manicm:
Grimaldi:Manicm, PJPro is correct. The way that EAC works makes the quality of a CD much less relevant than for a CD player. EAC will reread the data on a CD multiple times to ensure it gets a perfect read. A CD player cannot do that as it has to do everything in real time, it only gets one chance to do it right. Also EAC allows you to compare your read outcome with that of others on the internet to ensure that your read is 100.00000000% accurate (its unlikely that others will get the same read errors as you so it can generally be relied upon). In any case, I am surprised you can hear any difference between the formats on a laptop. My dad has an XPS 1330 and its definitely not the last word in hifi. I cannot tell the difference between a Cyrus CD8X and an ALAC file (via Apple Airport Express) playing through my DAC XP and Mono-Xs so I am shocked that you can apparently tell the difference between one lossless format and another on a laptop using an internal sound card.
1. I do have a proper hifi system, but have been using my lappie for ripping experimention. Yes the XPS is not hifi by any means but I am using it to differentiate between different digital formats - even with the admittedly crappy sound card, is this so absurd?
2. In my mind, and I acknowledge many will disagree here, EAC is only as good as the drive. Let's for argument sake you have a dodgy drive which misreads sometimes EAC is going to fix this even with countless re-sampling? I don't think so. Like CD players sound different, I believe CD drives in PCs do make a difference. In another post you mentioned that some drives have different lasers for CD and DVD playing, well I would hazard these are few and far between in PCs, even a laptop as relatively expensive as an XPS.
3. I have used EAC to both rip to WAV and burn my original CDs for the car, and I can tell you the sound still sucks - and I put this down to the CD drive - so things like EAC and AccurateRip can only do so much for me.
4. To repeat, all of the above leads me to believe that the quality of a drive is important to start off with, much like a CD player.
So I will agree to disagree with many others here, but all in the spirit of music.
Your logic is totally flawed!
1. You are trying to test the difference in the sound of different lossless formats which should sound exactly the same (as they have the same data when decompressed) using something as awful for music reproduction as a laptop sound card and speakers. No wonder you are confused!
2. So your argument is that if a CD drive is broken then its not good enough. If I try to read a CD with my eyes through a magnifying glass I am sure that will be less than perfect too. If a CD drive can read a CD and the correct offset has been set up then it will read it. Remember, at the end of the day AccurateRip is there to check accuracy ... and it doesn't lie and is not subject to subjective testing via a laptop sound card as a source. Also, if the CD could not be read correctly then you could not install any software on your PC in the first place. The lasers for CD and DVD reading have to be different wave length because of the different specification so if a drive can read both discs it will have the ability to generate both wave lengths ... there is nothing special about it.
3. Burning a CD is a completely different kettle of fish. You have to write it sequentially on first pass so again its like reading a CD in a CD player ... the quality of the drive increases in importance.
4. So again, the above proves that the quality of the drive is pretty much irrelevant. If it can read it will generally do as well as another for CD ripping.
If you prefer the sound of a low bit rate mp3 (a pretty poor compression method in the first place compared to AAC) then it suggests that there is something very wrong with the way your laptop soundcard and speakers reproduce sound. Something in the compression artefact is compensating for the shortcoming of your laptop and making it sound better to you.
Please don't make such sweeping statements about various formats (particularly lossless ones) when all you have to go on is your laptop and PC speakers. A laptop is full of all sorts of interference, the components are generally poor and sound is an afterthought. How you can make any conclusions based on that is beyond me.