J. river may start work on a MAC based version, that would be the only reason to use a MAC. We can discuss components, hardware, and containers (alac, flac, etc.) all day long but the user interface is huge piece of the puzzle. I'm still awed by the fact that one can't create custom metadata fields in iTunes, but not suprised I guess. I'd look into the myriad benefits of J. River over iTunes in addition to hardware concerns. J. River is database driven, and you will be amazed at what it can do. I like Apple stuff but itunes is a dealbreak; and I can use my iPhone to control J. River so I'm happy.
DC
