I guess I'm best to start over. Thanks for the suggestion of R8brain. Does anyone have an opinion on using CD Wave editor to record to WAV files? To me, It's been very easy. I guessing a bit for bit transfer doesn't make much or any difference what software creates a WAV file. I am assuming once I have everything in WAV I can edit, track the files, or compress afterwards? Hard disk space is not an issue. Again, I think the most important thing is to get everything transferred before my machine goes kaput.
Yeppers... When I do a transfer, I keep an unadulterated 48k file (or 44k if that's how the DAT was recorded). I make MD5s and convert to FLAC... I call this the "Master". I used to use r8brain to convert any 48k Master to 44k for CDs... But I've pretty much quit doing that since I listen mostly thru the PC...
I then dump this file into CDWave and cut my Tracks. I save the Tracks in a separate location, create MD5s and convert to FLAC... These are my "work" files. I don't do any type of file manipulation, but if you plan on doing something, you'll want your Master separate and unadulterated in case you want to start over, do it again, decide to do something differently...
As for the "important thing", IMO the "important thing" is to Transfer those DATs before they go bad. Different brands of DAT had different shelf-life, some much shorter than others... You can always replace the PC, or like in my case, use a Recorder with SPDIF input (think of this as "patching" after the fact)... But once the DAT has died, that's it, game over!
BTW, there are several people willing to do mass-transfers of your DATs (like me), especially if they are PH related...
Terry