What's up with this? Is this something the music industry is doing to make sure we don't get 100% perfect copies of their precious audio?

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I know all about levels and normilization. I don't want to kill my dynamic range (which is what normalization does, by the way.) This reminds me of the SMART Afterburner product designed to destroy dynamic range in auditoriums that have such poor insulation that they shouldn't have even been built in the first place.

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What are you using to rip the tracks??

If ya using Windows you can get a CDFS.VXD file which will allow you to see .WAV files on the cd in Windows Explorer then just copy the tracks off.
If you would like i can email you the CDFS.VXD file.

Also use a "real" program to write audio cd's like Sonic Foundry's CD Architect.

Normalization is a gain process that optimizes a digital system's dynamic range basicly to use up all the bits avalible, it increases the highest amplitude siginal to the systems full-scale value and then increasing the rest of the file by that gain ratio.

so basicly just turns up the volume.

it won't "kill" your dynamic range.

But seriously, I don't need three people telling me what normilization is before I even have a chance to respond. What is up with that? I know you all mean well, but it might be a good idea to read other people's responses before you hit that REPLY button.

Mark. I tend to agree and disagree. I know about jitter. But what about when you copy CD-ROMs? There really is little to no room for error when doing so. And before Scott comes in, I know about redundant data and error correction data. But to make a perfect copy of a CD-ROM, it is advised to read the disc at the same speed you plan to write the disc, preferably with the same unit doing the reading and writing. Yes, you still sometimes get errors.

It is at its worst with plug in computer cards? As opposed to what else? A sound card built into the motherboard? The article didn't go into that kind of depth or I just skipped over it.

Also, what is the difference between WAV and AIFF? On the PC, the CD burning software demands WAV files for burning CD-DA. On the Mac, it demands AIFF files. Both CD-DA quality WAV and AIFF files are exactly the same size for a file of a given length. Is it only the headers or something that are different? I can't imagine that the actual 0010010100100110 (yes Scott, that is a 16-bit sample but if it actually is not, oh well) sound data would differ since that is what is being written to CD. Or do CD programs convert WAV and AIFF into a different format (which would be raw CD-DA) and each platform (Mac and Windows) just prefers to convert from a different format? If this is the case, my problem is probably with the CD-DA conversion, because the tracks on the actual CD are ALWAYS noticeably louder than the tracks on my hard drive.

And yes, I do know that in Windows there are no less than 6,001 different volume sliders and it is possible the CD volume slider could be set louder than the other volume sliders. But I have burned CDs on the Mac with the same result, which has one volume slider (actually two but one is for alert sounds).

Although an ex-girlfriend had an audio-only CD-Recorder. It worked just like a MiniDisc in the fact that what you heard was what you got. It was just 10 times slower (it seemed) than MD.

This is probably the only guaranteed way to ensure that each disc is an EXACT replica of the master and that each CD is technically identical.

Can burning a CD with a laser achieve the same result? I guess, in theory, it should be able to...can anyone expand on this? Is there a way to compare and analyse the exact content of a CD bit for bit?

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It comes with a limited version of Sonic Foundry's audio editing program, Sound Forge. I purchased the upgrade to the full Sound Forge, which includes an excellent normalize function and a whole slew of other filters, effects, etc.