At risk of sounding like a broken record (pun intended), go the Apple route most are advising here. I'm not crazy about the wireless Apple Express solution though. I ended up liking the sound of a hard-wired (USB) direct connection, rather than wireless. Nevertheless, if you DO go wireless for convenience, definitely use a good DAC with the AE (conected via Toslink - you'll have to get a special cable for that as it's not a standard toslink on the AE side). Alternatively you can get a USB DAC that connects to your MacPro, or an interface that converts USB to S/PDIF and then go to a DAC. The Waveterminal U24 is such a device that I used and liked very much, but it is no longer available new.
Simple answers to simple questions:
1. Yes, store you music on a reliable external hard drive. In general, storage is very cheap relative to the audio world. You can get a 250 gig drive that'll hold quite a bit of music for just over $200 (or less if you get a cheap drive). An iPod is not a good alternative because it requires you use the less than desireable little DAC in the iPod, and or the opamp in there. Do not use the iPod to store your library, though it is a great mobile listening device if you're on the road. Also you cannot transfer or burn any tunes that have been stored on an iPod as far as I know. Keep the tunes on a hard drive. Back it up if possible as hard drives can and do eventually fail. No, this does not effect the quality of the sound if you've ripped the music the right way.
2. In iTunes choose either WAV or Apple Lossless. The former will render a file about twice the size of the lossless file so will take up more space. Apple Lossless is, by all reports, truly lossless. I have not been able to tell the difference in comparing the two. In lossless you could get about 400+ CD's on a 250gb drive. If you want to check with your own ears (and I'd advise this since you are looking for the Grail), rip the same CD or tune in both formats and play them back to back. I'd be curious if you, or anyone else can tell the difference.
Have fun.
Marco
Simple answers to simple questions:
1. Yes, store you music on a reliable external hard drive. In general, storage is very cheap relative to the audio world. You can get a 250 gig drive that'll hold quite a bit of music for just over $200 (or less if you get a cheap drive). An iPod is not a good alternative because it requires you use the less than desireable little DAC in the iPod, and or the opamp in there. Do not use the iPod to store your library, though it is a great mobile listening device if you're on the road. Also you cannot transfer or burn any tunes that have been stored on an iPod as far as I know. Keep the tunes on a hard drive. Back it up if possible as hard drives can and do eventually fail. No, this does not effect the quality of the sound if you've ripped the music the right way.
2. In iTunes choose either WAV or Apple Lossless. The former will render a file about twice the size of the lossless file so will take up more space. Apple Lossless is, by all reports, truly lossless. I have not been able to tell the difference in comparing the two. In lossless you could get about 400+ CD's on a 250gb drive. If you want to check with your own ears (and I'd advise this since you are looking for the Grail), rip the same CD or tune in both formats and play them back to back. I'd be curious if you, or anyone else can tell the difference.
Have fun.
Marco