Hi.

I was having trouble playing my audio CD using XMMS when I ran into a Web site that explained that I needed to either connect the CD drive with the motherboard using an analog CD audio cable or choose the "digital audio extraction" option in XMMS. Not having an audio cable handy, I turned on the "digital audio extraction" option and voila, the sound started coming out of the speakers.

So that's all good... except that the person who wrote the Web site said he'd rather put the analog cable than let the CPU do the extra work (of audio extraction, I suppose). Do you guys concur? I don't know how much a CD audio cable costs, but is it worth buying? Or is my CPU (P4 3.2E-GHz) powerful enough that I needn't worry about it?

TIA,
Dai

Unless you're doing hugely cpu-intensive stuff, you probably won't have any problems. If you do though, you can probably pick up a cable at local shop for nothing or next to nothing. I have a box with 5 or 6 of them in it right here :-/

go with digital audio extraction....after all, thats what windows media player has to do all the time, right?