My father (73 yo) has always enjoyed his classical music. He's always bought Bose loudspeakers and powered them with decent receivers. He now enjoys my Zu Omens fed by a Vincent power amp/ Emotiva Pre/ Squeezebox Duet as the source sending along Apple Lossless files.
I have some ideas of what to do for him: I am looking at the Tekton M-Lore as the speakers. I have a little-used Squeezebox Duet that he could have. I have a DAC available.
I would like to get all his CDs ripped to digital files. He probably has less than 300 CDs in his collection. He would love having quick access to these when he is listening that is made possible by a "computer" based system.I am thinking FLAC on this.
I have done quite a bit of reading here and on other sites to get some ideas but I just don't know what will work best.
He needs simple and basic. He only has DIALUP INTERNET as he lives in a rural area. He does not have a smartphone. We have discussed Mi-Fi and the like but they are not there yet, so it needs to run independently of that.
I will set up this system for him, so I can do updates for them sporadically, but I wouldn't want it to be very regular.
My thoughts: a compact system with a Squeezebox Touch as the source, reading directly off an attached, powered hard drive. This would be fed into the DAC and then onward. I think he would love the touchscreen operation of that. I see that some people have done this and that there are some issues but I haven't investigated it fully. This seems like it would be the simplest (if it would work properly). Drawback: I would have to help them update the stored music by ripping a CD and adding it.
Other options: a standalone like Vortex Box or another product? A mini-PC that could run its own player and be fed directly to the DAC or the amp?
I'm looking for any advice and opinions you have on this. I want it to be a sound investment. It's important that it work properly. It's his money but I don't want to go over $500-$750 for this digital end of the system.
Thank you.
