digital audio extraction

[Skidmark]

First off, I went here:

Originally posted by: AndyHui
FAQ: Do I need a CD Audio cable to listen to music CDs?

Now the only question I have left is: What if I have all 3 cables connected to my cdrw? It's my only drive. Does it defeat the purpose? Should I disconnect the analog cable and keep the digital one? And how do I tell xp to use the digital cable instead of the ide for audio extraction? I could really care less about the actual listening to of cd's.

 

[Lord Evermore]

For digital audio extraction, the audio is read through the IDE connection no matter what OS you use, it's read just like a data CD, which is why it's digital audio extraction not analog.

The digital cable won't be used in XP either for any software music playing because the IDE reading is available (though you can disable digital CD audio the way it's explained in that article).

Other OSes like Win98 don't have built in digital audio, so the analog or digital cable would be used. I'm not sure if there's a standard for which cable is used by the drive for output, analog or digital, if both are connected on the same drive. With two drives, both ports can be used on the soundcard with one drive on each.

There's no reason to force XP to use the digital cable. The one use it might have would be if your system's BIOS had a built-in CD player it would use the digital output rather than the analog cable (or in a DOS CD player). You'll get the best sound from digital CD audio, and the bus usage really shouldn't be that severe for just stereo audio.