Well I'm 52 and the HDD based music system has fundamentally changed the way I listen to music, and for the better IMO. Burning disks is not an option anymore. I want to be able to take my entire music collection with me when I travel and i want to be able to listen when I have the small segments of free time I now have. I still rip almost all of my music from CD's, but the CD's themselves are not really used after that. The pre-pro is a good idea and it is what I use in my HT set-up. I do not have a problem using a pre-pro in my 2-channel setup, but at that point I might as well just buy a DAC. If it is not a Sony then so be it.