[Soundbuff]

Because everyone seems to recommend it, I installed EAC according to the instructions on www.bestmp3guide.com and ripped one CD using it.

I was very surprised tha it took nearly one HOUR to rip the CD. Is this normal? I have synced the files to my Iaudio U2 and I must say they sound very good. Is this extremely long ripping time the "price" that has to be paid for good MP3 sound?

I'm wondering if there are other programs that are 98% - 100% as good as EAC but must faster. To rip 300 CD's would take a long, long time at this rate. I'm still open to new approaches.

I've been experimenting with other media players besides WMP10. My Iaudio comes with a Jetaudio player that seems to be decent. It can rip in FLAC, APE (Monkey Audio format), Ogg Vorbis, WMA, MP3, etc. My U2 player can only play the MP3, Ogg, and ASF formats, however.

My understanding is Ogg Vorbis is an excellent format. Would it perhaps be best to use Ogg Vorbis and rip my collection using the Jetaudio media player? Or would you still recommend EAC/Lame? How does an EAC/Lame MP3 compare to Ogg Vorbis in terms of sound quality and size?

Thanks

 

[gshan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soundbuff Because everyone seems to recommend it, I installed EAC according to the instructions on www.bestmp3guide.com and ripped one CD using it. I was very surprised tha it took nearly one HOUR to rip the CD. Is this normal? I have synced the files to my Iaudio U2 and I must say they sound very good. Is this extremely long ripping time the "price" that has to be paid for good MP3 sound?

an hour? I just test ripped a cd after reading your thread - only takes me about 4 minutes, 30 seconds per cd. Perhaps we're encountering an outdated or insufficient hardware issue here?

edit: nm, I've been using the Fast Mode - I imagine you're using the secure mode. oops, my bad. - ok, under secure mode I'm getting a rip under 15 minutes. What settings are you setting your EAC at?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soundbuff My understanding is Ogg Vorbis is an excellent format. Would it perhaps be best to use Ogg Vorbis and rip my collection using the Jetaudio media player? Or would you still recommend EAC/Lame? How does an EAC/Lame MP3 compare to Ogg Vorbis in terms of sound quality and size?

Ogg Vorbis will save you a little space when compared to mp3s. If you're really looking to squeeze the most out of your U2. Here's a comparison from the Ogg official site: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/listen.html

 

[Soundbuff]

Settings are the original defaults...no settings were changed and nothing was done aside from the setup instructions on www.bestmp3guide.com:

1. Download and install EAC, start and select drive.
2. Download Nero ASPI Layer DLL
3. Download adapter and ID profile
4. Download LAME

All I did was insert an audio CD, pressed Alt-G to name the tracks, setup a folder for the rip files, and pressed MP3 to start the rip.

I'm ripping another one now and the ETA for ripping is currently 31 minutes. About ten minutes ago the ETA was 1 hour+ but the process seems to be going a bit faster than the first estimate.

About how long should a full size CD take to rip?

Also, are there other options I should set to make the process faster/better? I noticed you can use Ogg instead of MP3 with EAC too.

 

[bLue_oNioN]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soundbuff I'm wondering if there are other programs that are 98% - 100% as good as EAC but must faster. To rip 300 CD's would take a long, long time at this rate. I'm still open to new approaches.

Perhaps give the iTunes ripper w/ error correction a try?

 

[pank2002]

Well, one of m computer (a 1,1 Celeron) is really slow too. Your hardware probably isn't the newest out there, eh

I don't think anything will happen if you use fast mode with perfect CD's. You could also try another ripper, and see how it compares.

 

[46and2]

Try playing around with the secure settings... C2 and the other stuff. I'm at work right now and can't rember how mine is setup, but it made it go a lot faster without any noticable change in quality. After all it is still in secure mode...

 

[Soundbuff]

It definitely isn't the computer. My new quiet computer is only 6 weeks old...with an AMD Athlon 3.0 Ghz, Asus A8V Deluxe Socket 939 motherboard ...Zalman CPU cooler...new Plextor and Asus Quietrack DVD drives...250 GB hard drive....and other neat stuff.

When I have time I'll start doing some searches on settings for EAC. Anyone have any suggestions or links?

 

[romesaz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soundbuff It definitely isn't the computer. My new quiet computer is only 6 weeks old...with an AMD Athlon 3.0 Ghz, Asus A8V Deluxe Socket 939 motherboard ...Zalman CPU cooler...new Plextor and Asus Quietrack DVD drives...250 GB hard drive....and other neat stuff. When I have time I'll start doing some searches on settings for EAC. Anyone have any suggestions or links?

show-off

but, as Pank was implying...mayhaps the CD isnt in the best condition? I've noticed that if im ripping a CD that isnt(sacrilige) it perfect condition, it can take to upwards of an hour or more.
just my 2 cents

 

[Cyclone]

if your using LAME (which you should if your ripping to .mp3) use this

 

[episiarch]

Go into the EAC menu, Drive Options, and go through the various tabs clicking on the "Detect..." or "Autodetect..." buttons as you go. One or the other of these buttons (sorry, don't remember which) made the difference for me. Ripping times went from 30+ minutes down to just a few.

EAC will queue up your compression tasks, so even if compression is slow, CD ripping will still take place at maximum speed. In other words, if your ripping speed is slow, look to the drive settings, not to the compression settings.

 

[Soundbuff]

I tried selecting "Burst Mode" in disk options and the next rip went incredibly FAST...a whole CD ripped in less than 2 minutes. I wonder if this is as good as the slow mode though. Maybe there is something in between that still preserves maximum quality? Or is this just as good?

 

[cerbie]

Paranoid mode might be good enough. However, I just ripped Queensryche's Promised land for the FIFTH time in the last year.

Secure mode isn't fast, but it's worth it, especially going to a lossless format. Ripping speed can depend quite a bit on the drive in secure mode. Plextor rules in this regard--but you pay for it.

Turning ON 'drive caches audio data' and turning OFF 'drive reports C2 errors' will make it MUCH slower in secure mode...but you may want to check on your drive's capabilities for that (NEC and Lite-On should be fine with C2 on and cache off). I'd get the wording for those right, except that EAC is currently busy doing its job

.

 

[baijxz]

If you really have a plextor drive then use it! Plextors are normally the fastest drives on the market at audioextraction.
In EAC go into drive options (F10) and choose secure mode and make EAC autodetect your drives features.

The only reason to use EAC is it's secure mode, synchronized or burst will introduce errors. Secure otoh will make it bit perfect.

Secure mode can be very fast but that's entirely a limitation of the quality of your drive.

 

[Soundbuff]

I switched over to the Plextor drive and it IS faster in secure mode. Only about 10 minutes for the CD it is ripping now.

Do you have any other tips or recommended changes to the settings for EAC? For example, is MP3 best or is Ogg a better way to go?

What's that whole deal about "alt - standard", "alt - medium", etc. that I saw on that one link recommended above...should I mess with that setting?

 

[baijxz]

I can tell you my preferences but it's really a limitation of your audio system and your preferences what quality and encoder you should use.

I started out with a soundblaster soundcard and a tiny NAD amplifier coupled with a pair of small cerwin vega's. The sound wasn't very sophisticated let me tell you, after upgrading to a better soundcard. I could really hear a difference with encoders and bitrate.
Now I've gotten a pair of older JBL 4408A monitor speakers and a behemoth of an old Sony amplifier, and the soundstage is so improved, details have come into existence I never knew existed etc.
Hence my recent shift in encoders, now I'm using APE, which means I can always do a lossy compression to ogg later.

I've settled with ogg as the lossy encoder of choice with a quality setting of at least 8. I've fallen for ogg because it sounds more round and relaxed than mp3. Did I mention I find the sound of Mp3 slightly fatiguing.
Before ogg I used mp3 LAME encoded with VBR around 230Kbit which in my opinion is the best option for mp3.

If you're contemplating either ogg or mp3 do a listening test youyrself and decide, but I would never go below 192Kbit with mp3.

The alt presets is one very convenient way of setting the encoding quality level. Yes you should choose a quality preset