I’m after a digital music machine, as I’m fed up of rooting through hundreds of CDs. Ideally I’d be able to put CDs directly into it and have them stored losslessly, have track names assigned and album art found etc. I’d also like it to be able to handle bog standard MP3s for the albums I’ve bought but which have been scratched to death sliding around the floor of the car (no, really).

And I’d like it to have a decent interface – preferably plug into the telly and control it with a remote.

Some ability to transfer to an external hard drive or over the network would be useful for backups and making up CDs for the car.

I don’t want any extra gubbins in it – I already have a decent seperates system, so built in amps and thrown in speakers aren’t needed.

Is there any middle ground between the slightly ropey looking stuff like the Brennan and the 4.5K Naim kit? I’ve had a meddle with GBPVR and MythTV etc in the past, which were OK but really far too much aggro to set up and keep working.

You are looking for a one touch ripping solution? This is possibly the awkward bit.

Unless you have lots of underground stuff most CD ripping software on a PC automatically populates tags from databases such as freedb or gracenote. Most will add the art too. You have to sit there and prod buttons with a mouse though each time.

The Brennan is quicker because it looks like you lob a CD in and it just rips it with little button poking. Its bloomin expensive for the amount of storage you get though.

If you can invest the time in ripping the CDs and storing them on a NAS which has a streaming capability this might be a good solution?

Then you just need a DLNA or steaming capable device to stream it off the NAS.

LG make a few NAS with some useful features. This one looks decent but 1TB may not be enough if you start dabbling with FLAC and such.

http://www.dabs.com/products/lg-electronics-n1t1-1tb-nas-itunes-server–dlna-and-built-in-dvd-rw–black—white–7235.html

I messed around with FLAC a few years ago. But decided to rip to MP3 320 so I could bung rips easily on any device and have good interoperability.

Wonder if you could open up the Brennan and lob a bigger HD in.