File format, software and settings?

Kijanki, that is a very helpful answer. I did not want to link my laptop directly to the Esoteric USB yet because I dont easily have the space or the right noise free laptop yet, and I like to keep my CD-Amp-Speaker chain as pure and simple as possible with no extra equipment/links to add noise. When I play CDs, no other equipment is connected or powered. I bought the N50 as an internet radio and linked it to the Esoteric K01's DAC via optical thinking it maintains the purity of my chain as best I can while listening to radio. (N50 is a great internet radio btw). My idea to start out in PC audio was to get my CDs onto my laptop or back up drive in the best way and best file format, and stream wirelessly via the N50 and the optical connection isolates the N50 as much as possible from the Esoteric. Since the data is sent to the Esoteric via optical, I assume the N50 clock is used and it is not re-clocked by the Esoteric. Any way to force the Esoteric to do the clocking? I really want to use use N50 as a wireless conduit and the Esoteric do the work. Perhaps at some time in the future I need to buy a different device to do this that can feed the Esoteric USB? I think right now the only pitfall for me is if I spend hundreds of hours ripping my CDs in the wrong way so would appreciate any comments on that too.

I ripped my second and third CDs and it now takes about 4 mins. It did not come up with the accurate rip window. Does this sound about the right amount of time? Went back and ripped the first one again and it was also fast. How do I check it is using accuraterip?

If the cd is in accurate rip it will show at the bottom of the rip display window and there will be a number that shows how many times it has been submitted. Try burning a well known title and I am sure you will get a reading like "CD in Accurate Rip (25)". It does not have a special window. Look at the last line below your ripped song titles.

Hope this is more clear. 4min is great!

Thanks Tom, it did help

I didn't see it responded to as such about the time it takes to rip a cd... Even though I have DBPoweramp, I have always used EAC, Just very comfortable with it, so still use it with Accurip... I didn't see it addressed, but the time that it takes to burn is in direct correlation with the condition of the cd. I have had problems with several errors and EAC/Accurip will re read a problem area several thousand times until it gets the info, I have had a few damaged cd's that I wanted to save where it took all night to burn a copy. On average, EAC/Accurip burns on my notebook at 2.5 to 4x normal play back speed. So a 40 minute cd will burn in 10 to 15 minutes. I have heard DBPoweramp is quicker, but so far, I have only used it for file conversion... Flac to Wav, etc. I hope this info helps, Tim