Is the audio out of a cd/dvd rom needed?

[ati]

I have never plugged a cord from the soundcard to the cd/dvd rom. Everything always worked fine and I was wondering what would the the point or imporvement of putting the cord in.

[dicecca112]

I think its so you can plug headphones into the front of a Cd-Rom and be able to listen to the music, like a non-portable walkman

[Fronic]

I have never plugged a cord from the soundcard to the cd/dvd rom. Everything always worked fine and I was wondering what would the the point or imporvement of putting the cord in.
I *think* back in the old ages the music wasn't read off the CD rom, but was basically output to the sound card almost like a line-in and the music players use to monitor only that particular channel. That went away with multi-channel sound cards.

I know that I couldn't listen to music on my old 486 until I plugged that cable into my sweet, sweet 14.4kbps modem/sound card :D