The drawbacks are that you have to load the MP3 player from your computer, and it's unlikely to hold most of your music.

Of course, more modern hi-fi systems may well include an 'iPod dock' or connector that basically does the same thing in a way that looks nicer. You can use the same cable to connect a PC to a hi-fi. Since most music lovers already have an MP3 player of some sort, the simplest solution is to plug that into your hi-fi via a Y cable that has a headphone-style 3.5mm jack plug at one end and two RCA plugs at the other end. I certainly can't say which is the 'best' system, because it depends on how much music you have, how good it has to sound, how much money you want to spend, and your technical skills. There seem to be more ways to set up a digital music system than there are customers, so it's not surprising that a lot of people are confused. The former is easy to understand, but the latter is confusing me. After that, there appear to be two options: either an all-in-one box like the Brennan JB7 or separate units for storage and playback control. The transfer of vinyl and cassettes to digital can be handled by a turntable/cassette player connected to my PC using Audacity software. I have embarked on a project to get all my CDs, vinyl and cassettes onto digital storage such that I can play them through my existing hi-fi.

Cplay audio software