Just a practical consideration, I suspect that USB audio will be the only option available on your laptop as very few windows laptops have any other digital output that can be fed to an external DAC. Some macs (maybe all?) have an SPDIF output, but I've found this drastically inferior to the USB solution.
Also, ripping all those CDs will be truly painful (especially if you picked up some of them used and they're not in perfect shape), but the sonic rewards are well-worth it. Hard drive driven computer audio is leaps and bounds past any transport I've used in my system.
Also, ripping all those CDs will be truly painful (especially if you picked up some of them used and they're not in perfect shape), but the sonic rewards are well-worth it. Hard drive driven computer audio is leaps and bounds past any transport I've used in my system.