Ripping FLACs for best quality?

Exact Audio Copy EAC is the go to tool of choice for this job. Like almost all the best software it is also 'free'.
There can be a learning curve with this product as it offers a very high level of detailed control.

It is often combined with AccurateRip which whilst being a somewhat easier to use ripper it can compare your rip against a database thus confirming you have obtained a 100% bit perfect copy.

eac secure ripping is how i roll

 

a guide if you need it: http://blowfish.be/eac/

Edited by gorb - 5/6/10 at 10:59am

foobar2000 also supports AccurateRip.

Edited by xnor - 5/6/10 at 4:43pm

EAC is probably the best option for accurate rip.  i simply use winamp as it rips to flac out of the box without the need to install/download any plugin.  anyway,accurate or not...it is still lossless and sound great.  winamp is also very very easy to use (like most players) and unlike EAC which is a bit more complicated to set up.

No argument that EAC will give you accurate rips.  Another good option is something called dbPowerAmp.  It's main advantage over EAC is it makes use of multiple databases to look up tags rather than just freedb.org.  It will perform secure ripping and also supports AccurateRip.  It will also download artwork at rip time.  It will also encode to FLAC as it rips.

 

You can do all of these things with free software like EAC and foobar2k, but dbPowerAmp makes it easier by doing everything in a single step.  This makes a significant difference when you are ripping a large number of discs.

 

I used to use EAC and switched to dbPowerAmp about a year ago. 

Use EAC or dBpoweramp.  Both programs can verify against the AccurateRip database.  If AccurateRip says your rip is good you're good.  If your disc or particular pressing isn't in the AccurateRip database you'll have to use intuition and experience to determine if you got a good rip or not. If AccurateRip says you got a bad rip you can clean off the disc and try again.  If that doesn't work you can try a different optical drive or a different computer and cross your fingers.

 

AccurateRip is by the developer who does dBpoweramp.  AccurateRip is free to use by other software so EAC and other rippers are able to make use of it.

 

dBpoweramp also has a feature that can identify HDCD encoded CDs.  It can then decode the HDCD tracks to 24-bit 44.1 kHz files.  For HDCD encoded discs I do two rips.  One at 16-bit with no HDCD decoding and one at 24-bit with HDCD decoding.

 

If you're ripping classical CDs you'll want to check for pre-emphasis and correct for it if it is there.  A few older rock CDs also have pre-emphasis.

 

If you're ripping hundreds or thousands of CDs, dBpoweramp is a time saver and worth the price.  It has better metadata lookup than EAC.  It can also do the HDCD decoding (though there is free software that can decode HDCD as well, like CueTools and CUETools can verify a CUE file against AccurateRip as well).

I had issues using EAC for ripping, I would get blips and gaps in the rip that were obvious when played back. It happened on probably one out of every 10 CDs I would rip. I am not sure of the cause.

 

Anyway I switched to foobar for ripping and compressing to FLAC and haven't had any such issues yet.

EAC has some drive specific options you can set.  If those settings are incorrect, like saying your drive does not cache audio data when it actually does, you could get errors or gaps in the rip.  You can have EAC automatically detect drive features and usually it detects correctly, but not always.  C2 error detection is tricky.  Some drives report that they do it but they don't actually do it well.  If in doubt, don't let EAC make use of C2 error info.

 

EAC isn't the most user friendly in configuration.  It is easy for even experienced people to get it configured incorrectly.  For example, it is quite easy to accidentally get it configured so it puts ID3 tags in FLAC files.  That's not a nice thing to do to FLAC files and some audio players will have a problem playing such files (FLAC files should have Vorbis Comments, not ID3 tags).

 

I second this, I also use dbPowerAmp to rip all my CDs into a Linn DS in flac, a very easy handle software.

Edited by dannie01 - 5/8/10 at 4:06pm

dBpoweramp Reference is the best CD ripping software I have ever used, and I have many years of experience with EAC and various optical drives, as well as a long history of using PlexTools Professional (LE) with a Plextor PX-230A (that was a great combination). I think the most important starting place in getting perfect CD rips is to invest in an optical drive known to be excellent. In my opinion, no matter how good the software is, your results in the long term or with a large number of CDs is going to be dependent on how good your optical drive is. You get a good hint as to whether a drive is a good one if you get perfect rips at high speeds with not so much as a hiccup when testing with CDs that look like they've been used as brake rotors. The HDCD decoding capabilities of dBpoweramp Reference, in my case (with a DAC capable of high resolution input, make the cost of the program very well worth the money, not to mention the extremely configurable and excellent Batch Encoder, which even takes advantage of multiple processors when encoding.

Mr. Lazy here to contribute his 2 pesos worth...

 

I use MediaMonkey.  So simple, my stuffed bear can do it.

My vote goes for EAC.

 

Good info, thanks for the suggestions. Next time I rip something I will make sure these options are set correctly, maybe this is what caused the issue.