Best CD Ripper? EAC - dBPowerAmp - JRMC

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The way EAC works you're going to be spending a LOT of time looking at log files, and you're going to spend a LOT of time waiting for it to do it's secure ripping features.

I don't spend much time at all looking at log files with EAC. If it passes AccurateRip, you get a message to that effect in the dialog box that comes up at the end of the rip. In that case, you don't need to look at the log file at all. If the disc isn't in the AccurateRip database, and the "test and copy selected tracks" option has been used, it takes only a few seconds to look through the log to compare CRCs of test and copy. If you uncheck "Eject CD after extraction finished" in EAC options, the test and copy CRCs will be shown in the main EAC window, and it won't be necessary to open the log file to see them.

dbPoweramp does a much better job ripping quickly with a typical drive than EAC does though. But if you find a drive that does not cache data on audio ripping, as described here, one can get rips that average around 22x speed over the disc in secure mode with EAC. Most of the slowdown in EAC secure mode happens with the brute-force way in which it must flush the cache before comparing data from multiple reads. So for drives for which do not cache data when ripping audio, in most cases you'll get vastly improved ripping speed. For example, the Samsung SH-S223 series of drives do not cache. Another possibility, which I haven't tried because I don't have any drives that support it, is the EAC USEFUA command-line option. This makes use of the FUA command, originally implemented with Plextor drives but also used by some others, which is essentially a "fast cache flush" command. dbPoweramp supports this command as well. In theory this should speed up ripping too, but I don't have any data to know for sure. It's certainly something to look at.

All in all, I'd say dbPoweramp is a bit better, but for the cheapskate who doesn't mind experimenting a bit, EAC is hard to beat.
 
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I certainly agree with the past few posts. As good and free as EAC is, dBPoweramp is faster, easier and tags better. And if it has doubts about a rip, it tells you. It's the best I've seen.*

As said above, keep EAC around for the really messy CDs. I use it for that too.


* I started ripping and playing back in the last century with MMJB. Moved onto BeOS as long as that lasted. (Still a great audio OS.) But the new windoze stuff is really so much better than it used to be.
 
MS Malware tool found TrojanClicker:Win32/Yabector.A from EAC on my system:

From that link: "In the wild, this program was observed installed by an installation for the audio application "Exact Audio Copy" (EAC) as a file named "eBayShortcuts.exe"."
Encyclopedia entry: TrojanClicker:Win32/Yabector.gen - Learn more about malware - Microsoft Malware Protection Center

Here people are stating that all you have to do is opt out of the ebay shortcuts option during the install process which I did. People there are stating that as long as you opt out you are fine, MS seems to claim that it is more severe - not sure which is correct.
 
I certainly agree with the past few posts. As good and free as EAC is, dBPoweramp is faster, easier and tags better. And if it has doubts about a rip, it tells you. It's the best I've seen.*

As said above, keep EAC around for the really messy CDs. I use it for that too.
Fully second that. dBpoweramp rips most of my CD’s within 3 – 4 minutes error free. And for tag lookup it uses more database clusters than EAC. For tagging JRMC does even a better job.

I have set up dBpa for Acurate rip and a maximum of 2 secure rips. Max frame re-reads to 5. That showed me the fastest way of ripping.

If dBpa needs more than 2 re-reads or start re-reading frames it is better to skip those tracks and inspect your CD for debris and scratches. Better clean your CD’s then with a mild detergent and/or polish out the scratches with metal polish and a soft cloth. That way a was able to rip even “difficult” CD’s 100% error free (according to Accuraterip). It is always worth to inspect your CD’s before ripping. Even very small scratches/debrsis that is nearly invisible can cause read errors.

The only thing dBpa has problems sometimes and need I to fallback to EAC is with hidden first tracks. But these are rare.
 
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MS Malware tool found TrojanClicker:Win32/Yabector.A from EAC on my system:

From that link: "In the wild, this program was observed installed by an installation for the audio application "Exact Audio Copy" (EAC) as a file named "eBayShortcuts.exe"."
Encyclopedia entry: TrojanClicker:Win32/Yabector.gen - Learn more about malware - Microsoft Malware Protection Center

Here people are stating that all you have to do is opt out of the ebay shortcuts option during the install process which I did. People there are stating that as long as you opt out you are fine, MS seems to claim that it is more severe - not sure which is correct.

The here I was referring to was this thread - was in a rush forgot to paste the link:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t75166.html
I should probably mention that only the MS tool flagged it as a trojan, AVG, malwarebytes
and several others did not even report it.
 
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I have found that EAC is the best so far it may be a bit slow but worth the wait
Yeh, they giveaway T-Shirts :clown:

But no kidding, if you have to put 2000 CD’s on a NAS dBpoweramp, is much more comfortable/faster and does 95% flawless in one pass (provided Accuraterip data is available). Also tag lookup for classic music is much better, although not as good as I would wish.
 
Just like to find out how many here is ripping their CD at the highest speed their reader can go?
Most driver have higher error rate at top speed and I just wonder if highest speed -1 or -2 is a better option or it doesn't matter since the ripping software like EAC or dBpoweramp will take care of this?
 
I think TerryO has the right idea...

Incidentally, AccurateRip is much of the same. The CRCs used to provide the confidence level are user-submitted. It's possible every user ripped with the same errors, and the original studio master is different. But it's unlikely. A confidence of 5 means nothing, really. A confidence of 120 is a pretty safe bet.

>It's possible every user ripped with the same errors

No it is not possible (unless you take 4 billion to 1 odds), another persons rip with errors would not be the same as your rip with errors if they are different discs (the damage is different).

A confidence of 1 is all you need for a bit perfect rip.
 
Whatever you do, rip lossless. You don't want to do this twice.

My own bread and butter CD ripper still is EAC. Rip in burst mode --> look what AccurateRip and CTDB have to say --> rerip suspect tracks in secure mode if needed. I never rip faster than 24X with desktop and 16X with slimline drives, the bit of time saved is hardly worth the extra racket and mechanical wear.

Cuetools is something useful to have around - you can even repair a CD rip with uncorrectable errors using the online database (CTDB) information. I've had to do this once or twice with problematic CDs that would have been somewhat nontrivial to replace.
 
Are you using lossless flac?

FLAC is lossless by definition.

I would suggest always ripping to FLAC. Storage is cheap, but processing power is cheaper - nothing has trouble encoding/decoding it these days. FLAC is a bit-perfect copy as a CD -> single FLAC, and also stays bit perfect to the original disc/track layout in single tracks with a CUE sheet to tell the burner how to splice tracks. CUE sheets are only really necessary for weird albums, like having a "Track 99" hidden track with 80+ tracks silent/missing.

Edit: Adding a vote for EAC still, all these years later. It's still the best. And MusicBrainz Picard for tagging. The days of "paid for" tag sites is over. The only stipulation with Picard is that Kodi doesn't like the way it does multi-disc albums, so I edit them manually in theGodFather (like Excel for tags). Basically Picard uses the Disc # tag field instead of changing the Album name to Album (Disc 1) and Album (Disc 2), which confuses Kodi. Other than that, it's excellent with tags, and even searches for and attaches album art if you want it to.
 
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Don't have time to read the whole thread, so forgive me if it's been mentioned...

cdparanoia for Linux / BSD etc. Open a terminal and run "cdparanoia -B 1-" - this will rip the CD in the first drive to a set of *.cdda.wav files with god-like fidelity.

Works very well on damaged disks too - repairs with no drop-outs. If the disk is really bad, see the manpage for various option switches to increase attempts, etc.
 
I started my music library I think around y2k. First using Linux grip ui, lame and cdparanoia. The quality was high.
Then moved to Apple and it's mp3.
Then to Apple bit stuffing lossless. 500gb+
And again re-rip back to mp3 for hd backup speed-size-time became issue.
This time freezing mp3 library and pick through cds to create a primo lossless lib, no longer trust Apple itunes long term either.
Cd storage is an issue now. Also the cds are beginning to fail.
I'm opposed to online streaming for several reasons but mainly travel to areas that do not have high speed internet.

So that's the picture.
 
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