Best way to rip bit-perfect sound on a small system Options

[projecthome]

Hi

I am planning the purchase of a new stereo audio system and need some help. Now, I would like this sound system to be small and as good sounding as possible (that includes bit perfect playback), have as few components and cables as possible, be silent (i.e. as few fans and mechanical parts as possible) and integrate with a portable player in some way. Gapless playback is a must.

What I have though about so far is using ADM AVI9.1 for speakers and amplification, connected to a Logitech Duo with an optical cable. The Duet streams music from a NetGear ReadyNAS.

Up til now I have ripped CDs on a BenQ 1640 with CDex (full paranoia) and encoded to FLAC. Ideally I'd like to avoid using CDs at all and purchase bit-perfect FLAC online, but that does not seem to be possible (yet). Since my PC is a big full-tower monster that needs to be replaced anyway (I need to upgrade the hardware to be able to do raw-converting and photo manipulation) I was wondering if there was a better way to get bit-perfect music.

So, what is really needed? Can I rip bit-perfect to FLAC on, say, an iMac? What about an Thinkpad x200 with an USB CD-RW/DVD-ROM of some sort? (Link to Lenovo's version below, other usb drives are perfectly viable options, I guess.) Or is the best way to stick my BenQ 1640 in e.g. a small Shuttle XPC?

For the portable player I am not hysterical about audio quality, but gapless is a must. I'd also like something that is integrated with a phone so I don't have to carry around too many gizmos. Ideally this hand held device would sport big storage so I could play my FLACs directly on the device, but I understand that this might not be possible as storage is limited and few, if any portable music players/phones support FLAC. I am therefore looking at keeping a mp3 (or ogg vorbis) version of my FLAC library for use on a phone (converting with Foobar2000).

Apple claims iPhone is gapless. Is this true? I've seen some debate around this.

Are there any alternatives to the iPhone?

http://www5.pc.ibm.com/no/products.nsf/�...epi=web_express
http://www.avihifi.co.uk/adm9.html
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/avi-adm-9-1-review
http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

Thanks for any help!

This is my first post. I am sorry if I am a bit confused as to which part of the forum to post to etc.

[Ron Jones]

Apple claims iPhone is gapless. Is this true? I've seen some debate around this.

I can verify the iPhone 3G plays LAME-encoded and iTunes AAC-encoded gapless tracks correctly. Since I had some scattered issues with Nero AAC and gapless playback on the iPhone, I've switched to LAME (V5 profile) and haven't encountered any problems with gapless playback.