Originally Posted by NoTLaDStyle
A 2v deck will not output anything buy a 2v signal. The 8v signal is normalized to 2v which regardless of noise is a loss of quality in itself.
You can view the output recording voltage by opening up the status while its ripping a CD.
Interesting...I've never thought of it before. I use EAC to rip, and I've never noticed a recording voltage...I'll have to pay more attention. I wonder if this voltage is what your sound card is seeing, what the sound card is 'outputting' or really some coded in piece of the data. Also, what is the voltage referenced to? Voltage without impedance or current is a pretty useless number.
I'm still not sure how playing back an 8v cd on a 2v deck is bad, but here's a reference that seems to say the 8v cd is bad for sound quality, in the first place.
http://www.johnvestman.com/disease.htm
Toby