the Vortexbox has a fan, but its quiet. i've used one for about a year, it does everything on your list. the one caveat for me is the backup function via usb to external hd is slow, but it is incremental.
Does this device exist?
I’m looking for a convenient way to get the music from my CDs (a couple thousand) into digital form. In my mind’s eye, I see a one-box device – I pop in a CD, it quickly and accurately rips the disc, with the option of choosing various formats, compressed or high-quality lossless. It stores the resulting files on an internal hard drive, or it allows storage on external drives, and easy external backup, too. It has a navigation interface as familiar and easy to use as iTunes (heck, it can be iTunes). It has a good digital output (preferably AES/EBU, but if that’s not available, then SPDIF or USB), so that I can use the DAC I already own. It is completely quiet during music playback – no fan noise, no strange mechanical or digital noises. It’s simple to use. It doesn’t result in a mess of wires and boxes all over the place. It doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. It just has to provide copious storage and a clean, audiophile-quality output to the DAC – and just for a single system, no whole-house server needed.
Any nominations? Thanks.
Any nominations? Thanks.