Album Art and .wav files

Hi

In an attempt to use a format that:

a) Is lossless
b) Can be used on either itunes or Windows Media Player
c) Can be used as a source file to be converted to other formats as necessary

I am currently in the process of ripping my 6000 songs into .wav format to be used in itunes across an Airport express to play on my cambridge audio amp.

Everything is working brilliantly with itunes and the airport express giving my amp true CD quality audio. Apart from the hugely time consuming process of ripping each of my CDs, the only other issue I have identified is that it apparently appears to be impossible to add album artwork not available in the itunes store to itunes.

I have read on the internet that .wav files will not support tagging of any kind. Firstly, can I confirm that this is the case.

Secondly, this being correct, can anyone suggest any way of having my music library stored within itunes but with external album art added. It really is frustrating to have the jpeg images available but not be able to add them to itunes.

Any help would be gratefully received!

Thanks

Matt