This guide is now becoming out of date, but should still give a very good start. I have not personally used EAC since some time mid-07. I now strongly suggest using dBpoweramp Reference. Note, EAC is free, dBpoweramp is not, plus to get the real benefits you need the better (ie more expensive package - Reference, not powerpack). However, dBpoweramp outperforms EAC in secure ripping on drives with C2 handling (basically most modern drives), being both faster and more reliable. In my experience dBamp is also more stable than EAC. dBpoweramp is also being actively developed and updated. Spoon, its developer, is an active member here at HA. dBpoweramp is much easier to set up and configure, but a guide will be added after dBpowerAMP R13 (which now supports HTOA and PerfectMeta) goes final.

First, install EAC V0.95, Accurate Rip and configure with a key disk, and FLAC

EAC Options:

Extraction Tab
[X] Fill up missing offset samples with silence *Optional. For drives that overread lead in/out this is not needed.*
[ ] No use of null samples for CRC calculations *Doesnt change audio*
[X] Synchronize between tracks
[ ] Delete leading and trailing silent blocks
[X] Skip track extraction on read or sync errors (wont affect rip, but I check yes for next 3)
[X] Skip track extraction after duration longer than X times realtime
[X] After each 30 minutes of extraction, cool down the drive for 5 mins
[X] Lock drive tray during extraction
Extraction and compression priority: Normal
Error recovery quality: Medium **this is a change from my previous recommendation. This will decrease the number of error bars from 5 to 3. I have never had a rip go past 3 bars (really usually only 2 at most) and have an error free rip. Save the time. Plus its easier on your drive.

General Tab
doesnt matter for ripping.

Tools Tab
[X] Retrieve UPC/ISRC codes in CUE sheet generation
[X] Use CD-Text information in CUE sheet generation
[ ] Create '.m3u' playlist on extraction - **user option
[X] Automatically write status report on extraction
[X] On extraction, start external compressors queued in the background [1] - **user option.
[X] Do not open external compressor window - **user option
[X] Submit drive features after detection
[ ] Activate beginner mode, disable all advanced features

Normalization Tab
NOT CHECKED!!!

Filename Tab
Naming Scheme: %A - %C - %N - %T (or as you prefer, check EAC's FAQ.txt)
Various Artists: %C - %N - %A - %T (see above)

Catalog Tab
Not important

Directories Tab
**user option.

Write Tab
Nothing to do with extraction here

Interface Tab
Not so important, you can use the Native one



Drive Options

Extraction Method Tab
Secure Mode (after "detect read features" option is used, with appropriate settings)
**It is also reasonable to use Burst Mode if you always use Shift-F6 (Test & Copy). It has been argued that this is more secure then secure mode and its tends to be faster. Burst mode alone (without Test & Copy) is not secure!
[X] Drive caches audio data (clears the drive cache)
[ ] Drive is capable of C2

Drive Tab
Autodetect for drive read command
[ ] Big endian
[ ] Swap channels
[X] Spin up before extraction

Offset / Speed Tab
Offset locked by AccurateRip
Overread into lead-in and lead-out data (You will need to test this one on a disc, if you get a read sync error on the first or last track of a new CD your drive cant overread and the option should be unchecked - this will mean that you loose the number of samples equal to your drive offeset on either the first or last song, the only solution is a different drive)
[X] Allow speed reduction during extraction
[X] CD-Text Read capable drive

Gap Detection Tab
Gap/Index retreval method: per drive setting (start with method A or B)
Detection Accuracy: Secure (some prefer to use accurate)


Compression Options

External Compression Tab
[X] Use external compression
User defined encoder
Use file extension: .flac
Program including path: -browse and select flac.exe-
Additional Command Line Options:
-6 -V -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" -T comment="%e" -T "comment=EAC (Secure Mode)" %s
Bitrate: Doesn't matter
[X] Delete WAV after compression
[ ] Use CRC check
[ ] Add ID3 tag
[X] Check for external compression return code

Offset Tab
[ ] Use offset detection for encoding and decoding Do NOT check this as it will add gaps to gapless music

When ripping the tracks, I suggest using Shift-F6 (test & copy) to decrease the chance of having a bad rip go undetected. The CRCs should match for the T&C, if they don't there is a problem.

You may want to look for a drive that can overread into the lead in and lead out. You will need to get this feature to get 100% perfect copies of CDs, though you probably wont notice if you dont have it. A list of drive features can be found here:
DAE Drive Feature Database - look for green in the overread column. The smaller the read offset the better too.

Plextors are almost a universally good choice. I strongly suggest investing in a Plextor since you will be archiving your CD collection. Do it once and do it right. In addition, there is a switch available that works for most Plextor drives that disables the drives cache. This gives burst mode speeds (often >30x) in secure mode. Search the forum for the -USEFUA switch if you have a plextor drive.

Edit: Removed broken links.

About used commandline options:

Why -8? If we'll read comparison at http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html, we can see that -8 gives 55min to compression VS 12min at -5, and win 2.5MB from 413MB total. Is here a sense?

Why -V? Isn't it paranoya?

Why do you suggest to include the CD title with various artists albums & not with single artist albums?

I didn't see anywere on the flac page what speed cpu they were using to encode but on my 1.4 Ghz xp it take usually only slightly more time to compress at -8 than to rip so seems like -8 makes sense.

encoding to -5 vs -8, on most modern computers will see little difference in encoding time. Plus encoding is a 1 time thing, so its my opinion that a little space savings is worth it. That being said, -5 is perfectly acceptable

Aritist
Thank you for this guide.

Because I'm working at time the flac is compressing. And i have not give any cpu_time for flac if isn't sense for this. About sense I've said: 55min vs 12min, when 411MB vs 413 MB differense.

2_PachmanP
http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html, that's here. I don'n know how to refer into middle of page, so find himself:
In the table with upper words "Here are the summary results for all codecs and all modes:", where column headers are "codec", "encode time", ''Decode time", "Compressed size", etc.
Here see two rows:
flac 1.1.1 (-8) 55:02.38 7:07.59 411.88 MB ...
flac 1.1.1 (-5, default) 12:54.19 7:08.80 413.46 MB ...

This would result in files named

TrackNumber-Title (for same artist albums)
CDTitle-TrackNumber-TrackTitle (for various artists)

& are you suggesting various artist albums not have folders at all?

Still doesn’t make sense to me


The directories tab is obviously not meant for this, it’s meant for creating a standard extraction directory such as “EAC Rips”. Folder & file name constructions should be defined in the Filename tab.




If unsure, these are the drive features I would suggest, they are the most generic & safest.

oops, your right. Fixed

and drives, which don't have accurate stream ?


I have collected guides at www.high-quality.ch.vu = users' high quality Audio guides & tutorials for EAC exactaudiocopy, Musepack mpc & various Lossless formats like Flac, Wavepack, Monkey's Audio Ape.

I go there through the whole procedure of configuring drives.
and useful flac setting are there, too, though I need some time for a general update of the guides, but they offer high value of information, even now.

Meanwhile personally I switched from flac -V (default) -5 to flac -V -8 , just to have those bit extra compression.
I encode most of my music still at P3-800 MHz, flac -8 is "speedy" for encoding (about 3x realtime of the music playtime iirc).

I used some time wavpack 4.1 -h -m ,
then wavpack 4.1 -x -m ,
the wavpack -x mode (x = extra , h = high mode) sqeezes space whilst offering nearly same decoding speed like flac.
But unfortunately, wavpack 4.1 -x -m encodes only in 1x speed, realtime of the playtime music, on my system, the reason, why I went back to flac -8 for the moment.

(user)


Every modern drive supports accurate stream just have a look at one of the drive settings databases. Anyway if your drive jitters & you have accurate stream enabled you will receive an error from EAC.

(Eli)


File names should be as short as possible & because there is no need for them I think you should remove the the spaces.

To be consistent with your scheme you should add “Various Artists“ or “VA“ as the artist name for various artist albums.




would result in

Folder name = Artist-Album
File Name = TrackNumber-TrackTitle & TrackNumber-Artist-TrackTitle for various artists

the ideal naming scheme

Well there are many different naming schemes, and I would argue that this is NOT the ideal, but its up to personal choice really.

I personally am divided between:

Artist/Album/# - Title

and

Artist/Album/Artist - Album - # - Title

The first option relies on the folder directory for part of the info (though all of it is stored in tags). The second option uses folders for easy navigation, but has all of the song info in the name so it can stand alone.

The only thing I've ever found with the second choice is if the title, artist, and album names are really long (mostly with Classical music with symphony names in the artist) is that the tracks cannot be recorded easily to DVDs because of filename length limitations. This is even with UDF style formatting, but is seldom a problem unless you are running checksum or parity applications.

-Cal

My ideal naming scheme :

Artist/(Year) Album/nn. Title.flac

-Martin.

Easily solved with a single FLAC image and cuesheet.

A couple of reasons as to why i prefer multiple tracks(without Cue Sheet) over images :

When ripping to multiple tracks, then the gaps are also perfectly copied(exept the part after the first 2 seconds - if present, of the pregap before track one), they are just not marked, which only means that i will not see a negative countdown between the tracks on the CD players display if burned to disc...

Many often say that they prefer images over multiple tracks because that they only have 'one file'(or two - if the Cue Sheet isn't embedded). When i rip an album to multiple tracks, then i have 'one directory' which holds the album + the tracks inside...

When ripping an album in EAC and one track has a read/sync error, then i go back and re-rip that single track until it's error free(if possible). If i ripped to image + Cue Sheet, then i would have to re-rip the entire CD again untill error free...

-Martin.

Hi Martin,

very good summary, why I prefer ripping to single tracks, too, no huge image file.

May I copy your text, and implement(&reference to your nickname) it one day to www.High-Quality.ch.vu , if I find time for an update ?

shouldn't this be on? one could argue that samples that are zero don't matter anyway but i see it this way: the length of a track is information, too. by cutting some samples off you are modifying information that could otherwise easily be preserved.

edit: that is also the sentiment why i rip full images + cue as opposed to single tracks. track gaps are information. by throwing them away you throw away information.

thoughts?

I agree with TCM, I think this box should be CHECKED as well for the reasons listed.

In response to TCM's gap comment:

Rip full images + cue doesn't work with Test & Copy.

Track gap info can be retained by ripping with "gaps apppended to previous track" and creating a cue sheet with noncompliant mode. Append to previous track makes sense when thinking about how cd player and PC audio player would play the tracks.

The only downside with append to previous track is if the CD contained audio in the pregap before track 1, then it had no track to append to and the track is lost. Music hidden in track 1 pregap would have to be found on a CD player by starting track 1 and rewinding to hear it. To rip it I would use rip by Index for track 1 only and delete track 1 and save track 1 pregap (which i rename to track 0)

A good track 1 pregap solution for EAC was suggested here:
http://www.digital-inn.de/showthread.php?t=28892
6th post down

Maybe Andre will implement the suggestion if enough people desire it?

i can and do easily overcome this by just doing the whole process twice. after all, you get a checksum displayed at the end for full images, too.

I have a related question regarding “Fill up missing offset samples with silence” in EAC. I too am ripping to FLAC using EAC ( I am ripping individual tracks, not images with cue sheets). I have a Plextor Premium (external USB model) with the offset configured using AccurateRip. I have ripped about 40 CD’s so far and I think everything is going fine. The EAC report always shows “No Errors Occurred.” The AccurateRip results vary against the database…it most cases I get all tracks accurately ripped although in some cases I get a message indicating that my CD is most likely a different pressing than the one stored in the database.

I have alternated using “Fill up missing offset samples with silence” and I don’t see a difference in either the EAC or the AccurateRip results. Given that I am using the Plextor Premium (which supports over-ride into lead-in and lead-out…which I do have selected in EAC), is it safe to assume that I am getting rips with no missing samples; thus making the missing offset samples with silence selection irrelevant. Is there any way for me to verify (beyond what I am already doing) that I am getting a bit for bit perfect copy? Thanks in advance for your help.

Correct. If you have a drive that over reads, you don't have any missing samples to fill up with silence. The option doesn't have any effect in that case.

Thanks for the response. Should I be doing something else to verify my rips to make sure that they are perfect bit for bit copies?

[quote=lmpine,Aug 4 2005, 03:21 PM]
[/quote]
Thanks for the response. Should I be doing something else to verify my rips to make sure that they are perfect bit for bit copies?

[/quote]

Matching CRCs with EAC's Test & Copy function in Burst or Secure is about as good as you will get at this point. Even better if that matches with AccurateRip results which says you got the same thing as someone else. You aren't really going to get bit for bit copies unless you address a whole lot of other issues like whether or not the beginning of the CD are null samples, whether you can overwrite in those cases, whether you have detected and handled CD-TEXT, ISRC codes, etc., etc. Be glad you get identical audio data and leave it at that

Test & Copy? The fact that accurate stream can result in different CRC's kind of worries me. Doing Test & Copy makes it a little bit more secure, but there is a chance that T&C passes and its still not a 100% bit for bit copy.

One time I had a problematic track on a scratched cd. I reripped it numerous times w/T&C, and I had matching T&C CRC's occur twice out of about 6 to 10 tries. The two sets of matching T&C CRC's were different.... I didn't truly trust EAC had ripped it ok.

For example:

Track 6:
Test CRC: Blah123
Copy CRC: Blah123

and ripping again until they both match...

Track 6:
Test CRC: Doh!456
Copy CRC: Doh!456

Uh oh, they match each other, but not if I rip multiple times!

Test & Copy seems to be useful because it can give you a heads up that the track might be suspicious.

Problably the best way would be to rip (which you are doing already, lmpine) with an offset corrected drive with EAC in secure mode (accurate rip enabled) and compare your hashes to the database of ripped cd's. Keep in mind the 1st and last track may have different hashes because of a drive's inability to overread into lead in/lead out.

from what i understand, the "more sophisticated" settings of eac (accurate stream, c2, cache) only serve to speed the process up if the drive supports it. turning accurate stream and c2 off and turning "drive caches audio" on will increase the safety of the rip while making the process slower. what were your other settings when you got different checksum each time while not changing any settings? from personal experience i can tell that c2 error checking with lite-on drives is to be avoided.

I was using a Lite On drive , but I was using the safest (slowest) settings:
Secure Mode with Accurate Stream, Drive Caches Audio checked, C2 not checked.

I was sometimes getting matching CRC's with T&C, sometimes not matching. I did notice the CRC's it came up with would occur again, so it wasnt totally random. Mind you, the drive would slow down considerably at the rough spots of that track.

Thank's user.

Yes, and thank you very much.

AccurateRip cuts 4 sectors of the start of the first track and 4 sectors of the end of the last track when calculating CRC's to avoid overreading issues...

-Martin.

OK...I am back and need some more help. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I am getting good results with EAC to FLAC using AccurateRip. I am, however, getting some wierd AccurateRip results at times. According to AccurateRip, the vast majority of CD's that I am ripping are either accurately Ripped, not in the database, or a different pressing. There are several, however, that are giving me accurate rips on individual tracks and then non-accurate rips on other tracks. In some cases the non-accurate rips are the first and/or the last tracks on the CD. In other cases, the non-accurate track is a random track on the middle of the CD and all other tracks are stating that they are accurately ripped.

I assumed that the non-accurate rips on the first and the last track were related to the fact that my drive over-reads into lead-in and lead-out and that this might throw off the results (I get no errors occurred from EAC). But, what about tracks in the middle of a CD? There is one more wierd thing...when I take one of the tracks that gets a non-accurate rip from AccurateRip and rip it individually as opposed to ripping it with the whole CD, Accurate now tells me it is accurately ripped. What is going on?

AccurateRip cuts 4 sectors from the beginning of the first track, and 4 sectors from the end of the last track when calculating CRC's, to avoid overreading issues...

Re-ripping corrected the error...

-Martin.

Thanks for the reply. Sorry for being dense, but I am not following. Re-ripping only corrects the error when I rip the track individually. If I rip all the tracks on the CD at once, I get the same error. Why would I get different results?

Thanks for the reply. Sorry for being dense, but I am not following. Re-ripping only corrects the error when I rip the track individually. If I rip all the tracks on the CD at once, I get the same error. Why would I get different results?

[/quote]

Have you carried out reripping cd at once 10 times, and the suspicious tarck ripping individually, too, 10 times ?
Only then you could claim, that only ripping track individually leads to accurate rip.
I assume, ther eis alight scartch/damage on the CD, which would lead in EAC to crc mismatches/accurate rip to inaccurate rip, but which can be corrected, read out correctly by chance, ie. by rerip in EAC (you will notice by comparing crcs in eac logs, that 1 of the crcs happened already in the 1st mismatch rip), or by rerip in accurate rip.

Only a matching CRC in EAC or a match in AccurateRip will actually tell you if you have ZERO errors in the read. EAC may report no errors but still not have a perfect rip.

That said, -5 is totally unacceptable. if you are too lazy to wait the almost unnoticable time to have smaller files that will take less disk space on your hard drive and/or DAP then don't even bother in the first place.

I've observed different benchmaks. The difference between -5 and -8 speed is tremendous.

Are you guys using special optimized compiled builds of FLAC? Specific CPUs?

On a IBM ThinkPad laptop, I see the following throughputs for FLAC (converting 465 gigabytes worth of WAVs -- about 850 CDs):

• flac -1 : 8.7 megabytes/sec processed WAVs (14.7 hours total to encode)
• flac -5 : 6.3 megabytes/sec processed WAVs (20.3 hours total to encode)
• flac -8 : 1.7 megabytes/sec processed WAVs (73 hours total to encode)

I get slightly faster results on Intel D865PERL 3.2GHz and Intel D975XBX D940 3.2GHz --- but the performance ratio between -5 and -8 stay the same. I don't have AMD processors to compare to. I also don't think the new Core 2 Duo procs will change the ratio of performance between -5 and -8 either.

So the difference between -5 (less than a day to encode 850 CDs) vs -8 (more than 3 days to encode) is more than 2 days! Waiting 49 extra hours for number crunching seems pretty significant to me. But I guess it's all relative.

So what's your threshold for "almost unnoticable" ?

My experience is not based on such large scale encodings and certainly the time differnce adds up to be significant. However, when ripping and encoding, my encoding is typically able to keep pace with the ripping as the ripping tends to be the limiting factor.

Ah yes... that's the key point I overlooked. I never encode as I rip.

I also had to encode to FLAC twice: once as single file FLAC images and once again as FLAC individual tracks so I was hyper-aware of how fast FLAC actually works. I also have large-scale benchmarks for LAME and NeroAAC ... they're slow too but not quite as slow as flac -8.

Let me see if I understood this thread:

To get a bit-by-bit perfect CD copy:
(Considering EAC/AccurateRip/keydisc/Offset number are all configured and OK)

#1 - You MUST rip in ANY MODE but it has to be with Test & Copy, and it MUST match the CRCs.
#2 - You MUST have an AccurateRip log saying tracks are Accurately Ripped with, preferably, a very high confidence number (let's say over 30).
#3 - Your MUST have the "Over-read lead in / lead out" feature supported by your drive, and if it doesn't support it, nothing that you've done to this point guaranteed you a actual perfect rip. (Eg. If I have a LEAD-OUT only drive, I am fooling myself to think that my rips are perfect.)

About the Lead-In/Lead-Out feature that is required to achieve 100% perfect CD copies (a feature that only Plextors have got):

I am trying to understand here... You mean "100% PERFECT RIPS" as a PERFECT CD layer copy. Or do you mean PERFECT AUDIO DATA copy?

Does this lead-in/lead-out uncapacity TOUCHES the result of actual AUDIO DATA? if my drive has only the LEAD OUT or LEAD IN can it still extract perfect audio data, but not perfect cd layer copy?

-Test & Copy does not guarantee you an error-free copy, regardless of the mode used.
-It is possible to get an error-free copy without having ever generated a test CRC.

-This is about all you need, though I'd say a confidence of 1 is adequate if you know that you aren't comparing to your own submission. If you are comparing to your own submission then this is the same as getting matching CRCs from a Test & Copy.

-Per your example of the lead-out, this only affects the very end of the last track on the disc. If the samples that require overreading are silent, this setting makes no difference.

-The part of your quote that I put in bold print is false.

So far, with the points that you have raised, only perfect audio data.

Audio data and hence not a perfect copy, but again only for discs that have non-silent data in the area requiring overreading.

There is a difference between getting a perfect rip and knowing you have a perfect rip. Much of the guide is dedicated toward KNOWing you have a perfect rip. There are a few ways to judge your rip:

-quality of rip in secure mode
-matching crcs in T&C
-matching AR results 1 is ok, anything >2 (not your submissions) is great and probably as good as anything greater

You can get perfect rips with just about any ripper, but the thing is there is almost know way to judge the quality of your rip with most rippers.

let me see if I understood this...

Not even Secure Mode (with or without drive features enabled), not even burst mode, not even CRC checks, not even re-ripping and getting that same CRCs, not even testing & copying instead of just copying, etc, NONE of this will ACTUALLY TELL YOU you KNOW you have a perfect rip... this according to what greynol said?

And the only saviour in this story is AccurateRip if you get like 20 confidences per track (like all my tracks say) will actually tell you you KNOW you have a perfect copy... and apart from that, "PERFECT" as in a PERFECT CD LAYER copy, sector by sector, a 100% physical replication, and if all before is not PERFECT, if you get a sample filled with silence, etc, the ACTUAL AUDIO DATA might be absolutely perfect !!??

I use Test & Copy in burst mode or in secure mode w/C2 and -usefua using my PX-716A and normally rely on matching CRCs to give me some confidence that there wasn't an error if AccurateRip can't give me a conclusive result.

What Eli is failing to tell you is that errors can be consistent, in which case you'll get matching CRCs, yet the result is that you have an error. IOW, a pair of matching CRCs is NO GUARANTEE that a rip is without error.

I have seen consistent errors while using secure mode though I have never personally identified a consistent error while using burst mode, though this is certainly still possible.

With AccurateRip, I see no reason why it would take a confidence of greater than one to guarantee yourself a perfect rip if you aren't comparing to a result that you provided previously. What are the chances that someone else is going to rip a track in error in exactly the same way?

Also, with AccurateRip, be aware that the first 5 audio frames of the first track and last 5 audio frames of the last track are not compared in order to compensate for the lack of overreading between different drives. In addition to HTOA and perhaps very short tracks (like filler tracks), it is clear that AccurateRip is not set up to compare all the audio data from a CD.

As far as "PERFECT CD LAYER" vs. "PERFECT AUDIO DATA" one is a subset of the other. My focus here is on the latter.

This is correct, but very very rare and also why I use so many other methods to detect an accurate rip. I have had a few rips that EAC reports as 99.8 or 9 (never 100)% quality, that AR has been able to show as inaccurate. I have been able to idenify maybe 1 or 2 tracks in about 30k+ track rips that have had matching CRCs with T&C (I personally use secure mode with -usefua in T&C).

I've seen plenty of 100% rips that AR says is inaccurate. Some have been consistent errors, some haven't been. When AccurateRip says something isn't accurate it isn't always correct. You may have a different pressing or the results may be skewed through questionable submissions (the database is not free from CD-R entries or piracy). When it says a rip isn't accurate, the confidence of the inaccuracy isn't as meaningful as the confidences for the tracks from the disc that it says were accurate.

I've also ripped many thousands of tracks in addition to seeing over a thousand log files for rips I did not make. It isn't about how many tracks you've ripped, it's about the types of defects your discs have.

Sorry for taking this thread this far off-topic.

greynol, I think we are saying the same thing. I basically use T&C for when AR does not have the disc in the database. While T&C is not perfect, it is very reliable. Same goes for EAC in secure mode - not perfect but very reliable. My recs basically set up a number of ways to verify: AR - this is the best; T&C - reliable; Secure Mode - reliable

Even -5 is too much compared what you win with it. Best ratio between encoding-speed and resulting size brings -4.

well, I read your explanations.... but the funny thing is that they are telling me exactly what I said...

I came to the conclusion that if AccurateRip does not show a confidence of at least, let's say, 10... you have no way to claim the show EAC performed was accurate, (well I know over 3 is probably a good number of confidence, but let's not give margin to errors...) of course it might look reliable, and you might take a guess that it was reliable. Sorry but that's what I conclude!

Quick question: does the "Spin Up Drive Before Ripping" option always have to be checked, or is it drive dependent? How could one test whether or not it's causing a problem? (disabling it almost halves the time my Pioneer A05 takes to rip an album..)

no, unchecking it will usually make the ripps faster. In fact I dont use it unless I am having a problem with a rip and have had a number of problem rips that spin up fixed. I made it the default to make the guide easier for new users to follow.



You are correct. You cannot say with with 100% confidence that the rip is !00% accurate. But if you have a rip quality of >99.8% and matching T&C you cannot do any better. If you are really uncertain and have multiple drives you can do a Test in one drive and the Copy in a second drive which is basically the same as AR.

@Eli, yes we agree. I am more confident with matching CRCs in burst over secure from personal experience. Of course burst can't do anything for a disc with errors. If you're paranoid, secure rips with less than 100% quality where rereads don't occur at the end of the track deserve a test CRC, IMO.

@Bourne, how much margin for error is one really giving for an accurate rip confidence of 1 when it was a submission from a different disc? A consistent error from the same disc is one thing, but from two different discs???