What format do record companies put their CD's in?

Question

It must be some universal format or something because it can be ripped into any format.

Answer 1

Thanks to the digital age, record labels usually have direct to digital transfers made to the cd manufacturing plant. If this is not a viable solution, they usually will send over a master DAT tape to the cd manufacturing plant. The master DAT is eq'd and etc.. for optimum sound and performance for the CD transfer.

For ripping CDs, your favorite media player or rip/burn software program will take the CDA file the original CD is in and convert it to the format you choose (for example, MP3 or WAV which is the best format to convert a CD from but the largest in terms of final file size).