[Prophet293]

OK guys, this is seriously driving me nuts! I have tried 3, I repeat, 3 different CD drives to rip music in apple lossless format and they all produce artefacts 

 
Here's what's odd, all 3 CD drives are in almost perfect condition, 1 apple super drive, 1 samsung removable CD drive right out of the box and the built in iMac drive. I have tried various CDs and all the rips have artefacts here and there. The weird part is, when playing these CDs straight off the CD drives, there are no artefact what so ever, everything is perfect. But why does iTune produce artefacts when ripping CDs? I have that "use error correction when reading audio CDs" checked.

 

[NA Blur]

I share your frustration. Here are two things that helped me:

1.) When you rip the tracks do so two or three tracks at a time. This suggests there is a memory issue at the root of the problem.

2.) The other technique involves optimizing how the CD is imported. These adjustments can be read in detail here:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/itunes.htm

It is probably as simple as finding the buffer size and increasing it until the artifacts cease.

 

[flatmap]

  OK guys, this is seriously driving me nuts! I have tried 3, I repeat, 3 different CD drives to rip music in apple lossless format and they all produce artefacts 

 

Hi Prophet293, can you describe what the artifacts sounds like?  For example, are you getting clicking noises overlaid on top of the music?  Or is it more like the music itself sounds distorted?
 
I've often used iTunes to rip CDs and have never run into any issues.  Can you share what import settings you're using? Are you using the internal sound card or do you have an external audio device (DAC)?
 
One idea is to try out something other than iTunes and see if you can get a good rip.  I'd suggest XLD from http://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html.  You can set the General preferences to Apple Lossless and to correct certain offset problems.  Also you can select different types of rip -- I generally go for the XLD Secure Rip... but you can also elect "CDParanoia".  There are also other options to test rip before copying and etc. included under the CD Rip Settings.
 
This well help you decide if iTunes is the culprit or if this is some other type of hardware or software problem.

 

[Prophet293]

  Hi Prophet293, can you describe what the artifacts sounds like?  For example, are you getting clicking noises overlaid on top of the music?  Or is it more like the music itself sounds distorted?

 
pop/scratch noise like skipping a beat

 

[Roseval]

Are these pop's systematic, always in the same track at the same time or are they random?
If the  latter is the case, it is not the rip but a problem in the playback chain.

 

[Prophet293]

  Are these pop's systematic, always in the same track at the same time or are they random?
If the  latter is the case, it is not the rip but a problem in the playback chain.

When I use this 1 particular CD-ROM to rip this one song, that song always has the exact same artifact at the exact same second, but when I use that same CD-ROM to play that same song right off the CD, there's no artifact what so ever.
 
Then I change CD-ROM, the same thing happens again but this time to other songs.

 

[NA Blur]

It is something with iTunes because the older version did not suffer this fate.

 

[Prophet293]

What software would u guys recommend for 100% artifact free CD ripping?

 

[adisib]

Exact Audio Copy

 

[jfaaz]

  What software would u guys recommend for 100% artifact free CD ripping?

Max
 
http://max.en.softonic.com/mac

 

[vertical]

What software would u guys recommend for 100% artifact free CD ripping?

dBPoweramp

 

[Prophet293]

OK after numerous tests, I have finally isolated the problem, iTune is DEFINITELY the culprit here. I did a couple of tests by just playing songs right off the CDs, didn't rip any music, here are the results
 

Test 1:
 
CD-ROM: brand new xbox 360 HD-DVD drive
Music CD: brand new Titan soundtrack, perfect condition, zero scratches
software: latest version of iTune
 
results: tracks continue to show artifacts, scratch and pops here and there

 

Test 2:
 
CD-ROM: brand new xbox 360 HD-DVD drive
Music CD: brand new Titan soundtrack, perfect condition, zero scratches
software: latest version of VLC
 
results: songs played perfectly with no artifacts what so ever

 
as you can see, the only thing I've changed during the 2 tests is the software! iTune godam you!

 

[flatmap]

Bummer, but good to know where the problem is.
 
What version of OSX and version of iTunes are you running?  

 

[Rick U]

I just started running into this problem too. Hope they fix it soon. I'm running 11.3.1 on a macbook pro. 

 

[NA Blur]

It is not going to be fixed soon. I have seen this issue for 6 version updates.

There is a post here regarding a possible firmware update that fixed one users issue.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3124880?start=0&tstart=0

Version 10.5.2 fixed this issue.

Most posts I see that fix the issue upgrade their hard drives to a fast external drive when they rip the CD.

I found that answer here:

http://www.talkaudio.co.uk/ipb/index.php/topic/343660-itunes-distortion-when-copying-cds/