Media Monkey & new Denon Receiver with WiFi

[sidbinks]

Hi there,

I am nearly ignorant on this topic and am trying to understand to the best of my ability. I have just completed ripping all of my CDs (about 500) to an old Seagate hard drive using a FLAC format via MediaMonkey. My next goal is to buy a new Denon Receiver for about $1000 with WiFi that has DLNA. I have an Android phone, several computers, TV (TV is not networked but will connect via HDMI to my new Denon AVR) and a home network with 2.4 and 5GHz signals.

My question is......I want to be able to turn on my receiver and access my FLAC files with easy functionality including being able to scroll through the library, see the album art, various play lists, shuffle content, skip songs, etc.
- can the Seagate work or should I move the FLAC files to a computer (I would rather not have to have my computer on and doesn't that slow things down given it is wirelessly connected to my network as well?), or should I purchase a Network Attached Storage device (and if so, which one???) or a media server (please understand i really don't know much about NAS/media server).
- where does MediaMonkey fit in...i would like it to control everything, but how does it work via the Denon. Can i use a mediamonkey app via my android phone to control the Denon and storage device to make it do what I want?

basically, i am about to enter the digital age with my music (LOL) and want the most flexible system possible and I would like to set it up right the first time around.

Thanks for any advice you may have for me...and please use dummy language.

[Lowlander]

If the Denon can read from a USB drive and supports FLAC all you'd need is to connect the hard drive to the Denon and you're good to go. If the hard drive is just a bare drive you can purchase a USB external drive case and put it in there.

[sidbinks]

Thank you Flying Lowlander.

The Denon does read FLAC and have USB so it is good to know that I can quickly be up and running playing FLAC files in this way. I don't imagine I will have much flexibility though as this would bypass the use of software like mediamonkey. I was hoping to have the flac files connected to my network so that I could DLNA stream them to not only my Denon but other devices...and, be able to somehow control what is playing on the Denon in a way that allows for easy functionality like shuffle, skipping, sorting through the files...

[Lowlander]

That is possible too. MediaMonkey can act as a DLNA server (Tools > Options > Media Sharing).