has anybody used finyl before downloading CD to pc

For CD playback, yes, I've heard various enhancements that can make a difference. All of them relate to reducing the read error rate of the transport device (and hence reducing the need for error correction in the digital stream). I found black marker on the top of the disk to work about as well as anything. Differences are nominal to great depending on your CD player.

However, when it comes to ripping CDs to digital format - a computer treats a music disk no different than a data disk. If you have the right software, it will read and re-read sectors until it gets it right - resulting in a bit perfect file.

That, in a nutshell, is the beauty of PC audio - you know you are always starting with a perfect source file that does not rely on expensive transport equipment to read the data and create the digital stream in real time.

ok,

thanks shazam now I understand. Could you recommend any software for burning or playback? thanks again.

Foobar 0.8.3 is the preferred playback software for a lot of audiophiles on PC. If your computer is on Window XP, consider the ASIO plug in to override the native sound driver. Other software like WinAmp or iTunes are good as well.

All playback software should have burning capability (that is, burning audio CDs from .flac files). I don't have much experience doing this and am not sure if any are better than others. Since it's just burning a data CD, I don't see where any of the popular ones would have problems so long as your computer has enough memory and a decent burner.