Hey,
I am a DJ and looking to back up some of my CD's and possibly play them digitally in the future. I am using EAC v 0.9 beta 4 with the Chris Myden Uber settings and lame 3.90.2 using alt-preset standard.

My questions are...
What is a 'normal' time to rip the CD to wave?
It is taking me about 25-30 minutes to rip the CD to Wave. Is it my drive? or settings? (listed below)

Also it takes LAME a long time to encode the tracks. When I rip a few CD's to wave, the lame engine is still working in the background for a long time.

Also, what is the best way to copy a CD? If I have an original that I want to keep mint and just take a copy with me in case of theft or damage. Is Nero CD-copy ok?

Thanks in advance, this forum rocks!

Used drive : TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1212 Adapter: 1 ID: 1
Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, NO disable cache
Combined read/write offset correction : 0
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\lame.exe (LAME MP3 Encoder)
128 kBit/s
Additional command line options : --alt-preset standard

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Installed external ASPI interface

one more thing, my computer is fairly old Pentium 3 500 with 384 MB of RAM, will that make a big difference in ripping speeds?

37 views?
At least tell me how long it takes you to rip to wave with EAC. Is 30 mins considered normal? At that rate it will take me forever to rip 300 CD's. 300 * 30 minutes = a whole week of 24/7 ripping!

I can't tell you, how fast is your drive in secure ripping.

I can only tell you, that LAME --alt preset standard on a P3 500 MHz (I owe one) is about 1.5x realtime.

So it will take long, believe me.

Edit: And tell me, why are you flooding this topic instead of editing the first post?

1. I don't know what is Chris Myden Uber settings.
2. Use LAME 3.90.3 - it produces slightly bigger and better files (and it is standart for now) and works slightly faster.
3. You can use Fast APS - produces slightly bigger files and maybe slightly worse files, but works almost twice faster than APS.

deMon,
Thanks for suggesting lame 3.90.3. I'll use that from now on.
As for the Uber settings, its just a profile with certain settings for EAC. Its supposed to tweak EAC to provide a high quality rip. I listed some settings from a log file in my first post, do those look "OK" to you. I can find more settings if you think changing one could afffect the speed.

Thanks again for the answers, this stuff is confusing and I just want to make sure I am getting the best quality at the fastest speed possible.

I just ripped a CD with my other Drive and it only took 7:32!!!
Is this a secure rip? Here is the log file

EAC extraction logfile from 6. December 2003, 10:38 for CD
Various / Century Mb-03

Used drive : TDK CDRW241040B Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, NO disable cache
Combined read/write offset correction : 0
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\lame.exe (LAME MP3 Encoder)
128 kBit/s
Additional command line options : --alt-preset standard

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Installed external ASPI interface

Seems to be secure, but I'm not sure, if this drive doesn't cache audio...

Better do 'autodetect drive features' procedure first.

Im pretty sure that I have drive caching audio DISABLED

I read that even if the drive CAN cache audio, you still want to DISABLE EAC from using that capability.

Does "NO disable cache" in the log mean that drive caching is disabled?

Exactly the opposite.

NO means that the caching isn't disabled.

I just checked and I didnt check the tab "Drive caches audio data" in the Drive Options/Extraction menu, should I check that to disable EAC from using cache?

I'm assuming that since that drive is caching audio, that is why it is going so fast. What are the downsides to this? Will the rip still be secure?

Thanks again

And again exactly the opposite.

Caching makes the secure copying harder to make. In secure ripping you have to read every sector twice and compare results. If drive caches audio, the second read is done from the cache instead from the CD (which is of course bad) --- thus EAC must flush the cache before the second read --- thus it takes more time.

So you should check 'drive chaches...', if it actually caches. The rips will be slower, of course.

I understand now, thanks for the explanation.

One more question, whats the fastest and most accurate way to copy a CD? Will Nero CD-copy do the job? Will two CD rom drives make the process faster, one reading and one writing?

Thanks again

Most of CD-drives cache audio. So autodetect it on scratched some CD several times. Even if drives caches audio on one of test - you should check it.

The most accurate copy would be done in EAC using 'copy image and create cue sheet'.

Nero cd-copy is probably a burst copy, there may be some routines to synchronize the readings, I really didn't used it before.

And on-the fly copy from CD-reader to CD-writer will never be considered secure. I don't recommend it.