Not had this 17" powerbook long. Last night I left it on to charge whilst the computer was powered off. It seems to run really hot on standby. The computer fan runs to cool it down but it won't power up yet (I presume it's cooling down). Is this design normal or is it a flaw in the power circuitry? Can anyone recommend advice about ripping CDs onto the powerbook at maximum quality? I'm ripping at 'lossless encoding' and playing through a 75W external power amp into 8Ohm speakers. I must say the sound quality is really dire. Even my tape cassette player sounds better.

Not familiar with powerbooks, really, but that doesn't sound like a typical mac behavior.. The DAC in all macs isn't really an audiophile level one, but it should sound acceptable (i'm using the DAC (Digital-analog converter) in my spare mac, my main one has a 24 bit soundcard installed tho, so... Provided you have the harddrive space, always rip to AIFF if you want quality..it can have ID3 style entries (unlike wav files) and most audio cds are already AIFF anyways...90 minutes of music takes a gig of HD space tho... Not a problem unless you've got thousands of albums ;)

Thanks - I've checked and I needed to hold down the power button for 5 seconds before the computer restarted. I think I left the computer on sleep mode whilst I was trying to install Alarm Clock Pro to run and wake me up in the morning. It's just created more problems so that's one piece of software I'll get rid of. What is AIFF? Is this better than coverting to Lossless Encoding format? I think you're right - it must be a format issue. I'm struck by the poor sound I'm getting from the Apple in comparison with a Sony laptop which sounds totally superior even without a DAC. The Sony sound is very close to audiophile quality on a 225W pre-power amp separates combo with minimal distortion. I don't mind a 1GB of music - I can easy flash this into the spare 250GB hard drive. If I can get that to work..

OK, first, *all* computers capable of sound (that have an analog output - almost all, in other words)..and all soundcards, have a DAC..otherwise you'd never be able to plug the audio output into a stereo amp etc...they vary in performance tho- although Apple's have usually been quite good, so i don't understand why the powerbook sounds so poor.. 'Lossless encoding format' isn't a actual format, it's a description of certain formats that preserve the file's integrity - as opposed to say, MP3 where the data is irretrievably altered in order to compress the file . An example of two 'lossless encoding formats' would be Wav and AIFF..i think there might be more but I only ever use AIFF now, so that's what i'm familiar with. Most CD ripping and audio editing software has the option to save as AIFF, available..

Thanks Dom. I think I understand. I'll check to see if I'm saving as AIFF. At the minute, I'm given the option to 'RIP' from iTunes with no further ado. There must be a way to change the format ripping.