I'll give it a shot too:
1) rip my CDs to WAV files on the hard drive(s) of my choice
I have found that the fast DVD-R/W drives in Toshiba laptops work great with Exact Audio Copy. They do error-free rips at 5-8X speed. This is extremely important. I purchased a Sony laptop with what I thought was a decent DVD drive only to find that it would only rip at 1X. This takes 45 minutes to an hour to rip a single CD. I returned it immediately.
2) "tag" these WAV files with album and track information
EAC has functions that you select that automatically retrieve the data from FREEDB database on the web.
3) export bit for bit perfect data without insulting my other components by using a cheesey cheap sound card or "interface"
This is tricky. There are a lot of soundcards out there and most of them have high jitter outputs. The lowest jitter will come from external independently powered converters, the best being I2S, followed by a well-implemented AES and then S/PDIF interface. The best sound comes from USB converters that use custom software drivers, not Windows drivers IMO. I would not recommend ANY internal PCI sound card.
4) implement "best execution" for connections, whether USB, XLR or some other acronym that I dont necessarily understand
Avoiding S/PDIF or "digital coax" is best if you are wanting USB conversion. USB conversion supports higher sample rates, such as 24/88.2 and 24/96. Wireless "Wi-Fi" does not support anything other than 16/44.1, but can be easier to set-up and has the wireless convenience. Wi-Fi can also sound great.
and
5) Get all of this with a minimum amount of "jitter" or other nasty artifacts into the DAC of my choice.
Again, the design and clock quality is key to obtaining the best result.
I would give you the list of components, but this would be advertising.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio
1) rip my CDs to WAV files on the hard drive(s) of my choice
I have found that the fast DVD-R/W drives in Toshiba laptops work great with Exact Audio Copy. They do error-free rips at 5-8X speed. This is extremely important. I purchased a Sony laptop with what I thought was a decent DVD drive only to find that it would only rip at 1X. This takes 45 minutes to an hour to rip a single CD. I returned it immediately.
2) "tag" these WAV files with album and track information
EAC has functions that you select that automatically retrieve the data from FREEDB database on the web.
3) export bit for bit perfect data without insulting my other components by using a cheesey cheap sound card or "interface"
This is tricky. There are a lot of soundcards out there and most of them have high jitter outputs. The lowest jitter will come from external independently powered converters, the best being I2S, followed by a well-implemented AES and then S/PDIF interface. The best sound comes from USB converters that use custom software drivers, not Windows drivers IMO. I would not recommend ANY internal PCI sound card.
4) implement "best execution" for connections, whether USB, XLR or some other acronym that I dont necessarily understand
Avoiding S/PDIF or "digital coax" is best if you are wanting USB conversion. USB conversion supports higher sample rates, such as 24/88.2 and 24/96. Wireless "Wi-Fi" does not support anything other than 16/44.1, but can be easier to set-up and has the wireless convenience. Wi-Fi can also sound great.
and
5) Get all of this with a minimum amount of "jitter" or other nasty artifacts into the DAC of my choice.
Again, the design and clock quality is key to obtaining the best result.
I would give you the list of components, but this would be advertising.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio