[cerbie]

A good drive is a necessity. It needs to handle minor errors by itself, and then properly report other errors. My current Samsung S203B seems to be doing quite well. I've had experiences in the past where EAC was able to get decent rips that nothing else could. Yes, it could spend hours, but it got it, and gave me options to try when it got close. If I had a NEC drive for DAE, though, it wouldn't matter what ripper I tried to use--the results would always be subpar on damaged discs.

So, I can't say anything for the current state of rippers like CDparanoia (last time I tried it I was not impressed, but that was quite a long time ago); I have grown loyal to EAC. EAC has not had any updates to improve ripping quality of damaged discs in many years, though, and I doubt anyone has taken the time with actual bad discs to compare results between ripping apps. It has the track record, but others have been getting quite a bit of attention, lately. A few years ago, before dBPowerAmp's fancy ripping mode, and the Linux desktop creep, I could have said confidently that nothing approached EAC's level. Now I can only say that I trust EAC, due to past performance.

 

[Mr_Junesequa]

I use exaile, its a good program!

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zanth /img/forum/go_quote.gif Linux NEEDS a Foobar/EAC port.

Yeah, Foobar2000 and EAC for GNU/Linux (or POSIX in general) would be great.
The alternatives we have a not as extensible or powerful.

 

[fwojciec]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krmathis /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah, Foobar2000 and EAC for GNU/Linux (or POSIX in general) would be great. The alternatives we have a not as extensible or powerful.

I get by happily without either. The trick is not to look for perfect replacements for each in the form of single multi-function applications, but to embrace the Linux philosophy of one application per functionality instead. I'd argue that the Linux way is actually far more flexible and extensible compared to Foobar or other applications in Windows, since most Linux apps can be seamlessly chained to work together in whatever way you like using scripts/pipes and such.

Personally I use MPD/Sonata as music player, Rubyripper for ripping CDs, Easytag for tagging, and a bunch of scripts for all my conversion needs. Everything is bit-perfect, gapless and very pleasant to use, I've never had anything skip, pop or make any undesired noises. Plus I can do cool things like teaching my laptop to automatically switch audio outputs when I connect my BitHead dac/amp and then revert back when I disconnect it, or program any of the applications I'm using to work with an IrDA remote that I had lying around, not to mention all the cool things that can be done using the networking capabilities of a Linux system (whole house media solutions, and such).

I'm yet to find something that I can't do with Linux that I could with Windows, though I would agree that some of the things are easier to use on a Windows system -- especially for users who have no real interest in computer technologies.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fwojciec /img/forum/go_quote.gif I get by happily without either.

I live happily without either as well.
But it would be great to have something as capable (secure ripping) as EAC for non-Windows operating systems. Since we are mostly limited to the outdated cdparanoia....

 

[fwojciec]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krmathis /img/forum/go_quote.gif I live happily without either as well. But it would be great to have something as capable (secure ripping) as EAC for non-Windows operating systems. Since we are mostly limited to the outdated cdparanoia....

Rubyripper is good enough for me. Is it missing any significant features compared to EAC?

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fwojciec /img/forum/go_quote.gif Rubyripper is good enough for me. Is it missing any significant features compared to EAC?

I may be wrong, but I don't think cdparanoia and cdda2wav have as powerful cache defeating and C2 error detection as EAC.
It may not affect the result in 99.x% of the times though...

 

[BadassBob]

Has anybody tried Ubuntu Studio 8.04 yet? Its pretty damn good, comes with all of the good plugins for Audacious and includes a wide array of audio goodies. I just installed it a few days ago and love it so far.

 

[LnxPrgr3]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krmathis /img/forum/go_quote.gif I may be wrong, but I don't think cdparanoia and cdda2wav have as powerful cache defeating and C2 error detection as EAC. It may not affect the result in 99.x% of the times though...

cdda2wav definitely doesn't, but from what I remember, it barely does any form of error correction.

cdparanoia does try to flush the drive's cache the cheap way -- by reading more than the cache can hold, forcing old content out. EAC is closed-source, so I can't read the source and tell you what it does.

As for C2 error detection, I believe the checkbox says "trust my drive to report C2 errors correctly," and is there because, for drives that report errors reliably, it can speed up rips. I don't believe turning it off has a negative impact on anything other than speed, and so not supporting it in cdparanoia would have the same effect.

The tests I've done aren't nearly extensive enough to be considered conclusive, but I have failed to find a case so far where EAC succeeds at perfect reconstruction where cdparanoia fails. My heavily damaged CD supply is limited though

I do think this is something that should be explored further though.

 

[Zanth]

I'm a strong FOSS advocate and have had some version of linux on a box in my house since '95 or '96. I have FreeBSD and OpenBSD running as well. I will diligently work towards using something alternative as much as possible but at the end of the day, when something is "critical" I have to go with the best software solution available.

From the academic side of things, I write my theses with any old editor and use LaTeX so I'm safe there. The more advanced editors offer BibTex as well which is an excellent tool.

For play, I can use most anything so long as I'm not trying to run most games. Linux offers a plethora of packages that I actually prefer over Mac and Windows variants and I am a big fan of my hacked Gnome/KDE environment over Aero or Aqua.

But then we come to work stuff and linux falls short. I need math apps that are Windows only, sorry, I obviously need to dual boot here. Sometimes I just need to use Office, particularly 2007, again...gotta get into Windows here.

When at home doing "work" some photoediting tools (Lightroom is the big one for me) are not available on Linux and there is nothing that approaches its flexibility, robustness and power. For most editing I could handle using Gimp, but Photoshop is still king no doubt and with its seemless integration with Lightroom, it makes that combo indispensable for me. I just don't have other options.

Like photo editing, when it comes to my music collection I take a pro/work attitude towards it. I want it done right the first time and never want to revisit the efforts involved in getting it right. With a very large collection that means a few things:

Secure perfect to near perfect ripping (as secure as I can get it) plus excellent transcoding (to AAC in my case) is really important. This means EAC/FLAC and dbPoweramp. Two programs I won't do without. Foobar I can get by without, I only use it as a player, but what a player it is! I use Amarok mostly because it is the most robust and stable option in the FOSS community that I know of. Nothing else offers Filetree viewing of insane collections without crashing, same with db views and playing. iPod synchronization is very well done, though not perfect, and overally despite its large memory footprint, it does what I need it to do.

Still, in terms of ripping, FOSS is behind unless one runs EAC with Wine (which works just fine but still...) Macs have MAX which is nearly there...but EAC and dbPoweramp are still the standards with EAC still the champ.

 

[ericj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krmathis /img/forum/go_quote.gif I may be wrong, but I don't think cdparanoia and cdda2wav have as powerful cache defeating and C2 error detection as EAC. It may not affect the result in 99.x% of the times though...

I've never actually found libcdparanoia lacking in terms of getting an accurate rip.

I've even had clean-sounding rips from discs that i can see tiny points of light shine through ever since some jerk walked on them with his combat boots on.

what, if anything, is missing?

Also, with regard to PulseAudio, Jack, etc, these are software shims that sit between your application and the regular ALSA or OSS interface. I'm at a loss to imagine how that could improve latency vs. just having a decently written application and perhaps reniceing it to a higher priority task - say using a re-nice daemon like VeryNice.

As for the commercial OSS drivers - they might be better for some sound cards, but there is no design advantage. ALSA is the more advanced and more capable driver system - but some cards may work better with the commercial OSS drivers than with ALSA.

 

[btbluesky]

From this thread it seems alot of people misunderstand the architecture between windows and Linux.
I'm not a linux guru, but as a programmer and Linux user, I just want to point out what is really the differences:

- Windows has a layer of API call HAL that sits on top of all media devices, and windows mixer sits on top of that to do...yes...mixing. That's why you can play games and CD at the same time. Problem is it's another software layer with ~86dB sensitivity, which degrade the sound, its like running a real bad preamp, and you cannot turn the mixer off. Plus windows has a bad priority management system (notice you only get 5 levels of user priorities). These two are the ONLY two reasons u want ASIO in windows, to bypass the signal straight into HAL and into device for clear signal as fast as possible.

- Linux by design does not have such inferior design, you sound goes straight into ALSA, and it pass straight into device. (Notice how u specify "hw:x,y" in ALSA, or even in your player). renice the application do nothing as well. Because the signal would be in ALSA already, and it's the kernel scheduler's job to assign the priority to video/audio related signal, which does an exceptional job with fine grain control (there are like 40 levels of priorities, from -20 to 19). Your player does NOTHING except presenting you a GUI, and by renice (change priority) of a player, you're adding another burden on kernel only (renice -20 amarok will only tell kernel.."don't care about anything including the music signal, just draw the amarok GUI fastest u can").

- Also you can turn off multiple sources by deselecting it from volume control in ubuntu or in ALSA config, which tells ALSA it'd only accept one source only. When does that, remember to disable the cross-fading in Amarok, as it'd give you error, because during cross-fading, there are actually two source sending to ALSA.

- Jack audio server bring "low latency" to its multiple clients. But what it means "low latency" is in term of networking protocol, and has nothing to do with actual sound signal, which is lower level than that. Like say a vendor would gives you low latency shoutcast broadcast, but the signal will then still have to go through ALSA.


I believe Linux gives you the shortest path, with highest priority handling of signal in audio without much tweaking. EVERY players eventually hand the signal off to ALSA in exact same manner, so when choosing player, you should only be concern of the functionalities.

OSS is pretty slow these couple years, and most of the new development are in ALSA.

 

[LnxPrgr3]

^
ALSA can mix (and screw up your sound) as well, via dmix. Some distros even enable it by default. You can fix it in your .asoundrc, but it is something to watch for.

Also, the player does have to get audio to ALSA fast enough, or the sound will still drop out. This has never been an issue for me though with music, because I don't use low-latency settings that require the application to respond all that quickly.

JACK provides low latency by opening up the card with a very small buffer, forcing it to have to write to the buffer often. If it can, it runs just the audio thread with realtime priority, allowing it to work with fewer dropouts than you'd see if, say, you set amarok to use the same settings.

Of course, there's no point to using low-latency playback to listen to music. All it will get you is the ability to hear your music sooner after it was decoded, and with more risk of audio dropouts.

 

[fwojciec]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LnxPrgr3 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Of course, there's no point to using low-latency playback to listen to music. All it will get you is the ability to hear your music sooner after it was decoded, and with more risk of audio dropouts

Thanks for the nice explanation -- I've always wondered about this low-latency stuff, but I couldn't be bothered to set up jack since alsa works so well for me.
Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've never actually found libcdparanoia lacking in terms of getting an accurate rip. I've even had clean-sounding rips from discs that i can see tiny points of light shine through ever since some jerk walked on them with his combat boots on. what, if anything, is missing?

I'm starting to think that what you and I are missing, above all, is the psychological comfort of using something with the *reputation* for being "best".

 

[ericj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by btbluesky /img/forum/go_quote.gif - Linux by design does not have such inferior design, you sound goes straight into ALSA, and it pass straight into device. (Notice how u specify "hw:x,y" in ALSA, or even in your player). renice the application do nothing as well. Because the signal would be in ALSA already, and it's the kernel scheduler's job to assign the priority to video/audio related signal, which does an exceptional job with fine grain control (there are like 40 levels of priorities, from -20 to 19).

That depends on how hard your computer is working.

I see a lot of confusion on this forum about what constitutes 'jitter' and other issues.

My computers are not mere mp3 players. All have other jobs to do.

Sometimes this creates situations where a background process or some other gui app can briefly interrupt whatever it is I'm using to play music.

For example, some xorg drivers can cause mplayer to drop out for a fraction of a second when you switch between virtual desktops.

You can fix that by getting a different video card or driver or buying a faster processor.

Or you can renice mplayer to -5 or so.

In short, due to linux's rather pragmatic scheduler, sometimes apps get momentarily kicked in the balls. And sometimes those apps are playing music. And you can fix that by setting a higher priority for your music player.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fwojciec /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm starting to think that what you and I are missing, above all, is the psychological comfort of using something with the *reputation* for being "best".

No, I'm comfortable with libcdparanoia and question whether EAC is really the best in any way that matters.

I actually use GRIP to rip cds, and i'm comfortable with the fact that it hasn't been updated in 4 years.