I experienced similar issues a while back... playback / rip failure in MC but success in WMP, and resolved the issue by reinstalling my motherboard 'inf' drivers.
The difference between thee and me is that I was getting hieroglyphics instead of error messages.
You can read my trouble-shooting thread
here, if you like, I'm not sure if it will help, though you never know.
I'm not saying that what you're experiencing
isn't an MC problem, but can say that if it is, it'll be pretty obscure, as you can be sure, if this was a mainstream issue, there would be a lot more noise about it here in the forum, which so far, is not the case.
I see that you have already emailed a logfile to JohnT who will get back to you if it contains any clues, though as you'll see from my thread, my logfile did not help pinpoint the issue.
The thread I've linked to contains some 'device manager' suggestions that might be worth a shot, and for sure, won't harm your system any by trying.
Try EAC or any other similar software, like I did, and see if they are able to rip your CDs. Can they? Or do they fail too, as they did with me?
Good luck with your trouble-shooting,
regards,
-marko