[blessingx]

I don't know how wide reaching this is, but wanted to say in at least one case I found an iTunes rip beat a EAC one. Got a bunch of CDs from the library (which of course were scratched) and on a Frank Sintara disc I was having problems on one track. Pops occur on both rips, but on iTunes (with error correction on) there wasn't a hiccup that was there on the EAC (secure mode, and actually tried EAC three different times). Just wanted to point this out. The processor on the PC with EAC is a P2 (iTunes was run on a dual G4), so keep in mind it's slow and may be part of the problem, but if you're having major problems, it's worth a shot.

 

[richard]

Maybe iTunes is more relaxed about error checking than EAC?

 

[Tim D]

How does this comparison make sense? I assume when you point out the difference in processor (PC vs Mac), is there also a difference in CD-Drive? In which case the comparison is moot. Or are you are using the same external drive for both?

 

[blessingx]

They are different drives. It's good to bring up that important difference. In case anyone is thinking I'm stating iTunes is superior to EAC or making any similar grandiose statements, I'm not. I made a few "clarifiers" above for that reason. Just saying because [I tend to suspect the same richard] of a possible more relaxed error correction, iTunes may give a less problematic rip in some cases. I was surprised by this, but will certainly use that track rip for the copy. It could be the drives though. If EAC is ever released for OSX (forget VPC) I can do an official test, but assuming that will never happen, I'm stuck this this. Just wanted to give a heads up, not make a declaration or anything.

For the record the drives were:
PC TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-6202
Mac HITACHI DVD-ROM GD-7000

And the EAC report (each time) for track quality (so you know the severity of the problem) was:
90.8%

 

[MacDEF]

blessingx, some people will never admit that EAC has an equal on the Mac platform

I've posted comments from the developer of Toast Audio Extractor, which -- according to the developer -- is equally as thorough and effective as EAC, and got flamed for it a couple of times. (TAE does bit-by-bit extraction with significant error correction.) For some reason, it's beyond the realm of possibilities for many people that anything could ever be as good as EAC

iTunes added the error correction feature recently. I haven't had a chance to test it yet compared to my Windows computer. I'd like to see someone use a FireWire CD drive so they can test the same CD on the same drive using EAC and the new iTunes.

 

[blessingx]

MacDEF, is there any reason that you know of, on why Roxio is so secretive about what TAE does? Since it's been integrated it's not even discussed really.

 

[viviorunitia4]

Yeah, I had a couple of CD's that EAC either couldn't finish or ripped with errors, but, with iTunes the CD's came out perfectly. Both were on a 1.67 Ghz AMD MP computer, with a cheap memorex cd-rw drive.

 

[Tim D]

The software can only do so much. In fact you can argue that all it does is attempt to tell the hardware the optimal way to perform. Or it is like a supervisor that tells a worker to "do it again, slow down, speed up" cause they did it poorly the first time around.

You can have the best burning software coupled with a poor drive and you will still get a poor result. You can have poor or barebones burning software and a very good drive and get very good results.

And yes EAC is over-rated to the point that people think it matters more than the drive. It is the drive that is most important, the software sits on top of the hardware as an extra level of error correction. But I use EAC just because you can easily use it with LAME, and it has good feedback of results.

 

[austonia]

as I understand it, EAC will be more picky about the CD's it can rip because it is making a "perfect" bit for bit copy. I know that some of the software I have used in the past (like AudioCatalyst) will rip CD's that are more worn because they will accept less then perfect data from the CD.. and kind of fudge the results.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by blessingx MacDEF, is there any reason that you know of, on why Roxio is so secretive about what TAE does? Since it's been integrated it's not even discussed really.

No clue. But as I mentioned previously, they claim it does a bit-by-bit extraction just like EAC.

 

[chadbang]

I always assumed it just does a double-check of strings of data as it goes along, since the only option is "Overlap". Overlap suggests to me a double-checking process. I find TAE a great extractor. It doesn't do the same kind of hardcore checking as EAC, and if it can't save a scratched disc it will just give you an error (it has to be seriously scratched). But I decided I'd rather settle for TAE's brisk pace than work EAC which, on one of my damaged discs, was going to take five hours to read a single track!

On the flip side, iTunes' extractor I try to avoid. If you have a damaged disc is will tear through it just as quickly as a perfect one -- but your copy will be full of holes!

 

[davei]

With a properly setup EAC, you're only pulling information from the disc, with no error correction (no C1, no C2). It's going bit/bit overlapping (checking each sector at least twice). If it encounters an error, it will re-read the sector until 8/16 times the info is the same (that proportion may be wrong, but it's more than 50% of reads.) You have the option of turning on the built in error checking, but ideally that should be turned off.

As for iTunes... who knows what it does? It could be using the error checking capability of the disc and drive (which is not necessarily a bad thing if you can get the data.)

 

[FrancisB]

I'm not knocking iTunes (I have no familiarity w/it).

But just because iTunes can rip a CD that EAC barfs on doesn't mean much.

- what options did iTunes have set WRT secure ripping, C2, accurate stream etc?

- ditto for EAC.

You can configure EAC in burst mode to do the best it can. It'll always complete successfully, but you have no assurance that it got everything off the disc. This is most likely the configuration a number of "user friendly" rippers (maybe iTunes?) are defaulted to.

For most people this is good enough. For those who care about accurate reproductions of their CD's, EAC in secure mode is usually the preferred choice.

A strutured test would be interesting to see around this topic, but that would take a bit of effort.

It took me a while to figure out all the options of EAC, and how to make perfect bit by bit copies. but now that I have, I am building my online library of lossless CD's (in FLAC format) which I transcode at will to the lossy format I want for the device I plan on playing it with...

Hydogenaudio.org is the definitive source for all things codec and audio reproduction related.

Now if there was a device which could play FLAC or APE formated files....

Regards,
Francis

 

[Squalish]

I think we should make a distinction between error checking and error correction. All the following is merely my definitions, and is not representative of what actually happens based upon a term determined by Marketting Departments:

Error checking means that if it can't read the data, it tries again. Enough tries, and it either gives up on the disk or fills it in with the average of whatever nonsense results it gets.

Error correction means that if it can't read the data, it may create new data to replace it, for example, scratch a test tone CD and it may fill in the 1/4 second of data that was destroyed with a new test tone extrapolated from the surrounding data.

If itunes uses correction rather than checking, this may explain the observations.

Can anyone verify if this is true with the product documentation?