best PC audio Extraction system

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ATAUDIO

Member
2011-05-01 10:56 am
Wien
  • #1
    Hi, sorry for the basic question, but I am new of this matter.
    So I have my old beloved CDs from the 80s and I do realise that they will not last forever. I lost already a first edition of Pink Floyd´s " Whish You Where Here", to just to say the pain. In the past I had some of them converted in MP3s with altern results. So here are the my two questions.

    1) What is basically the best PC system to make a digital backup copy of them?
    I am inclinded to use some Linux PC and some old expensive Plextor SCSI drive to read them, but I have also some modern machines with modern CD/DVD readers. Also I can setu ip a Sun Sparc workstation in case :D:D

    2) What file format for maximum fidelity and future-proofness? I would like to avoid proprietary (i.e. Apple, Microsoft) format.
    Thanks in advance
     
    A

    ATAUDIO

    Member
    2011-05-01 10:56 am
    Wien
  • #3
    Thanks For the quick answer . This answers my 2nd question.

    What about the 1st? I know that some older (they called them AAD) CSs are "harder" to read on modern ulötra-fast readers and give in reading errors and horrible "cracks" in the converted recording.

    BTW is it WMA a lossless format (i.e wav) or compressed with some psyco-acoustic lossy algorithm (i.e. MP3 ) ?
     
    J

    josha

    Member
    2005-04-24 2:06 am
    Holmfirth, West Yorkshire
  • #4
    Hi,

    I've used EAC (Exact Audio Copy) for years with no problems on various standard PC platforms. It copies the CD to a number of formats but I use lossless WAV as these can be written back to a CD easily. The drawback is that there is no compression so you need plenty of space for a large collection (not such an issue these days). AS I understand it EAC will re-read each sector at least twice to perform a level of error correction so it can be a bit slow.

    I'm not convinced that the quality of the hardware will make a difference to the extracted copy (as long as it works as designed!) but it may affect the speed at which you can rip!

    Hope this helps!
     
    lcsaszar

    lcsaszar

    Member
    2004-03-02 5:22 pm
    Budapest, Hungary
  • #6
    ATAUDIO said:
    So I have my old beloved CDs from the 80s and I do realise that they will not last forever. I lost already a first edition of Pink Floyd´s " Whish You Where Here", to just to say the pain.
    Click to expand...
    How could it have happened? I destroyed only one CD by a faulty mechanism that scratched the surface. Polishing with Displex could not help, the faulty track can't be read with EAC either. CDRs are a different story...
     
    E

    Emphrygian

    Member
    2007-03-05 11:45 pm
  • #7
    Being a Linux user I use (and recommend) Rubyripper. Apart from being a secure ripper that will read each sector twice (or more if you wish, I think) and re-read if they do not match until it gets two matching reads of the same sector, it can also encode directly to your format of choice. I prefer FLAC myself. Rubyripper can also pull CD info from a database of your choice if you don't fancy inputting album and song titles yourself and automatically tags the output files according to rules that you specify. These features are not unique, but they certainly make Rubyripper a well rounded tool.

    I'm inclined to agree that the hardware itself should not matter, as long as it's functioning properly. The whole point of a secure ripper is avoiding read errors by checking each sector at least twice, effectively eliminating the impact of a "good" or "bad" drive.
     
    A

    ATAUDIO

    Member
    2011-05-01 10:56 am
    Wien
  • #10
    Thanks to all for the nice answers.
    For whom may have doubts, CDs DO get bad/damaged (I am speaking about "original" music-shop ones). I believe this may depend on the use that you do of them.
    Mine had no "audiophile" treatment, I owned a pub years ago and some of them where on use hundreds of times and are litelally badly scretched. I guess that comes from the dust/smoke particles that get inside the drive.
    About the copy, I believe I will give Ruby or AEC. a go. I discovered that my newest player (the Sansa Clip+, love that small toy) can do Flac, so I might try that. I had really bad quality experience with old MP3 stuff. It would also make sense for future-proof compatibilty to make wavs and the zip/rar them. I assume they would compress well. Anybody tried that ? It is not for the space, a TB drive will keek a couple of thousands CDs, much more of my needs, but a big hard drive is the least realiable memory that I can think of, in the long time.
     
    G

    gk7

    Member
    2007-10-05 2:14 pm
  • #11
    For Linux all ripping tools that I´m aware of, use cdparanoia (which is excellent) as backend:
    CDDA Paranoia Frequently Asked Questions
    So quality wise your frontend (gui) won´t make any difference. Just use one with good
    tagging capabilities, an example:
    KDE - KAudioCreator - CD Ripper

    File format: zipped wav, no they don´t compress well and they lack tagging.
    The two main formats with lossless compression are FLAC and ALAC.
    FLAC is more common, ALAC (Apple Lossless) can be played with iTunes and iPod,
    both can be created with Linux and both can be converted in a lossless way into
    other formats if needed.
     
    Z

    zjaakco

    Member
    2011-07-24 12:38 pm
  • #15
    pc audio

    Hi AT
    Wiht EAC I too have good experience. But If you want an
    increase of your pc sound, start by your power supply.
    If you have a scope watching to the voltage form (distortion), you will see too much swing, that's not good
    for audio. not a stable output.
    A pc power supply is a smps, and made only, as it works, ok. Not made for the best quality.
    Regards,
    Zjaakco
     
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