pass a double blind comparison to an iPhone, I’ll take a listen...

I really don’t know a lot about digital media devices. Some seem excessively designed and very expensive for someone with a < $5K system . Maybe some are not and would be a good fit for me.

Thank you.  So bluesound is basically storage and management of the music files, but the mytek does all of the decoding?   

Can one skip the dedicated DAC and just go direct into a receiver's optical in from bluesound? The mytek's pretty far out of my budget.

What do you need to do instead of reripping? 

I probably should re-rip all my CDs to flac anyway and create compressed files as needed for my ipod.   The tags are a mess and I've yet to find a tagging tool that isn't totally junk.  I've tried picard, tuneup, and a few others.  I have a ton of compilations and loads of really old MP3's.  The apps crash at anything over a 1000 files, which makes for a lot of manual work to feed them in.  Although I might look for a service to do them in bulk.  I have a lot of cds!

THx again

I could definitely get behind creating a dedicated linux or windows music server.  I have a spare micro sized lenovo that I could use.  It would just need more storage.  

What music software do you use to manage music on linux that replaces itunes?  What distro do you use?

What do you use as a DAC?  

Thx!

Hmm, RE a Pi -  I could do that. How does the scanning part work - hook up a USB type CD reader?

What do you use as a DAC?

Thx!

Re Bluesound - so I'd still need a computer to rip CD's and NAS or something to store the music?  

Thx all! - I think I need to start with NAS and move all of my stuff off my PCs and Mac.  A good one that has backup options.  

Then I can start to rip more of my collection to lossless and see how I like it.   

Media monkey looks like a nice improvement over iTunes.  Does it support synching with iPods?