Optical Drive for Ripping

[gpercy]

Thus far my ripping experience has been fairly limited... using iTunes to produce AAC and Apple Lossless files for my iPod and iPhone.

I'm in the process of putting together a high-end headphone system that will include a music server, and want to rip uncompressed or lossless files for that system. Over the past few years I've read comments about the superiority of ripping with Exact Audio Copy on a PC. My search to confirm this and for finding something comparable on the Mac led me to Rip and this forum.

My first question is about optical drives. I have the latest MacBook Pro with a Matshita DVD-R (UJ-868). Sometimes I see comments from people who use Plextor and other brand drives rather than the stock drive that is included with their Mac or PC.

Based on your experience, would I achieve better results using an external optical drive of a particular brand or specification for extracting audio files with Rip?

Thanks!

[gpercy]

I posted this same inquiry over at the Computer Audiophile Forums http://www.computeraudiophile.com/forum, and thus far the consensus is that this is a non-issue falling into the "don't sweat it" category. The only situation where someone might want to have another drive would be for the rare CD that has problems.

[quote] The generic drive in the laptop will occasionally have problems with a disc, or with a track, but the Plextor has never had a problem with anything that wasn't beyond help anyway! [end quote]

Looking forward to working with Rip!