Badly Ripped Music

[DQ828]

Hi All

I wasn't exactly sure where to post this?

I was converted to the whole, rip you music collection and benefit from the convenience, with no loss of quality, and play it through a Squeezebox, but lately I have been wondering about the quality. More the ripping quality, than the playback quality of the components.

I ripped my collection with FLAC using Winamp, and have been adding CD's as they are purchased. I have had a couple of new CD's that once ripped, had some obvious sound defects that are not there when the CD is played. Also, when I have been playing the ripped music, I keep hearing the odd noise that I assumed was in the recording, but am now starting to wonder.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the phenomenon?

[Old'n'Cranky]

Cant hear or notice any differences in my rips.

EAC and uncompressed WAV.

Thats my preference.
Plextor has (had ??) the name as 'the' drive to use for audio ripping/burning.
Not sure if thats still the case these days.

[wwenze]

Will we also find programs that work on CD but don't when copied to HDD?

Jokes aside, use EAC with secure mode and rip at a low to medium speed and then verify it against others' rips via AccurateRip. High-speed ripping without error detection is prone to, well, errors.

[DQ828]

Originally Posted by wwenze

Will we also find programs that work on CD but don't when copied to HDD?

Jokes aside, use EAC with secure mode and rip at a low to medium speed and then verify it against others' rips via AccurateRip. High-speed ripping without error detection is prone to, well, errors.

I tried a couple of rips with EAC & the AccurateRip couldn't verify the accuracy? Maybe it's my music tastes that are the problem.

I also wonder how they know what is an accurate rip?

[erin]

soundcheck's - audio@vise: CD Extraction

This blog entry very thoroughly goes through this topic. The findings may amaze you
Essential reading!

[wwenze]

That's an interesting find on Accurate Rip's issue, though if the same error exists with everybody and resulting in multiple identical rips done by different people this problem is more of aesthetics and less of functionality issue.

I'd like to point out that having the same checksum with multiple rips would only show the lack of random errors, but a consistent error like a bad burn for example will also result in all rips having the same checksum but containing the error. Hence the need for people to compare their rips.

[DQ828]

Hmm, as always there is contradictory information, thank you all for your input.

David

[SY]

David, how do you know that your issues are in the ripping rather than the playback?

EAC has worked perfectly for me, but it took some work to get playback right- I ended up having to change my OS and boot my computer differently to achieve reliable and accurate playback.

[DQ828]

Originally Posted by SY

David, how do you know that your issues are in the ripping rather than the playback?

EAC has worked perfectly for me, but it took some work to get playback right- I ended up having to change my OS and boot my computer differently to achieve reliable and accurate playback.

Every time I have played the music, the audible defects occured in the same sections & only in two tracks, I have since re-ripped those tracks & they are fine now.

It started me wondering how many very minor defects there could be in ripped music, so that they may effect the overall sound, but are not individually detectable by listening, I guess a bit like low level distortion, that may take the edge off the music but is hard to pin down. Before I posted this thread I was naive enough to think all rips where 100% & knew nothing of drive offsets.

[Wombat]

Originally Posted by DQ828

It started me wondering how many very minor defects there could be in ripped music, so that they may effect the overall sound, but are not individually detectable by listening, I guess a bit like low level distortion, that may take the edge off the music but is hard to pin down. Before I posted this thread I was naive enough to think all rips where 100% & knew nothing of drive offsets.

You shouldn´t worry to much about that "Offset" thing. It only may affect some milliseconds at the end or beginning of a song. If it doesn´t produce a clearly audible click or defect there you shouldn´t have a problem.
You may use CUETOOLS from Mr. Chudov over there CUETools - Hydrogenaudio Forums
It does verify your rips against AccurateRip Database without the need of having 100% set up EAC before.