Calling MDS

[Praxis]

Hello MDS, and thanks for responding to my initial question.

You mentioned that WMP will do just as good of an extraction as EAC. That is new information to me. Is it the WMA Lossless selection on WMP that you are referring too that is as good as EAC's ripping ability? What bit rate would you suggest without it being overkill in your opinion?

After ripping to WMA Lossless, (if this is the selection on WMP that is competive with EAC and is the one that you are referring too) how can I then use LAME to put it into MP3?

Is WMA ......? as good of a archival choice as FLAC?

If you could answer each one of my above questions I would really appreciate it.

Thanks MDS

Praxis

 

[gus6464]

Hello MDS, and thanks for responding to my initial question.

You mentioned that WMP will do just as good of an extraction as EAC. That is new information to me. Is it the WMA Lossless selection on WMP that you are referring too that is as good as EAC's ripping ability? What bit rate would you suggest without it being overkill in your opinion?

After ripping to WMA Lossless, (if this is the selection on WMP that is competive with EAC and is the one that you are referring too) how can I then use LAME to put it into MP3?

Is WMA ......? as good of a archival choice as FLAC?

If you could answer each one of my above questions I would really appreciate it.

Thanks MDS

Praxis

When the program makes the WMA lossless file it has already gone through the ripping and encoding process. Look at it this way, when ripping a cd to a digital format it goes through the following steps:

1. Ripping - Extracts the information on the disc to a fully uncompressed file (usually wav) to a temporary directory.

2. Encoding - After it has ripped the disc to an uncompressed file it then sends the file to the encoder which then takes care of changing the file into the final format (mp3, FLAC, wma, wma lossless, aac, apple lossless, OGG, etc.).

Now EAC by itself is a ripper that only does step 1. But you can install encoders in the program which then allow it to do step 2 as well. EAC is better than WMP when it comes to step 1, that is ripping the music off the cd. As far as what type of encoding is better there is really no difference when doing lossless formats (wma lossless, apple lossless, FLAC, OGG) since they all can be converted back to the original file (wav) with no loss of information.

 

[Praxis]

Ripping

Thanks Gus for your learned response. I really do appreciate it.

Praxis

 

[gus6464]

Thanks Gus for your learned response. I really do appreciate it.

Praxis

No problem. If you find EAC a pain to use (like I do) you should look into using dBPowerAmp. It is just as good as EAC in the ripping process and also can encode to any format imaginable. If you are looking to use MP3 use the LAME encoder. I used to have all my files in Apple Lossless, FLAC, wav, and aiff and I just started to change everything to 320k mp3. Honestly I cannot hear a difference between the lossless stuff and the super high bitrate mp3.

 

[MDS]

Gus explained the distinction between ripping and encoding nicely. The only thing I (always) disagree with is the notion that EAC is better at ripping than other programs. It's kind of achieved cult status and undeservedly so.

EAC was written in the early days when drives were just beginning to support digital audio extraction. All drives are inaccurate in a sense because there is no table of contents on an audio cd and you can only get to within 1/75 of a second of the actual data but early drives were inconsistent and could be off by way more than that and even return different blocks each time it reads. EAC deals with that issue in two ways: 1. Known offsets of particular drives which it adjusts for and 2. 'secure mode' where it reads the blocks over and over and takes the data it got back the most number of times as the 'correct' block. Modern drives are accurate and will return the same block every single time - hence the reason EAC is nothing special (why is it still BETA after 10 years?)

'Secure mode' may help with very scratched discs because it will keep trying many times whereas most ripping programs will bail and skip the block if it cannot be read successfully. If your disc is in good condition, EAC will produce the exact same result as every other ripper I've ever used and if you used secure mode thinking you were getting the 'best' rip possible all you did was waste 20 minutes ripping a disc that could have been ripped in 3 minutes.

I've stopped responding to EAC related questions because people can believe what they want to believe but I've been ripping CDs and editing audio since the early '90s. As I've said many times before, if you rip with EAC and rip with Sound Forge then compare the two files (invert one and paste-mix into the other) you will see they are bit for bit identical (the waveform will become all zeros indicating they perfectly cancelled out each other).

My advice is always the same - use EAC if you like the interface and the convenience of being able to plug in any encoder on the backend. Don't use it because you think it is the 'best'.