I am still having pops and clicks after setting up EAC (eac095pb5) with Lame encoder (Lame_3903). I actually had better results using dbPowerAmp Converter. I actually ripped about 150 songs then remembered EAC from a few years ago. I went back deleted all songs and started over. Ripped 150 more from EAC. Should have tested before I ripped all those songs. Now when I play mp3 from computer I have pops and clicks, if I burn a cd from computer and play on home stereo pops clicks and distortion and sounds like total crap. I ripped at 256 with this line --alt-preset cbr 256 %s %d. I don't know what the hell I am doing. I went through bloody hell trying to get this set this far. I might need to try a really good quality ripper that is not as complicated as EAC. I am really a novice at this. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

did you use secure mode in EAC with settings that match your drive?
for a complete guide see here.

edit: spelling

Sounds like an ASPI problem to me.....

http://www.digital-inn.de/showthread.php?t=12902

Yeah, try ForceASPI 1.7 (aka Adaptec ASPI 4.60) not 1.8

HERE

Edit: seems that there's a new 'official' website - http://www.forceaspi.tk/

I also met with clicks many times, but in 95 % they were already included either on original CD or wav, this was not a fault of conversion from wav into mp3... Check first wavs.

Rgds,

Crzmn

If you are encountering clicks & pops EAC's secure mode won't help. Try cleaning the CD.

That's strange, when i installed that ASPI, EAC wasn't able to recognize my drive.
Neither did Feurio. ASPI Check said the layer is installed successfully.
My drive is Lite-On SOHR5238S.

I believe ASPI should only be used as a last resort and before you go installing Adaptec's ASPI try Nero's, it's far less invasive and is less likely to break anything.

I always believed that ASPI is used to get EAC actually functioning, not to reduce pops and clicks.

The distortion is most likely already included onthe original CDs, the pops and clicks may also. This isn't a joke, it's the result of the shitty mastering that we have on all modern CDs. Check the original CDs using a standalone (or portable) audio CD player and a hifi headphone.

OK. I have found that I have the same problem with clicks using EAC on certain cds. Actually the CDst are quite new and have hardly any scratches. When checking them on a standalone player, the clicks don't appear so evident, if at all. I have used other audio rippers but have the same effect. Can anyone suggest a way of removing the clicks after converting to a wave file. The alternative is to rebuy the CD, which seems pointless if the first cd plays ok in a standalone player.

Perhaps the CDs are copy protected:
Copy protection causes errors on both EAC-extraction and a standalone player, but if the player can't correct an error, then it performs error hiding while EAC can't hide errors. A hidden error is much less audible than a non-hidden one.
After following the coaster tutorial mentioned above very carefully (I must highly recommend this!), watch EAC during extraction in secure mode. If the read lights don't light up or if track quality is 100%, no error correction has been performed. Then the problem is not caused by the extraction (strictly spoken). I don't know about the possible data transfer (aspi) problems.
If there's a lot of error correction, but the CDs are perfectly unscratched, it's copy protection. In the EU you can identify a copy protected CD by a remark written on the CD case (A protected "CD" (or rather just a disc) without a remark about its protection is illegal).

Its probably your drive. I used EAC for a long time and found it would eliminate a lot of pops and clicks, and make others far less audible. However, when I switched to a Lite-On drive that cached audio I found that the pops and clicks were completely gone with EAC, and with nearly every other ripper that I tried.