question about ripping rare cd's with errors Options

[Skybrowser]

I'm having trouble ripping a couple of CDs in my collection and I could use some advice on the situation.

I'll use one CD as an example. It is by a local independant artist from years ago, so there is no way i can download it or get a new copy. The CD rips fine other than the first track which has errors and wont rip in secure mode(well the fourth track has trouble too because the test and copy CRC wont match, but the track rips fine at about 99.8% track quality with no errors). The first track plays fine and there are no scratches, so i can only assume that it is just a low quality CD due to the group being independant or the static and silence introduction to the song is confusing EAC into thinking there are errors. As far as i can tell, I have two options for adding this CD to my archive, I can either turn off the option that stops a rip if there are errors and just rip it in secure mode or I can rip it in burst mode: I am wondering which of these 2 options would give me the better rip. Obviously this situation is not ideal, but indie is indie.

Thankyou for your time.

[AndyH-ha]

In that situation I would record from the S/PDIF out of the CD player into the S/PDIF input of my soundcard. Would it provide a bit for bit match with the original? I would have no interest in that question, only in how the recorded track sounds. Obviously you have no way to answer the question anyway, with this particular CD.

If stuck without S/PDIF capabilities, I would record from the analogue out of CD player to analogue in of soundcard. There is a potential problem here, in my experience, in that many CD tracks will overload soundcard inputs, clipping. This means some attenuation may be necessary between CD player and soundcard.

A third option is re-polishing the CD bottom surface. Scratches and scuffing can prevent good extraction, but if that isn't the problem with your CD, the effort isn't likely to be useful.

[southisup]

As far as i can tell, I have two options for adding this CD to my archive, I can either turn off the option that stops a rip if there are errors and just rip it in secure mode or I can rip it in burst mode: I am wondering which of these 2 options would give me the better rip.

I would first do both & listen to the results. If one has fewer audible glitches then your choice is obvious. If they both sound the same then you're in to technicalities I've never bothered to spend time on, sorry.

[Skybrowser]

isnt that what hydrogen audio is all about? the technicalities?
I am just looking for an answer as to whether i should use 'burst mode' or 'secure mode' with the 'stop rip on sync or read errors' option turned off in order to get a better rip.

[twostar]

Try ripping with another drive and/or another ripper like dBpoweramp and foobar2000. If you get 2 rips with the same MD5, then that would be your best bet.

[pdq]

isnt that what hydrogen audio is all about? the technicalities?
I am just looking for an answer as to whether i should use 'burst mode' or 'secure mode' with the 'stop rip on sync or read errors' option turned off in order to get a better rip.

I think that what you are being told is that neither of these is a good choice and that there is no way to tell which will give the rip with the least problems. If you are determined to go this route then flip a coin.

Look seriously at the alternatives that were presented though, because there are some very good suggestions there.

[odyssey]

Also try limiting the drivespeed to the lowest possible. Then try either Burst or Secure mode. I've had quite good success with this. Also try different drives is a good recommendation.

[spile]

Try copying the CD to another CD using Nero or similar - worth trying a few CD drives as they do seem to vary in their tendency to deal with certain discs.

[pdq]

Try copying the CD to another CD using Nero or similar

What advantage would that have over ripping in burst mode?

[DVDdoug]

Skybrowser,

You didn't mention the SOUND. Can you HEAR the defects?

When I get an uncorrectable error, of course it "bothers me". But if I can't hear it, I try to forget about it... And in time I actually do forget... I can't remember which CDs/tracks had inaudible ripping errors!

isnt that what hydrogen audio is all about? the technicalities?

As far as I can tell HA is all about the technicalities of SOUND!

P.S.
Of course, if we can get a bit-perfect copy we are assured of perfectly preserving the sound.

This post has been edited by DVDdoug: May 13 2010, 19:05

[Andavari]

I've got a handful of audio CDs which are impossible to rip with EAC's secure mode. What I did since EAC detects my Sony Optiarc DVDRW drive as non-caching was to rip with CDex using Paranoia Full which has given me audible error-free rips after listening to the whole albums multiple times.

Some of the issues I've had with discs are because of the drive used, some drives just don't get along at all with some discs, can't detect the disc at all, and require a different drive be used to rip them. Most of my drive issues were with drives newer than 2007, my old 2003 Teac has no issues.

This post has been edited by Andavari: May 13 2010, 20:52

[greynol]

That is an excellent example of some of the difficulties with DAE and how to address them.

Andavari, in the case of discs that won't rip with EAC's secure mode, did you find that burst mode gave you audible problems?

This post has been edited by greynol: May 13 2010, 21:05

[Andavari]

Andavari, in the case of discs that won't rip with EAC's secure mode, did you find that burst mode gave you audible problems?

Those discs that EAC has serious difficulties with, i.e.; secure mode reporting no errors there was no difference in burst mode since the discs would still freeze my system. In other words I couldn't use EAC at all on those discs, it's like the discs were incompatible. I find it interesting how CDex in Paranoia Full mode could rip those discs with no audible errors using the same drive. Perhaps a drive problem with EAC?

One disc in particular that I can remember off the top of my head is 'Little Caesar - 1990 - Little Caesar' would cause EAC to completely freeze which would also freeze Windows about halfway through ripping it requiring a bad shutdown of the machine to get unfrozen. This happened three times before I gave up using EAC to rip it and then properly putting a warning note on the CD not to rip with EAC.

Those problem discs are all old audio CDs though, so I know it has absolutely nothing to do with any copy-protection/copy-damage.

[Skybrowser]

to answer your question DOUG, no you can't hear the defects. So i guess i will try other drives or other ripping programs. Don't you have to pay for DBPoweramp though? I've never tried that one or Foobar before, and it took me quite a while to learn how to configure EAC properly so i'm not really looking forward to looking up more walkthroughs for more programs.

[DVDdoug]

to answer your question DOUG, no you can't hear the defects. So i guess i will try other drives or other ripping programs... so i'm not really looking forward to looking up more walkthroughs for more programs.

It's up to you if you want to put additional effort and/or money into this... Like I said, if you can't hear the defect you can ignore it.

Don't you have to pay for DBPoweramp though?

There are three different versions of dBpoweramp, including a FREE version.

I believe all 3 versions use AccurateRip, so you can confirm a perfect rip. But, you already know that you're not getting perfect rips, and the pay-versions have more ripping options.

[Skybrowser]

So i tried using a different ripping program and i got some interesting results.

I used Cueripper in paranoid mode and it gave me all the tracks with a quality of 100% BUT the problem track.... being the first track on this specific album shows 2 suspicious positions in the log.

I'm not sure whether the positions are at 11 and 13 seconds or 11 and 13 milliseconds. But i listened through the first 15 seconds of the track a good 10 times and it seems audibly perfect. I will link the log and you guys can tell me what you think about the situation. Although cueripper does say 'track quality 100%' for that track.

CODE

CUERipper v2.0.9 Copyright © 2008-10 Gregory S. Chudov

EAC extraction logfile from 26. May 2010, 13:07

In Medias Res / Of What Was

Used drive : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H10N Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
Sample format : 44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
---------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0:00.00 | 2:57.36 | 0 | 13310
2 | 2:57.36 | 2:40.59 | 13311 | 25369
3 | 5:38.20 | 3:45.18 | 25370 | 42262
4 | 9:23.38 | 5:42.73 | 42263 | 67985
5 | 15:06.36 | 5:47.21 | 67986 | 94031
6 | 20:53.57 | 5:27.49 | 94032 | 118605
7 | 26:21.31 | 5:35.71 | 118606 | 143801
8 | 31:57.27 | 0:55.49 | 143802 | 147975
9 | 32:53.01 | 7:33.04 | 147976 | 181954
10 | 40:26.05 | 4:44.68 | 181955 | 203322


Track 1

Filename C:\Users\Chris\Music\In Medias Res\2003 - Of What Was\01. Idèe Fixe.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Suspicious position 0:00:11
Suspicious position 0:00:13 - 0:00:14

Peak level 96.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 9ECA851C
Copy CRC 9ECA851C
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 2

Filename C:\Users\Chris\Music\In Medias Res\2003 - Of What Was\02. Wise Investors.wav

Peak level 96.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 5552200D
Copy CRC 5552200D
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 3

Filename C:\Users\Chris\Music\In Medias Res\2003 - Of What Was\03. Shakeher.wav

Peak level 96.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 1372F0D4
Copy CRC 1372F0D4
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 4

Filename C:\Users\Chris\Music\In Medias Res\2003 - Of What Was\04. A Cause For Concern.wav

Peak level 96.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC C1B83968
Copy CRC C1B83968
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 5

Filename C:\Users\Chris\Music\In Medias Res\2003 - Of What Was\05. You Know You Don't Know.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:01.00

Peak level 96.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 193B05FF
Copy CRC 193B05FF
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 6

Filename C:\Users\Chris\Music\In Medias Res\2003 - Of What Was\06. Assembly Lines.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:01.33

Peak level 96.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 7FC77BEF
Copy CRC 7FC77BEF
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 7

Filename C:\Users\Chris\Music\In Medias Res\2003 - Of What Was\07. Annadonia.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:00.09

Peak level 96.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC C8B2A4A2
Copy CRC C8B2A4A2
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 8

Filename C:\Users\Chris\Music\In Medias Res\2003 - Of What Was\08. Tail End Of A Car Crash.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.46

Peak level 52.1 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 48C30739
Copy CRC 48C30739
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 9

Filename C:\Users\Chris\Music\In Medias Res\2003 - Of What Was\09. Of What Was.wav

Peak level 97.2 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC E1E394BE
Copy CRC E1E394BE
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 10

Filename C:\Users\Chris\Music\In Medias Res\2003 - Of What Was\10. Silence Calls.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.46

Peak level 84.1 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 8F6BC30F
Copy CRC 8F6BC30F
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK


None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

There were errors

End of status report