Good thought but don’t think it will. Will take another look at all this again tomorrow with a fresh mind. I do like the idea of the itunes with seeing all the album artwork, so would be great if I can somehow keep that feature 
Unless having enough physical space for your CDs is a problem, my experience is rediscovery occurs more frequently by browsing shelves than by trawling through an app (unless, I suppose, you put it on random).
I have all three: physical CDs, the ripped versions in iTunes (which I don’t find easy to use), and in the end two streaming services, Tidal and Apple Music (bundled with other services, so it’s not as extravagant as it sounds).
I particularly like the way the streaming services suggest music I might like.
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It is the SMBv1 protocol which has been disabled. Whether Orange has upped the version of SMB on its more recent Liveboxes (5 & 6) is something I haven’t checked (I have a Livebox 5), but it still seemed to be working in read mode at least (I had some media stuff on an external HDD plugged into the USB socket of mine, and I could read from it over SMB). I would need to check again to confirm/deny.
EDIT (for extra info): From this discussion, it appears that even the Livebox 5 still only supports SMBv1…oh well.
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Yes agree, I do enjoy the way spotify does suggest other music that you may not ordinarily listen to. I’ll still enjoy that, but think I’ll also enjoy rediscovering all my cd music🥳
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Thanks for taking a look. Don’t fancy moving away from Orange so now trying a small hub type thingy that broadcasts content of hard drives.
With the Livebox are you on fibre or xDSL and do you use internet TV from Orange?
Something like an old router on which you can install OpenWrt would do as a server - OpenWrt has minidlna available as a package to install. You don’t have to use such a device as your main router, just make use of it as a low power computer to serve your files (it will also do SMB for you if you wish).
No I don’t have fibre, nor Orange tv, just the adsl, but I never have any speed issues unless using the firestick, which now rests peacefully in the drawer!
Thanks for the alternative, as may have an old router kicking around somewhere.
When ripping the CDs understand the Library. Allow iTunes to manage/organise your files. It makes life simpler going forwards.
How / where do you want to listen to this music? What are you going to listen to it on?
Streaming of your own music is the lost child. It is so much easier to stream Spotify than a file sat 1 metre from you.
Airplay is the best answer in the apple universe but it’s easier to use a Mac as the server from memory. It is however way better than the free windows alternatives.
But do you actually need to stream?
There are options - but if you intend to use your phone to stream it …save effort and just put the albums on the SD card. 300 albums isn’t that much data - use iTunes (import the library I told you to understand) - it just works.
I still use the equivalent of an iPod more than I actually stream from the NAS. It fits in my pocket - it pairs with the car/Alexa/Bluetooth speakers - it plays in the middle of the forest walking the dog. But for most people their phone will do the same.
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OK, so you *could* replace your Livebox with something that can run OpenWrt
It’s always good to give old hardware a new lease of life 
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I’ve ripped a few cd’s now with itunes and already see my library building. What I like is the search/filter function which is great at locating tracks from the same artist strewn over different albums including compilations. I can see that being very useful. Then I see I can also create playlists👍
I mainly play my music using either a bose mini soundlink or a sonos move, via bluetooth, then sometimes through my av amp as that’s hardwired to many speakers through the house.
My ideal is to play my cds as I play spotify i.e via my phone or ipad, not so often through the macbook.
About the sd card, I need to look at how much memory I’d need, but how could I connect that to the phone in a practical way, as that would probably be ideal as it would mean I could play tracks as I do spotify currently.
Oh yes, I love recycling if I can versus trash, and giving something a second life is ideal 
Gosh, maybe for my next step to revive my vinyl 
Ripping the cds to an external hard drive and just set up home sharing on the macbook, so that enables me to access and play all the music via iphone from the hard drive connected to the macbook. Seems to work very well…….so far, but that doesn’t allow me to access whilst out and about.
You could use an app such as Jellyfin to do that. There’s a few tutorials online on how to set it up. Then install a Jellyfin client on the devices you’re going to listen to the music on.
This video shows what it looks like once it’s installed…
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Thanks @Gareth , that looks interesting - I’ll have an explore tomorrow this is all stretching my technology brain, but I guess that’s a good thing
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As BillyB pointed out the CDs already contain digital files what you need to do is compress rather than digitise them. iTunes stores them in MP3 format the international standard for audio and will allow you to move them on to other apples devices such as your iPod iPad or iPhone. If you are compressing your own CDs you still own the files it is only when you purchase music downloaded from the iTunes Store that Apple monitors where the files are shared. You can log several devices with your iTunes program on your MacBook. Also the compressed files will all be stored on your hard disk or in the cloud as individual MP3 files with which you can do as you like manually.
One small point worth bearing in mind before you start ripping your CDs is how you are going to play them back and on what quality equipment. This matters when it comes to choosing your compression rate. iTunes defaults to 128Kbps Kilo bits per second which is enough for portable kit used through headphones but if you are planning on listening to the files via good quality hifi then it is worth considering upping the bit rate to 256Kbps. This doubles the size of the file ( but you can buy terabytes of storage for peanuts these days) but does make the treble a bit less fizzy and gives the top end more bite. The default iTunes compression rate is about one sixth of the rate (hence quality) and size of a standard CD. I only mention this as ripping 300 CDs is a prolonged undertaking and as I did more I wanted higher quality and had to go back an recompress stuff I had done earlier.
Itunes will copy the music across to your mobile devices but these have relatively cheap digital to analog converters and investing in a good quality DAC to connect to your hifi is also worth considering. I have a small €100 usb DAC made by Quad which connects my Mac to my study amp and speakers and a Denon bluetooth DAC to link wirelessly to my main hifi to my phone/iPod. As you have 300 discs I am inferring that you are discerning! With a decent bit rate and good DAC the sound is barely noticeably different from the original. I am sure there are purists out there who will contest this!!
Such an interesting thread.
I really like @chrisell 's idea of loading SD cards which just push into your phone and are quite big Gigabyte sizes these days.
But for futureability I guess some sort of centralized master store with indexing structure(s) is best to establish. Then make SD’s off that to insert in phone avoids messing around with streaming on the move? For the rest, there’s Spotify it seems
I’ve ripped a lot of CDs over the years, with the files at high bit rate and often transferred to SD card for use in the car. I won’t suggest software because it was done under Linux.
You left out the words, poor quality.
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