ok i have exialy a few questions , but i put it on 1 treath because it has all the same componement : the s/pdif cable.

What i got
optical drives :
plextor cdr/rw 12/10/32 TS (scsi)
Lite-on 411s (IDE dvd burner)
soundcard:
creative audigy2 (5.1 channels)
speakers:
Logitec Z680 (with internal 5.1 decoder)

my goals:
I searched a long time, and i tried alot of things out.
every time i begon to have to needs on more audio quality.
the songs i ripped (mp3 cbr 192kb/s) didn't give me satisfaction anymore.

Also new my portable mp3 player (iriver ihp120) and my new shure's E3 earphoneset,sets a new boundry for (my) sound quality.
but ofcours now that i have got sensitiver hardware , my "software"= ripped mp3's isn't good enough.

so i wanted to ripp the content of my cd into high quality mp3's.
i found that when using the plextools ripper, i got the best possible exact copy of my audio.
then i toke the lame mp3 encoder with alt preset extreme setings (av 224 VBr)

these are my new standarts for mp3's.

i know that using Flac is probably the best way for compressed audio. but the extra filesize bothers me...

Question 1.
what is the best way to ripp my cd content into my hard drive (let's say wav)

when i using my plextor drive to scsi interface to harddisc.
or can i use this settup also.
plextor drive, spdif cable from my plextor to audigy2.
en then to harddisk? (if this even possible.)


Question 2
i'm willing to hear the best audio out of my hardware.
i'm watching dvd's on my pc.,and the 5.1 sound's are comming from my logitech z680 speakers.

i use the anolog cables attached on my audigy into my logitec decoder

will this setup be better if i use this one?:
s/pdif cable on my liteon dvd driver to s/pdif plug on my audigy2 card.
digital (optical) cable of my audigy into the optical cable input of my logitec speakers.


i know it's a big bag of bread to digest, but if you have some information regarding my questions , please do give me some more insight

or with a few less words, what does this spdif cable from the cdrom do (more)?

EAC, CDEx, Plextools or some other known secure ripper.

No, that wouldn't be very sensible at all. You could do it (play the CD with windows CD player and record the SPDIF in with a wave editor) but you certainly won't get better results than a straight rip with EAC. You might, if the wind is blowing in the right direction, get bit perfect results from this technique but it is far from recommended.

The SPDIF cable from your CD drive is not used when you are playing DVDs. It won't make any difference to the DVD watching experience. However, a digital (SPDIF) connection from your Audigy to your decoder will reduce noise and use the DACs in your Logitech decoder rather than your Audigy. Try both setups and see if you can hear a difference.

When you are playing (not ripping) CDs in your computer, the SPDIF cable transfers data from the CD to the SPDIF in on the sound card rather than using the CD drive's (generally shitty 12bit) DACs. CDROM drives in this mode aren't very good transports, so I wouldn't go this way if I was aiming for best sound quality.

I reccommend you read the FAQ

I don't think so... the Audigy should resample and change the volume of its SPDIF input. It is better to rip through SCSI, because no process is applied to the data.

Ad Question 1:
I use Exact Audio Copy (EAC), and i think it's the best audio ripping tool.

Ad Question 2:
The problem here is the D/A-Converter. But i don't know, witch converter is better,
that in you audigy-soundcard or that in your logitech speakers.
Generally: Speakers bulidt for computers are absolute crap.
I don't know nothing about your budget but i advise you to look at rotel amlipiers (with dolby digital decoders included) and bowers and wilkins (B&W) speakers.
Connect the digital audio output from you computer to your amplifier.
I now that this costs a huge amout of money, but I think, there is no better hardware at this costs. Maybe also a Yamaha or Harman Cardon ampifier (with dolby digital decoder) meets your needs at lower costs. Have a look at ebay. Used audio components have nearly the same audio quality than new ones.

The digital audio-out from your liteon dvd is only active, if you play audio-cds. If you have data CDs or DVDs then there is no output.

For audio compression i recommend ogg-vorbis at 320kbps instead of mp3 but if you have a portable audio player, you have to look if it supports ogg.