ripping cds to wav - what sound card?

[corkdood]

Just wondering about your views on ripping cds to wav and keeping them on a hard drive. I am thinking I would need a top notch sound card. Would I also need a better than the average cdrom drive to rip the songs from the cds in the first place?

If I was to go about this what sound card would be recommended. I would envisage storing the data on a 500gb external hard drive.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Anonymous]

I would use an external soundcard, they have much better sound than internal cards. What are you using to playback the music? I can give you better recommendations with a little more information.

 

[Thaiman]

How different would the external soundcard make? I thought when you rip cd (as long as you have fast enough processor and make sure it burn at lowest speed possible) the 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1will be the same as original!

 

[Ragworm]

You don't actually need a sound card at all for ripping - the process is entirely digital. The data is read from the CD in digital form and stored in the WAV file in digital form. If you RIP to CD quality (16 bit stereo, 44kHz) it is also entirely lossless. You will of course need a sound card for playback and if you're looking for Hi-Fi quality then you will need to spend a few quid on a decent one.

 

[Thaiman]

[quote user="Ragworm"]You don't actually need a sound card at all for ripping - the process is entirely digital. The data is read from the CD in digital form and stored in the WAV file in digital form. If you RIP to CD quality (16 bit stereo, 44kHz) it is also entirely lossless. You will of course need a sound card for playback and if you're looking for Hi-Fi quality then you will need to spend a few quid on a decent one.[/quote]

Great answer....just like I thought. (cool dude icon here)

 

[Anonymous]

In my experience this gives the best results:Use a cd-rom drive in stead of dvd-rom (somehow dvd-rom drives have problems reading cds accurately) Use a very accurate ripper: Exact Audio Copy is free and one of the best.As mentioned before, you don't have to worry about a sound card.