blog: audio ripper shootout
Moderators: fgagnon, nikos, Site Mods
For Lossless archiving I agree that FLAC is the way to go now that storage space is reasonably priced, but for Lossy use I think that mp3 is the most universal of the lossy codecs as most manufacturers of DAP's don't support the Ogg format, but if you have a Lossless archive then you can transcode to whatever lossy format you want, anytime.
Re: How much does it matter what you use to rip?
One more vote for EAC+Lame & reliability over speed.
I haven't tried dBpowerAMP but it has got extremely good reviews... some exclusive/advanced features WRT reliability. Go for lossless on at least a few of your favorite albums, if not the whole collection.
I haven't tried dBpowerAMP but it has got extremely good reviews... some exclusive/advanced features WRT reliability. Go for lossless on at least a few of your favorite albums, if not the whole collection.
wow, we got a lot of agitated responses here! 
in the post i tried not to be dogmatic and tried to get an objective assessment of ripping. But I'll have a look at this EAC that so many of you recommend. As for "sound quality", as long as the music itself is exquisite, no amount of playback perfection is going to add or remove much. Like drinking posh wine from paper cups, it's the content that matters
in the post i tried not to be dogmatic and tried to get an objective assessment of ripping. But I'll have a look at this EAC that so many of you recommend. As for "sound quality", as long as the music itself is exquisite, no amount of playback perfection is going to add or remove much. Like drinking posh wine from paper cups, it's the content that matters
Q. to all the EAC afficionados -
What is the latest stable release version and where does one get it?
The site referenced in post 2 in this thread by dunno
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
has only betas and pre-betas and is loaded with adverts for other product, most prominently for nikos' "choice" ExpressRip. :crazy:
What is the latest stable release version and where does one get it?
The site referenced in post 2 in this thread by dunno
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
has only betas and pre-betas and is loaded with adverts for other product, most prominently for nikos' "choice" ExpressRip. :crazy:
for the latest version, a few links later (it downloads v99 and not v95 as written in the url)fgagnon wrote:Q. to all the EAC afficionados -
What is the latest stable release version and where does one get it?
The site referenced in post 2 in this thread by dunno
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
has only betas and pre-betas and is loaded with adverts for other product, most prominently for nikos' "choice" ExpressRip. :crazy:
http://www.digital-world.de/downloads/a ... ional.html
That is the reccommended version beta and all, he doesn't have a non beta version past or present, the most recent is the most stable.
Here's another link but it takes you to pretty much the same places I have linked to in my earlier post
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php ... EAC_Guides
Last edited by dunno on 2009 Jan 26, 12:35, edited 2 times in total.
Fred, that is the unsatisfying situation with EAC: One beta after the next beta, than some pre-betas, and until now never (AFAIK) a final version.
On the other site: If the author names a version a beta version or not, is his own choice. There are (in general) a lot of programs out there, which appear to be final, but are non-stable totally. So, although I do not want to put betas on my main machine, until a certain point it is a question of naming. As EAC does not need to be installed and does not store or alter system files or reg settings and the advantages are great, I did accept the situation as it is.
I use EAC since some years with the version 0.95 beta 4 and I am quite happy with it. I have downloaded it at that time from the official site (where it isn't any more) and did now some googling for you. One link I found is here: http://board.raidrush.ws/showthread.php?t=94310 in post #2, the second link. I did a test-download for you and other members of this board who are interested, and compared the content of the ZIP-file with the one in my personal archiv: X2 tells me, that they are identical. In addition, here is the MD5 (taken from my old archived file): 7883128823cae5f3a3b3ded11e37615d
Regarding the "new" 0.99 version: With the 7-zip filemanager you can extract the content of the downloaded EXE-file. EAC does not need an installation (as you can see with 0.95). One important point of difference between both versions is the fact, that 0.99 already contains the AccurateRip DLL, which is not necessary, but useful; 0.95-ZIP does not contain this file, but it supports it and you can simply copy the DLL to the extraction of 0.95 (if you prefer that). For more info about AccurateRip go here: http://www.accuraterip.com/
In addition: EAC ships without any encoder, you have to download them separately. But this means, without the need of a new EAC-version you can always use the latest codec you want, or a special build (as they exist for OGG) and any codec you want.
HTH
EDIT: After submitting my post I found, that dunno linked to the same EAC-version. Doesn't sound bad, does it?
On the other site: If the author names a version a beta version or not, is his own choice. There are (in general) a lot of programs out there, which appear to be final, but are non-stable totally. So, although I do not want to put betas on my main machine, until a certain point it is a question of naming. As EAC does not need to be installed and does not store or alter system files or reg settings and the advantages are great, I did accept the situation as it is.
I use EAC since some years with the version 0.95 beta 4 and I am quite happy with it. I have downloaded it at that time from the official site (where it isn't any more) and did now some googling for you. One link I found is here: http://board.raidrush.ws/showthread.php?t=94310 in post #2, the second link. I did a test-download for you and other members of this board who are interested, and compared the content of the ZIP-file with the one in my personal archiv: X2 tells me, that they are identical. In addition, here is the MD5 (taken from my old archived file): 7883128823cae5f3a3b3ded11e37615d
Regarding the "new" 0.99 version: With the 7-zip filemanager you can extract the content of the downloaded EXE-file. EAC does not need an installation (as you can see with 0.95). One important point of difference between both versions is the fact, that 0.99 already contains the AccurateRip DLL, which is not necessary, but useful; 0.95-ZIP does not contain this file, but it supports it and you can simply copy the DLL to the extraction of 0.95 (if you prefer that). For more info about AccurateRip go here: http://www.accuraterip.com/
In addition: EAC ships without any encoder, you have to download them separately. But this means, without the need of a new EAC-version you can always use the latest codec you want, or a special build (as they exist for OGG) and any codec you want.
HTH
EDIT: After submitting my post I found, that dunno linked to the same EAC-version. Doesn't sound bad, does it?
