Hello all,
I'm new to the forums, but to start, I use BonkEnc to rip my CD to all kinds of formats. I recently did a test by ripping a track from a CD to WAV format to see if there were any differences.
I have a sony and a hp drive.
I ripped the track from the sony drive and got one checksum, then ripped the same track from the HP drive and got a different checksum.
So I then ripped the track again from the sony drive and checksummed that file and it wasn't anty different from the previous rip.

What's causing this difference in data and is this something I should be concerned about? I'm just curious about the reliability of the data of course, in case there are any errors or something of the sort happening that I dont know about.

here's the results from the rips I did

I don't know BonkEnc, but I suspect that it is not properly accounting for the difference in offsets between the two drives.

You should be using a proper ripper like EAC or dBpoweramp.

Whats the difference between a "proper" ripper and BonkEnc? www.bonkenc.org

I really like BonkEnc that is.

If you check the wiki or search the archives, you will find the answers to your questions.

To explain briefly - not all drives starts reading audio CD from the exact same sector. To compensate for that, you have to have software in which an offset can be entered, so every configured reader will start reading the CD at exact the same sector. EAC and dBPowerAmp have that function. For more info, do as patmcg said

In addition to setting the correct offset for your drive, a "proper" ripper will verify your rips through AccurateRip.

Apart from the fact that almost any drive uses a different offset, two rips can easily return different results meaning that the rip is not secure. Dirt and scratches may account for even small inaudible differences in the rip - Even perfect discs can do that, but mostly if the CD is ripped at high speeds.

I'll recommend using EAC or dBpoweramp. Personally I use EAC burst/secure test/copy if AccurateRip information is not available.