The same can't be said for creating a document in Word/Photoshop. It's easier to replicate the same data there, so assuming the file is never altered, it could be replicated at the same size by anyone either from scratch or by numerous copy methods.

Another thing that I thought of this morning truly puzzled me. I've read a number of threads on message boards about the "bit perfect" copy, and have come to an understanding that doing this is a non-trivial task, but how can this be?

If I make an analogy where instead of "songs" I use the word "documents" or "Photoshop files" then the idea of not getting a bit perfect copy seems absurd. If you can't get back exactly the bits you stored onto the disk then Word or Photoshop won't be able to read the file, and suddenly the CD becomes a pretty bad storage mechanism.

So what is it about the way that music is stored on a CD that makes getting back what the artist / label put down at all a challenge or issue? Why isn't bit perfect copying trivially easy? Just as getting the same word doc you burned to CD back without corruption is.

Best,
~>Bill

I don't know that it can rip to FLAC and MP3 at the same time, but it can to a batch-convert of entire directory trees. So you can rip everything to FLAC and then do a batch convert and create the MP3s in a different directory. If you're converting to MP3 for compatibility with a portable device, dbPowerAmp has a program called Sveta Portable Audio that can do on-the-fly conversion from/to any format. So there would no reason to create the mp3s and store them — just create them on-the-fly when you sync your device.

Is there a solution (commercial or otherwise, Mac or Win) that automates this so that I can simply insert a disc, wait for the disc to be done and ejected and then insert another?

In between the program would perform an exact copy, encode to FLAC, encode a copy to mp3, tag it from CDDB, download cover art and put the FLAC and mp3 files into different but organized folders.

Yours Hopefully,
~>Bill

So far I've been using Adobe Audition FFT filter with corners at 3180 and 10600 hz -10dB.

I'd really like to have an absolute indicator of the pre-emphasis bit status rather than comparing the original disc in an audio player vs the ripped audio in the computer – in other words, trusting my ears.

Thanks

Thanks Carlton
Good to know I can convert WAV into FLAC or whatever if needed later.
As long as I don't have to rip them all again!

Cheers J

It's very easy to convert between FLAC and WAV. dbPowerAmp Music Converter can batch-convert very eaily. It also has a CD Ripper that can do bit-perfect extactions. I think it's better than EAC because it easier to setup, can automatically download cover art, and has more feature. But it does cost about $30 to register it. I now use it instead of EAC.

So if you don't have a need to save drive space, you can stick with WAV.

You can also set the file type to WAV and then compress later.

Get it here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=35242

I did my whole library in this way, and it worked absolutely perfectly.

I also often convert from FLAC to ALAC with dbpoweramp when someone gives me files already encoded as FLAC. This works great, but make sure you have the latest version of app + codecs. There was a problem that caused tracks to sporadically not get compressed. It only just got fixed.

Carlton, a new question about C2 error detection
—
So, I'm setting up accurate ripping on a MAC running winXP via parallels. Unfortunately, the built in Matsushita drive doesn't have C2 Error detection capability. Does this mean that I can't perform accurate rips because the drive can't detect read errors? If so, there's nothing I can really do about that is there?

Cheers, -Jon.

Is there any way to get this mega-ripper to work with a respectable program such as EAC or J. River's Media Center? It is a standard Vista media-changer device.

Thanks for your help.