Enjoy your new headphones, friend, and thanks for sharing your thoughts! The Apple music app itself has an equalizer feature but its basic and relatively clunky.

In case you don't know, all CDs are WAV files and 16/44. You can't add any more information than is already there so ripping at 24/96 is the exact same as ripping at 16/44.

The only real choices to make are whether to compress (FLAC or ALAC) lossless files or not (WAV or AIFF) or create lossy (mp3 or m4a) files for the smaller size. Honestly, I prefer uncompressed AIFF. Some people say they can't hear a difference; I can. But that's the real choice. Rip some things at AIFF and ALAC and A/B test them to see for yourself.

As a fellow mac user, I'll just say what I use. For ripping, since its native and easy, Apple Music. XLD is good for transcoding. Music files are on an external hard drive, and I use either Colibri (I prefer its equalizer) or Pine player (for flac files).

For HP EQ software profiles, choices are limited more or less to eqMac or soundsource (both $30-$40). I don't use either. I looked up orartory1990 and crinacle's presets and adjusted to taste but now I just do it by ear.

CDs are all ripped to 16/44. Upscaling to 24/96 just makes the files bigger but doesn't add any quality to the music. If you want, you can buy hi-res files. I rip most everything to ALAC or AIFF as they are native to mac.

That's all I can think of; let me know if you have any questions. Good luck with the new gear! I love my Arya, hope you love yours!