Ripping CD's to hard drive

Exact Audio Copy works for me. Any CDR. Rip to harddrive (select lossless/no compression, evn so I have not been able to find difference between FLAC and lossless). Once on harddrive, move/copy to any player (network drive, external USB3 harddrive, USB drive, etc should NOT matter). 

From there, feed your DAC. I currently run LONG USB3 cable from computer to DAC and keep the DAC close the the analog parts of the system, based on the assumption that digital signal is less degrading over distance compared to analog. Altenrative would be short USB to DAC, then LONG analog cable to pre amp/integrated amp. 

Dbpoweramp and a computer with a cd drive. 

I have been ripping to WAV using dBpoweramp but wanted to change to FLAC because I read that it is less susceptible to being corrupted when played. When I rip a CD, however, I run the rip through TT-DR Offline, which adds the dynamic range analysis to the rip folder. I found that TT-DR Offline will accept WAV but not FLAC. So back to WAV.

Fubar 2000 - It's freeware and works fine.

Just use any PC with an optical drive.  Store them on your computer, NAS, portable SS drive, etc.

I have used:

1) itunes to both a computer and external HD with an Apple Optical reade

2) dbPoweramp with same Optical ripper

3) Bluesound Vault

4) Melco ripper with Melco server

Truthfully, at least decent results with all.  The best is the Melco.  Not only do the rips sound great when replayed on the Melco but on other servers as well.  Detail, open sounding, and a perfect rip every time

.  The Vault would get the bottom score as occasional rip will have several seconds of error and there is a general lack of bloom and air around the instruments 

  I tunes sounded decent but was also error prone.  dbPoweramp with an Apple ripper was an eye opener as the errors were eliminated and everything sounded more incisive.  It is the best value for a tight budget.  But man, that Melco…