I just am just asking the question it the chance I might learn something. I keep my lossy as is. I can re-rip if I have to.

With the audio capture I would suspect the audio capture that is captured at the sound card level might be best. However, I really don't know how they work.

If I understand your question, you want to know if when going from lossy to lossy it is better to go all digital or go digital->analog->digital in between?

Definitely stay with all digital.

I'm not sure, but it sounds like you might be asking if lossy -> analog -> lossy would result in better quality than lossy -> lossy.

NO

pdq beat me

Using MP3 as the lossy codec for examples. 2nd example assumes capture after the DAC on the soundcard.

Lossy to Lossy transcode: MP3 -> PCM -> MP3

Lossy to Soundcard to lossy transcode: MP3 -> PCM -> Analog Out -> Analog In -> PCM -> MP3

I do not have an answer because I am learning also. My understanding of your question is that you would like to learn something about converting from analog (cassettes, LPS, etc.) to digital (from the mention of a sound card). You would like to learn a little bit about the workings of this type of activity to make more informed choices. You have digitalized some of your analog collection and appear to be asking if it would be better to repeat this process (your term re-rip), or would it be ok for to simply transcode (convert from one digital format to another) on the files you have converted. Now I will step aside and let the experts answer your question.

You may be right in your interpretation of their question, but "rip" usually refers to getting digital audio from a CD to a computer file.