Good drive for ripping cd's to FLAC?

[NINaudio]

Hello,

I'm beginning the process of ripping my cd library to FLAC. I have most of it in 320 MBPS mp3 for use in the car, but for home I'd really like to get into lossless. I've been using EAC in secure mode with my current drive, which is an LG BD-RW unit. However, I'm finding that unless a cd is near perfect I am getting a lot of unverifiable tracks and some very long ripping times. Is there a drive that you'd recommend? I found a few articles online and plextor seems to be pretty good usually, but I figured I'd see if anyone here had any advice.

Thanks!

 

[ChGr]

I've got the same question. Building a HTPC, likely a HP Slice or Mac Mini. The Mac CD players get terrible reviews. HP sells an add on optical disk module on the Slice but provides no specs for it.

I can tell you, though, what doesn't seem to work. I just tried connecting a Oppo BD player that has a HDMI and an HDMI (audio only) - using the audio only port - to a laptop. I was hoping to play CDs from the Oppo to the laptop. Doesn't seem to recognize it.

 

[NINaudio]

I was looking at this model just for ripping cd's:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VPK9S7K/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

 

[slipperybidness]

FWIW, I have always used either Pioneer or LiteOn drives.

 

[its phillip]

back in the day I used an NEC ND-3520A but it's been many years since I bought it so I have no idea if they are still being made

 

[Pogre]

I use a repurposed laptop and whatever stock drive that came with it. Is there a difference between what drive is used to rip? Don't tell me that. I'd have to re-rip my entire library.

 

[sholling]

I have a lot of experience in this and honestly, most CD modern drives work just fine. This isn't 2005 and most of the modern drives are quite capable. Longevity is what you're really paying for with better drives like Panasonic but really, I've never broken a drive by ripping. Dropping something on an open tray? Yes. Ripping? No. Panasonic and Lite-on make really good drives and are good choices.

When I had hundreds of CDs to go I used my own "lite" version of Patrick Norton's "Rip Monster 3000" masterpiece of a ripper and installed 4 CD drives in a fast multicore CPU tower PC and used dbPowerAmp "Reference" in batch mode to rip four at a time to flacs. I then used the included Music Converter in batch mode convert my flacs to MP3s for mobile use while I slept. This system saved me at least a hundred hours of work. The important thing is to back up often because a hard drive failure after you've ripped a couple of hundred CDs is a heartbreaker.

 

[slipperybidness]

I use a repurposed laptop and whatever stock drive that came with it. Is there a difference between what drive is used to rip? Don't tell me that. I'd have to re-rip my entire library.

"Should not" make any difference, and that is why I use EAC, to be sure I have an exact copy. But, OP is reporting poor performance from his drive, as confirmed by EAC.

 

[Pogre]

I have a lot of experience in this and honestly, most CD modern drives work just fine. This isn't 2005 and most of the modern drives are quite capable. Longevity is what you're really paying for with better drives like Panasonic but really, I've never broken a drive by ripping. Dropping something on an open tray? Yes. Ripping? No. Panasonic and Lite-on make really good drives and are good choices.

When I had hundreds of CDs to go I used my own "lite" version of Patrick Norton's "Rip Monster 3000" masterpiece of a ripper and installed 4 CD drives in a fast multicore CPU tower PC and used dbPowerAmp "Reference" in batch mode to rip four at a time to flacs. I then used the included Music Converter in batch mode convert my flacs to MP3s for mobile use while I slept. This system saved me at least a hundred hours of work. The important thing is to back up often because a hard drive failure after you've ripped a couple of hundred CDs is a heartbreaker.

Thanks for the detailed reply! I back up almost every time I rip a new cd. I couldn't agree more about the heartache of losing all of my rips.

 

[NINaudio]

I have weekly backups scheduled. I bought several drives to try out, an Asus, an LG, and a Lite-on. I'll stick with the two best and keep the other as a spare. They were all under $20 each. I'll keep you updated.

I use a repurposed laptop and whatever stock drive that came with it. Is there a difference between what drive is used to rip? Don't tell me that. I'd have to re-rip my entire library.

I have some cd's from the 90's that are not perfect, but with only very slight imperfections I would see rip speeds of 0.1x for a number of them. There is no need for it to take 12 hours to rip one cd! lol

 

[NINaudio]

OK, so I have the asus and the lg installed right now. On a perfect disc the Asus has the speed advantage, ripped at 9.7x versus less than 6x for the LG. The lite-on arrives tomorrow and I'll test it over the weekend. Will test a less than perfect disc after this and see how they do.

 

[Pogre]

OK, so I have the asus and the lg installed right now. On a perfect disc the Asus has the speed advantage, ripped at 9.7x versus less than 4x for the LG. The lite-on arrives tomorrow and I'll test it over the weekend. Will test a less than perfect disc after this and see how they do.

I've never had a disc take longer than a couple of minutes to rip to WAV files. My little ol' lappy does pretty good.

 

[NINaudio]

I've never had a disc take longer than a couple of minutes to rip to WAV files. My little ol' lappy does pretty good.

From what I've been reading, a lot of the laptop drives do pretty well when it comes to ripping cd's to wav's.

 

[slipperybidness]

I've never had a disc take longer than a couple of minutes to rip to WAV files. My little ol' lappy does pretty good.

I suspect that the quality of his CDs (i.e. used, abused, scratched) may be at play here. Some of my old discs were difficult, or could not be verified as 100% accurate by EAC. I tried a Disc Doctor, but the success rate of recovering CDs was disappointing.

Luckily, used CDs are freaking cheap nowadays!

 

[NINaudio]

I suspect that the quality of his CDs (i.e. used, abused, scratched) may be at play here. Some of my old discs were difficult, or could not be verified as 100% accurate by EAC. I tried a Disc Doctor, but the success rate of recovering CDs was disappointing.

Luckily, used CDs are freaking cheap nowadays!

Stuff that I'd consider to be just slightly imperfect seems to throw them all for a loop when ripping on secure mode. When it comes to encountering errors, the LG seems to handle them better than the Asus so far. Will compare with the lite-on tomorrow.

 

[ChGr]

I have weekly backups scheduled. I bought several drives to try out, an Asus, an LG, and a Lite-on. I'll stick with the two best and keep the other as a spare. They were all under $20 each. I'll keep you updated.


I have some cd's from the 90's that are not perfect, but with only very slight imperfections I would see rip speeds of 0.1x for a number of them. There is no need for it to take 12 hours to rip one cd! lol

NIN - would you post links to the models you purchased?

 

[NINaudio]

NIN - would you post links to the models you purchased?

They're linked in post 11.

 

[Bucknekked]

I use a repurposed laptop and whatever stock drive that came with it. Is there a difference between what drive is used to rip? Don't tell me that. I'd have to re-rip my entire library.

don't get antsy because of what the OP said. The culprit is that he is using EAC and turning on options that draaaaaaaaag out the rip time and can result in the rip not completing. Its the options that kill the rip, not the imperfections of the actual CD transport. If you choose the most "accurate" or "secure" option on most ripping software, it will bog down and get to a point on a CD that actually has imperfections where the thing never finishes.

If you have a brand new, unblemished, bright and shiny CD, and you turn on the super options, it still may not complete. And with imperfections, it can be worse.

If you have any OCD attacks, just take a favored CD and rip it with your favorite ripper 5 times in a row. Same CD, same settings, 5 times in a row. If you get the same result each time: your ripping ecosystem is doing just fine. I did that to put my OCD to rest: iTunes (the most maligned product on AH) worked just fine and matched 5 times in a row on the same CD.

 

[NINaudio]

If you have any OCD attacks, just take a favored CD and rip it with your favorite ripper 5 times in a row. Same CD, same settings, 5 times in a row. If you get the same result each time: your ripping ecosystem is doing just fine. I did that to put my OCD to rest: iTunes (the most maligned product on AH) worked just fine and matched 5 times in a row on the same CD.

How are you checking if they're the same?

 

[slipperybidness]

Stuff that I'd consider to be just slightly imperfect seems to throw them all for a loop when ripping on secure mode. When it comes to encountering errors, the LG seems to handle them better than the Asus so far. Will compare with the lite-on tomorrow.

I'm quite interested in your results, please report back.

I started with Pios and LiteOn a long time ago, and never had any problems, other than the eventual death of the drives. I'm the type of person that when something works well for me, I don't tend to change without a good reason. Pio worked great for me, so when it died I replaced it with a new Pio.

My newest laptop does not have the room for an internal optical drive, so I went with an external Asus, but I don't use that very often.