Error Correction Question

[ginseng271]

I became an audiophile early this year. I ripped over 100 GB in WMA Lossless via the WMP, and it took me a span of about half a year to do. However I just learned that the error-correction option was off the entire time, and I wasnt even aware that existed until now.

Does error-correction actually affect the sound of every track or just the tracks that have reported errors? Out of thousands of songs only a few have minor skipping.

I just started using Exact Audio Copy and FLAC yesterday, but I dont want to have to re rip my collection. Would it be worth it to re-rip with error-correction or would my stuff sound the same anyway?

 

[Skymeat]

If the error correcting option is on then it interpolates the missing data. So off it just translates.

But I'm also suspect of Microsoft.

Personally soundboard FLAC's are my fav.

I don't know all the nitty gritty about converting from lossless codec to another lossless codec but there is data manipulation happening.

So whether or not you are actually (physically) able to hear a difference might be up in the air. But something is happening to the data.

In short...seems to me that if it's skipping you need to re rip with a good copy.

 

[adwilk]

I became an audiophile early this year. I ripped over 100 GB in WMA Lossless via the WMP, and it took me a span of about half a year to do. However I just learned that the error-correction option was off the entire time, and I wasnt even aware that existed until now.

Does error-correction actually affect the sound of every track or just the tracks that have reported errors? Out of thousands of songs only a few have minor skipping.

I just started using Exact Audio Copy and FLAC yesterday, but I dont want to have to re rip my collection. Would it be worth it to re-rip with error-correction or would my stuff sound the same anyway?

While the source material is a crucial component to what you ultimately hear, lossless is lossless in my book. Knowing what (limited) i know about how music is encoded/decoded, I can't imagine any change in data that would actually create an audible difference. Is there a difference in the data? Sure, but It won't make a difference in what you hear. What will make a difference is what is ultimately reproducing the sound further down the chain.

 

[MDS]

Error correction (CIRC codes) occurs on playback, not ripping. There are low level C1 and C2 errors but all discs have them to some degree, very few players report them, and fewer still programs use them. I wouldn't worry about it at all.

If you have audible skipping, it's because a portion of a track was damaged and one or more blocks could not be successfully read. You might never notice them during normal playback because the error correction code will either skip the errors or interpolate the missing data.

I don't time have time to give my usual rant about EAC but suffice it to say that it is not the greatest thing since sliced bread as the masses would have you believe. A block is 588 samples - 1/75 second of audio data. EAC will attempt to read the block over and over and over and if it gets one result 9 times out of 17 tries and another result only 8 times out of 17 tries, it will assume that the majority result is 'correct'. Big whoop. If you drop the entire block, it will be inaudible! If you have many contiguous blocks that are damaged EAC will perfectly preserve the audio mess that results - just like every other ripper on the market (but you have the privilege of waiting 10x longer for it to complete).

If you cannot successfully clean a given disc to get a good rip with no audible glitches, then you have to adress the problem after the fact - using an audio editor.

There are many techniques that work. Here are a few:
- If the glitch is small, say 10 ms or less, you can just delete it (in both channels).
- You can copy the 'good' portion from one channel to the exact same location in the other channel.
- You can apply a quick cross-fade over that small gap.

In short, don't waste your time re-ripping a large collection. Address any little issues on a case by case basis. If you ripped to a lossless format, then you simply have a reduced size file but it is the same as having ripped to an uncompressed format like WAV. You can decode that file, load it in an audio editor, and edit it to your heart's content without losing anything.