>> Now I have more significant question: I've noticed when I burn a CD,
>> the audio quality changes when I move from the sound file on the 
>> computer
>> (.wav, say) to playing back the audio CD.
>
> Depending on how you've got the CD-ROM drive connected, you might be 
> using the DAC in the CD-ROM drive in one case versus the DAC in your 
> sound sound when playing a .wav file.
>
>> In particular, music seems to get ramped up.
>
> If "ramped up" means a change in pitch, that may indicate a problem 
> with the sampling rate your card was using on the .wav file.  It's not 
> uncommon to see .wav files with 48KHz sampling rate rather than that 
> 44.1KHz sampling used by CD's...

cdrecord should complain on 48kHz .wav files... (it did for me, as i 
transitioned audio from DAT [48kHz] to cd-r...)

regards,

timo