In reply to:

I think that regardless of the RAM, the hard disk would remain spinning almost continuously...



Why would you say that? If there's enough RAM, the drives should be able to spin down. Given a CD is around 10 megs/minute and a FLAC is around 5-7 megs/minute, you should go close to around 2 minutes cached (on a Mk2a at least).

Also remember that the player plays WAVs (albeit with some occasional skipping according to maczrool) and they are bigger than FLACs. Dunno if it spins the drives down, but I would guess it would
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Christian
#40104192 120Gb (no longer in my E36 M3, won't fit the E46 M3)