[forgotten_hell]

So... I had always been using iTunes as a CD ripper since it was easiest for me... While browsing/searching for some stuff on these forums I saw people say it was a bad ripper. Is it really that bad? What's wrong with it? I was encoding my stuff at 320 AAC without the error checker on. Do I need to rerip my entire library?

 

[Matt08642]

It's not "bad," per-se, it's just not as accurate as something like EAC (Exact Audio Copy).

It will be fine for portable listening on an MP3 player, but if you want at-home listening with high quality components, get EAC and rip to FLAC.

Here's an excellent guide: EAC Setup Guide

-Matt

 

[forgotten_hell]

Well I don't have anything high end. I listen to music on my iPhone and on my PC and I'm getting a good pair of IEMs for my iPhone and eventually a set of speakers for my PC but that's it. I didn't really wanna rip FLAC though...

 

[Matt08642]

Quote:

Originally Posted by forgotten_hell /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well I don't have anything high end. I listen to music on my iPhone and on my PC and I'm getting a good pair of IEMs for my iPhone and eventually a set of speakers for my PC but that's it. I didn't really wanna rip FLAC though...

I still use EAC for my non-FLAC rips. MP3 320 is godlike.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

I wouldn't consider iTunes a bad ripper. In fact, it does some things that no other ripper does, like properly handle CDs that have pre-emphasis.

You should enable any error correction options in any ripper you use. Many rippers default to using no error correction cause that makes the rip faster and faster is always better (at least in benchmarks).

But I wouldn't worry about it in your case. I'd be more concerned if you were ripping to lossless (ALAC or FLAC) and intended the rips to be your primary serious listening library for the foreseeable future. Without error correction you'll get a few extra misread samples compared to an error corrected rip. It will be worse on CDs that have scratches, but even a brand new CD is not likely to rip without any errors. An error will show up as a misread sample value. Samples go by very very fast (44,100 per second) so it is very hard to pick up just one sample being bad. If a group of bad samples are all clustered together you would be more likely to hear it. What you'll hear is a glitch or a pop that goes by very quickly. It doesn't affect the overall sound quality, just a quick momentary pop or dropout. If error correction is enabled and a ripper cannot read a sample some will set that sample to silence while others will attempt to interpolate a sample value based on previous and following sample values.

So ya, wouldn't worry about it in your case. But do enable the error correction option in iTunes for future rips.

 

[krmathis]

Probably not "bad", but less secure than some others...

 

[eduj]

Not as good as EAC but for making audio files for an iPhone iTunes should be just fine as long as you enable the error correction option in it.

 

[tosehee]

It's as good as EAC without the retry feature on error. If your CD is severely damaged, EAC won't help you either. If you got a good CD, then ripping it through itune has no downside at all.

 

[Matt08642]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tosehee /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's as good as EAC without the retry feature on error. If your CD is severely damaged, EAC won't help you either. If you got a good CD, then ripping it through itune has no downside at all.

What about things like sample offset correction?

For audio quality, I would still recommend Lame MP3 over AAC. Here's a spectral analysis of AAC @ 320K CBR (I had to decode to WAV for it to work in Spectro - does not affect the test), Lame MP3 @ 320K CBR, and Lame MP3 @ V0 VBR:

If you have the space, I always recommend Lame MP3 @320K, if space is an issue, Lame MP3 @ V0 VBR

-Matt

 

[auee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tosehee /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's as good as EAC without the retry feature on error. If your CD is severely damaged, EAC won't help you either. If you got a good CD, then ripping it through itune has no downside at all.

I agree as I could not detect any difference in the play back quality of iTunes rips and EAC rips. Make sure to check error correction.

 

[tosehee]

I always rip to apple lossless, so i don't know if sample offset correction matters.

 

[Matt08642]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tosehee /img/forum/go_quote.gif I always rip to apple lossless, so i don't know if sample offset correction matters.

Yes, many things can make your rip not lossless.

Sample offset correction, C2 error information, Audio cache, accurate stream. All things Apple has looked over in the quest to be simple.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tosehee /img/forum/go_quote.gif I always rip to apple lossless, so i don't know if sample offset correction matters.

Sample offset doesn't matter unless you are trying to create a duplicate copy of a CD (as what EAC was designed to do) or are trying to compare files ripped from different CDR drives (as what AccurateRip does). Otherwise I don't see any reason why fussing with the sample offset would matter.

You can make ripping a CD as complex as you want to make it. Dealing with the complexities has a use in certain cases. But if you're just ripping files for your own use and aren't interested in keeping an accurate record (as in if you are archiving a CD as a CUE file) you can skip a lot of the complexity. Issues like HDCD and pre-emphasis add to the complexity as well.

For most people a rip by iTunes or a similar easy to use ripping program is good enough. Just check to make sure that the ripping program has some level of error correction enabled.

 

[forgotten_hell]

So, can I rip LAME MP3s with iTunes then? Because I want that pre-emphasis thing.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by forgotten_hell /img/forum/go_quote.gif So, can I rip LAME MP3s with iTunes then? Because I want that pre-emphasis thing.

I'm not aware of a way to get iTunes for Windows to encode to LAME MP3. Doesn't mean that it's not possible though. I have seen reports of the Mac version of iTunes being able to use LAME through some addon.

If you're using Windows and want to use iTunes and LAME you're probably going to have to have iTunes encode to a lossless format like ALAC or AIFF and then use another utility to transcode the files to LAME. That's a bit of a hassle to deal with.

Pre-emphasis is only really an issue with classical CDs. I only have one rock CD (the first issue of Pink Floyd "The Wall") that has pre-emphasis. If you're not ripping classical CDs I wouldn't worry about it. If you have a bunch of older Japanese pressings of rock CDs you may run into CDs with pre-emphasis.

It's very easy to read to much and end up making the ripping process more difficult than it needs to be. I'm trying to make the case for keeping it easy. If you want to dig in and do it the complicated way we can explain that process, but it gets geeky very quickly.