Best program to rip CD's to FLAC files?

Discussion in 'Computer Audiophile: Software, Configs, Tools' started by Gravity, Jan 27, 2016.

  1. Azteca

    Azteca Friend

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    I don't think this is true. Source?
     
  2. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    DBPOWERAMP DOES NOT HAVE A TRUE SECURE RIPPING MODE!
    bolded and all caps for emphasis. The developers are full of shit.

    There's no reason to not use level 8. Decoding time is essentially the same.

    EAC lets you pick the source and has AccurateRIP. dbPoweramp doesn't actually have a secure mode as the programmers are lazy and handwave it away claiming true block by block reading wears down drives. DB poweramp has no way to actually verify a rip other than comparing checksums to those already done in the accuraterip database and you don't know if they are accurate until someone rips it using program with a true secure mode such as EAC or XLD for Macs. Drives are cheap (20-40 bucks) so f**k them. Use EAC and make sure your rips are good the first time.
     
  3. jhaider

    jhaider Acquaintance

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    I don't think it's complicated. I haven't used FLAC for years. Because the music I've bought online recently came in ALAC or WAV formats that iTunes can handle. I use XLD to transcode FLAC to ALAC in case I do buy something in FLAC.

    For CDs and WAV/AIFF I just use iTunes to convert to ALAC. Drive is a USB DVD by I think Buffalo, into a Retina MacBook Pro or Mac mini. It works fine with one button press. I've used Bill Waslo's Audio DiffMaker program (in Parallels) to compare WAV->ALAC->WAV conversions to the WAV, and got...the noise floor of my DAC/amp and headphones. Are the bits exactly the same? I don't know. But the resulting audio is exactly the same, and that's what I care about.

    http://www.libinst.com/Audio DiffMaker.htm
     
  4. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    If bits are not the same, then audio is not the same.
     
  5. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    Well to be pedantic dbPoweramp builds off EAC's work: https://www.dbpoweramp.com/secure-ripper.htm
    Open the diff file in Audacity or similar. If it's a flat line then bits are not missing.
     
  6. DigMe

    DigMe Friend

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    @SSL @jam130 @Azteca My mistake, I thought I'd read somewhere in the dbPoweramp documentation that it actually uses EAC. Perhaps I had read something like what Grahad2 posted above.
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2017
  7. jam130

    jam130 New

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    Does that mean that "secure mode" in dbPoweramp is some kind of software trick? It has checkboxes to do secure rips and warnings about how it may burn out your drive - but if you say that's it's not legit I have no evidence to to disprove your position.

    *On that note, any advice for how to get a secure rip if your secure rip software fails? I've got a couple of cds that are out of print and can't seem to get a good rip from them.
     
  8. Azteca

    Azteca Friend

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    If it is a perfect null from start to finish, top to bottom, how is the audio not the same? If it isn't actually nulling and there are differences down in the dither range then yeah, not perfect, and to be avoided. But you can rip as WAV, convert to AIFF, convert to FLAC, and convert back to WAV and have the exact same audio. CDs are all LPCM; the container and compression changes when you convert to FLAC but the audio doesn't change.

    If your rip checks out with CueTools it is most likely a perfect rip. I personally use XLD and EAC because I am a perfectionist and I let Roon retrieve the full metadata later.
    Careful heading into the rabbit hole: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,66233.msg756260.html#msg756260
     
  9. sinfuzz

    sinfuzz New

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    just wanted to add a shout out that Tag&Rename rules!
     
  10. TheIceman93

    TheIceman93 El pato-zorro

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  11. Dino

    Dino Friend

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    I haven't heard of Easy Audio Copy. I use Exact Audio Copy. I might try the 14 day trial of Easy Audio Copy and see if I like it better.
     
  12. TheIceman93

    TheIceman93 El pato-zorro

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    Both programs were created by Andre Weithoff. I tested them both ... sound quality was identical but Easy AC was much easier to use. Comes highly recommended from me but it doesn't have as many tweaking option as the Exact version.

    Easy AC FAQ: http://www.easyaudiocopy.com/faq.htm
     
  13. Mshenay

    Mshenay Barred from loaner program. DON'T SEND ME GEAR.

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    Just to share, I didn't know this but dbPowerAmp will also re-sample files for you, I had some 192k [not my choice all I had available] files I wanted to listen to on my RockBoxed HM601, an while they played... they skipped a lot. I re-sample'd nice down to 24/96 with dbPowerAmp.

    Back when What was still alive [r.i.p what.cd] I used EAC and dbPowerAmp to archive a lot of my physical disc's. Along with Tag and rename to have proper tags, people may hate sites like it, but what really taught me how to properly rip, tag and transcode digital audio!
     
  14. m.i.c.k.e.y

    m.i.c.k.e.y Facebook Friend

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    For more than 15 years maybe, I am using Poikosoft's EZ CD Audio Converter: https://www.poikosoft.com

    - Very fast.
    - Metadata finder/editor is bar none.
    - Very easy interface
    - You are in control and It lets you customize everything during your conversion/rip process.
    - Doesn't have AccurateRip BUT (I'm more at peace more how I do stuff) does have loads of integrity checks for assuring best audio extract: drive offset parameters, disc paramater/information, error detections etc.
    - much more

    Tried dbPoweramp, liked the audio converters but some processes are automatic and I am not in control on how it's done. Basic only Metadata editor (important if you have lots of CDs).

    On EAC, I don't know its been very long that I have touched this App. Last time, it has a very basic interface. And minimal customization options and slow. DBPoweramp is better.

    But in comparison with DBPoweramp, for CD ripping, IME/O EZ CD Audio Converter is better.

    To each his own. But I encourage you guyz to try it. It has a 30 day trial. Try tinker the Metadata editor, drive offset, and ripping options.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2017
  15. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    Anyone know a program better than MusicBrainz Picard for metadata on OS X?
     
  16. tomchr

    tomchr MOT - Neurochrome

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  17. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    I've used XLD (Mac) to rip 100s of CDs to FLAC. My only significant complaint is that the freely available metadata sources that it can access are wrong or incomplete, or XLD identifies the CD incorrectly rather than proposing alternatives available in the source metadata database, especially for rarer releases, reissues, and box sets. Sometimes, Metadatics can correct some of XLD's mistakes, but other times I'm stuck with editing all the metadata by hand, which was pretty painful for a 67 CD box set :/ For many of those misidentified or incorrect metadata CDs, Allmusic.com has the correct metadata. Unfortunately, I can't find a Mac ripping app that works with commercial metadata sources like Allmusic or Gracenote (ideally both as well as the free ones). I'd be happy to pay for this, but I just can't find it anywhere...
     
  18. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    Slow, WTF? The only bottleneck to speed for any reasonable program of this sort is the optical drive. EAC is plenty fast, within the constraints of doing a secure rip- it only slows down if it sees errors from the disk. My ancient (~10 years old) PC can FLAC a file in max compression mode in a a few seconds (usually less than five), and EAC does that asynchronously to the ripping,

    Slow it isn't. I recent ripped a few thousand CDs with it, and it was just fine- even faster when I replaced my knackered old optical drive with a new one that could manage better speeds without as many errors.

    Slow? Minimal customisation options? Are we even talking about the same software?
     
  19. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    I don't know if this would help, but EasyTAG allows tagging already ripped albums. It works on Linux and Windows, and should possibly be available on Mac (say via MacPorts). You just select the album, hit search, and see if there is something useful from all the available matches.

    There is also MusicBrainz, and their Picard tagger (available on Mac). Their database seems more polished than things like FreeDB, so possibly worth a try.
     
  20. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    I don't hate JRMC's lookup/renaming functions either. In fact, its metadata editing in general worked really well for me when I was doing a monster ripathon. quite a few things that FreeDB/CDDB via EAC didn't get spot-on were fixed that way. The interface in general allowed me to clear up the (rare) problems with stuff like commingled multi-disk sets and adding album artwork. too- it makes it easy to edit a common field across multiple objects and the like.

    I know it's less free than Foobar, but it has a load of really handy functions (love the smart playlists coupled with device syncing support).
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2017

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