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Originally Posted by billybobjr /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I've been ripping all my CDs with dbpowerAMP into FLAC i'm just wondering if this program is 100%, as i've been hearing alot about EAC.
So does anyone know if they both rip at the same quality?
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I've ripped over 2500 CDs and used EAC, dBpoweramp and J. River media Center.
I compared a number of files from CDs ripped with dBpoweramp and J. River MC. Not listening comparisons but comparing the audio stream bytes in the files.
My CD collection has been treated with adequate care so 95+ % of CDs are read without extra re-reads by any of these rippers. About 2-4 % CDs require extra reads on one or more tracks but were eventually ripped with confidence that they were accurate. I found no difference in files made by the 3 rippers for either of these two classes of files. I originally compared over 30 CDs in the first category and dozens in the second category. I periodically re-check to verify my results.
About 1% of my CDs have one or more tracks that can't be ripped with confidence. In almost every case, if one of the rippers could not rip a track, the other rippers could not either. For one problem CD, I was able to rip the bad track with J. River MC by limiting the maximum speed and unable to get a good rip from EAC or dBpoweramp. I continue to use all 3 rippers on problem disks.
If you have a collection with lots of scratched or otherwise mistreated CDs, you experience might be different.
If EAC or dBpoweramp finds a match in the Accurate Rip database, they can produce a secure rip in one pass. They would be faster than MC which always compares two reads in secure mode. Otherwise, I haven't seen much difference in speed for secure mode ripping.
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I mostly use J. River MC now. I buy a lot of classical music and no online tag database put Composer, work name, artists) and movement names in tags the way I want them. MC's tag editing features let me input all the tag values I need very quickly and reliably.
Other people might choose EAC because it uses the Accurate Rip database, is free or has more users recommending it.
Others might choose dBpoweramp because it uses Accurate Rip database better than EAC or because its online databases are correct more often. Or because it allows them to enter tags beyond the standard set EAC supports.
Any of the three rippers will produce accurate rips almost all the time on well-treated CDs and tell you when they can't. There may be other rippers that produce equally good results but I have not compared them to the 3 rippers just discussed nor have I seen adequate comparisons by other people.
Bill
