EAC to FLAC.

But something I've been seriously considering--and I know it's crazy--is redoing my entire music collection in Dolby Digital Plus (e-ac3). Yes, that movie audio codec. I'm seriously impressed by it. I still have 60 or so HD-DVDs that I've ripped, nearly all of which contain 1.5mb/s E-AC3 5.1 audio. It's a very efficient codec. I've read that it's nearly twice as efficient as regular AC3, which itself is more efficient than MP3. At 1.5mb/s and serving 6 channels, the DD+ encoded HD-DVD rips sound identical to the much larger (~4.5mb/s) DTS-HD MA encoded Blu-ray rips. Highs are nice and clear. Lows nearly liquify the couch.

I'd save a ton of space if I could rip CDs to 2-channel e-ac3 at 192Kb/s, then use LAV to bitstream to the receiver, which would then use its reference Dolby decoder to produce incredibly beautiful sound. But then the lazy gene kicks in, and it's back to FLAC.

RacoonRider wrote:

I always though images are read and made bit-by-bit. And anyway, Nero does not seem to be crappy, at least the part that deals with CDs...

And if you're using pristine CDs, it probably won't make any difference. But the reason EAC is so beloved is that it makes an extra effort to compensate for errors in the CD data. (Or at least, that's the perception.)

A good ripper should support a bit-perfect verification against the AccurateRip database.

From memorial times , Im use all the time to rip a entire CD , or mix audio/data the Golden Hawks CDRW , make an exact copy, make Bin And Cue Files

obobskivich wrote:

EAC into WMA-L VBR. I went with WMA because I actually use WMP, don't like how the flac/vorbis plug-ins work, and don't have anything networked that doesn't handle WMA. I went with lossless because I have more storage than I know what to do with. So it was win-win. Thus far I've had no problems with pops/clicks/etc - I originally only intended to use EAC to handle some old CDs that WMP was having issues with, but it works so well that I just stuck with it. 😀 I still let WMP do all of the tagging though - usually what EAC finds is only marginally complete. I'm sure other applications that have auto-tagging could also do that function with ease.

On not wanting to rip CDs you've purchased: Amazon has "Auto-Rip", but you have to buy the CD or LP from them.

As far as drive quality - something I've noticed over the years is that, unfortunately, not all drives are created equally in terms of performance and quality. The best drives I've seen thus far for ripping, reading damaged discs, etc tend to be from Toshiba, and the trade-off seems to be that most of them are on the slower side (that has the "benefit" of making them quieter though). I'll add that modern Plextor drives are a joke - they're usually re-badged Lite-On or (gag me) Optiarcs, so they're nothing like the original Plextor drives of lore. The last one I tried a year or two ago died within a month. 😒

Since I use images mounted on virtual drives, I guess I don't have to deal with crappy drives - vibration and jitters and the likes. 😎

TheMAN wrote:

you realize making an ISO of a red book CD uses the same process as ripping right?
it's just the output format is different

if you use crap software to make your ISO, it's a crappy rip

Aren't ISO or NRG images exact, bit-by-bit duplicates of physical CDs? Crap equipment resulting in crappy duplicates is true when copying analog, but since we're copying (and not lossy-compressing) digital sources....

Jorpho wrote:

RacoonRider wrote:

I always though images are read and made bit-by-bit. And anyway, Nero does not seem to be crappy, at least the part that deals with CDs...

And if you're using pristine CDs, it probably won't make any difference. But the reason EAC is so beloved is that it makes an extra effort to compensate for errors in the CD data. (Or at least, that's the perception.)

All my CDs are pristine - I've never used them anyway. I only used them once - to make images, that's it.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

TheMAN wrote:

you realize making an ISO of a red book CD uses the same process as ripping right?
it's just the output format is different

if you use crap software to make your ISO, it's a crappy rip

Aren't ISO or NRG images exact, bit-by-bit duplicates of physical CDs? Crap equipment resulting in crappy duplicates is true when copying analog, but since we're copying (and not lossy-compressing) digital sources....

If you rip to a lossless audio format, then you will also have bit-by-bit duplicates of the data stored on the CD.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Since I use images mounted on virtual drives, I guess I don't have to deal with crappy drives - vibration and jitters and the likes. 😎

"Vibration and jitters and the likes" will not have any discernable effect on audio quality.

A lossless audio format means a smaller file size and tagging support. And you don't need a disc image emulator or a CD burner to play it. It is even possible to rip CDs to single lossless audio files with embedded cue sheets.

Imaging a CD-audio MAY work reasonably, if the CD is in good condition and the drive supports accurate stream./../

What EAC does:
1. If the drive is not capable of accurate stream (reposition accurately after a pause), then EAC begins the next read backspaced and matches the data. Better to use a drive with accurate stream though.
2. If the drive can report C2 errors, then EAC can use that to pick up problems, otherwise it rereads and compares.
3. In case of problem, it will drop speed and make multiple reads - can make an insane number of passes, but unlikely to gain much at the extreme levels - if the drive is reading inconsistently, it will be looking for a majority result.

EAC can image to WAV/CUE, MP3/CUE (but the cue is nonstandard and may need adjusting for programs that do not accept that form), possibly to other formats with cue.
EAC can hand off to pretty much any commandline compression program, using user defined parameters

I've used Exact Audio Copy for years. Now I'm using CueRipper because it's easier to use. I always rip my CDs into FLACs with embedded cuesheets - it's convenient to have only one file for each CD. And no, ripping them to ISOs or any other image won't give you exact copies of the audio data - read about offsets http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/sup … fset-questions/ and about error correction on Audio CDs.