Your CD collection, your record collection (yes – your beloved vinyl collection too), iTunes or from other Internet sites that sell downloadable music.

On your computers hard drive or your portable music player like an iPod.

Either on a portable music device like a Rio Zen or iPod, your computer or on some media server client/player thing like a Sonos.

Hardware Needed: A computer – PC or Mac – ideally this computer is dedicated to this task – call this your music server. This is hooked to the Internet and ideally networked in your home so you can purchase songs at will and fly the music anywhere in your home. This is your new audio component, just like a DVD player.

A USB or Firewire external hard drive with at least 250 gig of space. This is to backup your music library from your computers hard drive. The bigger, the better.


A portable music player
like an iRiver, Rio, or iPod.



A stereo system or good powered speakers if you will be listening mostly from your desk, or both.


An external volume control – like
the NHT PVC PC or PVC-pro . Avoid cheap mixers.