blog: audio ripper shootout

[nikos]

here's the comment area for today's blog post found at
http://zabkat.com/blog/25Jan09-cd-ripping-contest.htm

[dunno]

EAC, Exact Audio Copy is regarded as the BEST ripper around in secure mode, it might take longer than others to rip a CD but the author places emphasis on precision rather than speed.
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/


LAME is regarded as the best mp3 codec around, and the alt-preset standard switch, (aps or V2), is regarded as transparent when compared to the original, and if you require a few more bits to give you the extra bit of psychological peace of mind go for the alt-preset extreme, (apx or V1), switch. For more info go url below, but be warned the Hydrogen Audio guys are audio nuts,
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME

The ubernet standard is a usefull guide for ripping as well, what is nice about the Uberstandard is that the conventions which they insist on for labelling the CD's ensures that your ID3 tags are consistent.

I ripped my entire CD collection to Uber standards with EAC and LAME v3.90.3 set to alt-preset standard (aps) and to my ears this is transparent. Gave my CD collection away to friends and sold my big hifi, as to me it was redundant.
The other advantage of LAME is that it incorporates info which can enable players to playback music "gapless" this is a great plus. Rockbox, a alternative firmware for some mp3 players, can read this info and playback mp3 gapless, Foobar and Winamp can also read this "gapless header".
http://www.rockbox.org/

[Iain]

I was about to make a post with content like dunno's but he got there first.  

[Cosmo]

EAC, Exact Audio Copy is regarded as the BEST ripper around in secure mode, it might take longer than others to rip a CD but the author places emphasis on precision rather speed.

I share this opinion. Needed time is not the main aspect, the quality is IMHO more important. With other programs you might do the job twice or more often, because you are not satisfied - so you lose time and might still want to have better quality. On the other site: EAC can be quick, if you use the settings accordingly.

What I really do not understand is the very great time you have found for OGG Vorbis in the second table. I do not understand this, because of 2 reasons:
1.) The table above seems to tell, that in 4 of the 5 apps there seem to be no difference between codecs.
2.) I cannot confirm those differences here. I do not use a stop watch, but I would say, that there is no relevant time difference between the main codecs. At least, compressing the files - EAC does it in the background during ripping the next title - does take much less time than ripping. So I just need few seconds only for the last title of the CD - definitly not 26 Seconds for a title with 2 1/2 minutes length.

Another suggestion, for people who prefer very comfortable software: VUPlayer, there are multilingual downloads.

And as ripping and compressing of music does mean, that you probably need to tag your files: Most powerful is Mp3tag.

[ckit]

foobar2000 and Lame 3.98.2

[dunno]

And as ripping and compressing of music does mean, that you probably need to tag your files: Most powerful is Mp3tag.

I second that choice, however if EAC or whatever ripper you choose is setup correctly and you know beforehand what convention you want to use for your ID3 tagging then the useage of a tag editor will be kept to a minimum for it's "done right" the first time.

there are two conventions for labelling CD'S and the tag information;

First Letter Capitalisation Of All Labels And Tracks (Disc 1) [US Style]
First Letter Capitalisation of Some Labels and Tracks (Disc 2) [UK Style]
http://www.uberstandard.org/capitalization.html
what is important is to stick to one style for your entire collection, it looks nicer and is easier to read.
e.g.
Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon [MFSL UltraDisc II UDCD 517]
Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell [MasterSound Limited Edition]
Delerium featuring Sarah McLachlan - Silence (Single) (Disc 1) [Nettwerk UK]
Slipknot - Slipknot [Digipak]
Avril Lavigne - Under My Skin [Bonus Track]
Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters [UK]

A link to the Uberstandard guide, whilst it may appear to be exacting it really is easy and worthwhile following their CD labelling guide.
http://www.uberstandard.org/specifications.html
and.... not to forget CD classifications,
http://www.uberstandard.org/disc-classification.html

If you want to setup EAC for secure ripping use their Uber Guide, plus they have nice pictures of the process.

Another issue is the character code set, some mp3 players and tag applications won't recognise tags written in Unicode, but most players and music apps will recognise ISO-88519. Also ensure that your tag writer is set to write to ID3 V2 and V1, V1 is legacy, V2 allows for more characters in the respective tag fields, some mp3 players don't read ape tags either,  so ID3 V2 (prefered) and V1 are pretty much universal.

If you decide to Replay Gain your music with foobar it'll write the info to the tags using unicode, some players and tag editors might not be able to read this info, but to write Replay Gain to your tags using ISO-88519 you'll need to use older versions of Foobar, messy indeed.....

[RobOK]

I am also a proponent of EAC and following the Uber standards.  For a while there was an Uber exchange, but it seems to have gone away or gone underground!

I use EAC if I am doing a lot of ripping, sometimes if I am just casually ripping one CD I use J. River Media Center which I highly recommend as an MP3 and media library.  Highly extensible and flexible.  It does a great job of ripping, tagging, clean up, organizing, etc. etc.  It has a very strong user community and forum.

Rob.

[wasker]

Another one for EAC and Lame.

[lian]

Well, you'll have to say that WR CD have a short life (7~10 years with the best quality).

[narayan]

Are we talking of the same century?

A couple of years ago, I used to use AudioGrabber (http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/), a German shareware that turned freeware in 2004 (but its development was stopped at the same time).

Anyhow, it has tons features as it is.

***********
Now I use Audacity (Freeware, GPL) for "live" recording.
(CD ripping is still with AudioGrabber).

It is handy in editing the audio after you rip it; and also to remove noise.
It also has a HUGE number of special effects.

Extremely easy to use.

[RickyF]

I have a large digital audio collection with well over 50,000 tracks. I have spent a fair amount of time and effort educating myself about this process. I have ripped a substantial portion of my 2500+ CD collection, 300+ LPs/singles, and some of my hundreds of tapes. I occasionally transfer rare LPs to digital audio files for my clients.  

I have fallen into many traps, wasted many hours and tested many different software and hardware combinations. The entire process needs to be balanced so that the different parts of the system—the audio files, the ripping software, the playback software, the playback equipment, the speakers, the DAC(s), the speakers or headphones—are matched. The system is only as strong as its weakest link.

If your sound reproduction system is poor-to-average (most home theaters or computers), your ears are aging, or you are using a playback device with a less-than-good DAC (Digital to Analog Converter), such as an iPod/iPhone, the output is going to be mediocre. I repeat myself, "The system is only as strong as its weakest link."

One needs to balance the whole process. I recommend that you rip audio at as high a bitrate as possible or optimally in a lossless format. Storage is cheap and plentiful today. One can always create compressed copies from lossless digital audio. Speed matters because it takes a long time to rip a large collection.

The playback equipment probably has a greater impact on what you hear than the ripping software (EAC/Audacity/JetAudio Plus VX/WinAMP Pro/iTunes/WMP/Foobar/Adobe Audition...)

Vinyl (LPs) require a turntable and either a phono-capable receiver and line-out into a computer's line-in or one of the relatively inexpensive USB turntables. Be wary of hum introduced via the setup.

One other area to consider is whether or not to apply digital filter effects to the ripped audio files. I do not apply effects to my rips. For example, I do not try to filter out LP hiss and scratches, nor do I attempt to normalize volumes among tracks (as tempting as that sometimes is).

Finally, make certain that you back up your digital audio, especially if you are ripping from physical sources (CDs, DVDs, tapes, LPs) that will be discarded.

[dunno]

I have a large digital audio collection with well over 50,000 tracks. I have spent a fair amount of time and effort educating myself about this process. I have ripped a substantial portion of my 2500+ CD collection, 300+ LPs/singles, and some of my hundreds of tapes. I occasionally transfer rare LPs to digital audio files for my clients.  etc.....

err RickyF, I think this thread is about CD ripping and not HiFi components  :D please don't "jack" it.

[RickyF]

@Dunno:

Sorry, I did not mean to "jack it". Ripping is only one part of the audio process. In my experience on this topic, too often people focus on the leaves and miss both the trees and the forest.

[longfellow]

Another one for EAC, LAME and the Uberstandard.

RickyF's advice cannot be repeated often enough:

Finally, make certain that you back up your digital audio, especially if you are ripping from physical sources (CDs, DVDs, tapes, LPs) that will be discarded.

[Cosmo]

RickyF's advice cannot be repeated often enough:

Finally, make certain that you back up your digital audio, especially if you are ripping from physical sources (CDs, DVDs, tapes, LPs) that will be discarded.

OK so far, but backing up cannot really be done by a lossy codec. On  the other side I would also not use a not-compressed format. Taken the example of RickyF (2500+ CDs) this would mean about 1.75 TB, and that is also today an immense amount. For backing up a lossless codec as FLAC is ideal (and saves roundabout the half amount of space).

For daily use I would (as long as the used hardware, e.g. player in the car supports this) prefer OGG Vorbis; it has been proven to be better (at the same transfer rate) or smaller (at the same quality) even as Lame and supports features, that MP3 only supports partially; e.g. gapless replay is doable with MP3 only with Lame and software, which supports it (foobar and VUPlayer do, WMP does not), for OGG it is as a matter of course.