hi everyone... i've been reading the forums over the past week in an effort to find the 'best' method of digital extraction and i've gone done the EAC route. i've set it up on my laptop without a hitch using the guide in the faq (http://home-12.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm54044/), i've ripped some cd's and the wavs play fie in winamp.

all sounds fine so far but i've got a few of questions that i hope the collective knowledge base here will be able to answer...

1) ok, like i said i've ripped some wavs (seemingly) without difficulty. however, during the ripping process 2 very loud beeps emanate from my laptop's internal speaker from time to time. is this an error message? i've got 30gb free on my hd so space shouldn't be an issue (i'm moving to a 250gb external hd in a couple of days...), what could this be? i'm using an echo indigo soundcard so find it odd that sound is being produced from the laptop speakers at all...

2) set-up guide advises me to select 'Action | Test & Copy selected tracks | Compressed' to start ripping, irrespective of the codec i'm using. if i'm ripping to wav (or indeed any other lossless codec) why would i want to select ' Action | Test & Copy selected tracks | Compressed' and not 'Action | Test & Copy selected tracks | Uncompressed'...? does the fact i've selected wav in the config override this?

3) when i create a cue sheet via 'Action | Create CUE sheet | Multiple WAVs with gaps (noncompliant)' EAC scans my cd detecting gaps as in the config test mode. however, when it's completed the gap detection in the front window of EAC the gap between each track still says 'unknown'; i have to select 'detect gaps' from the drop down to get the gap length specified. do i need to take this extra step? is it a problem if the gap just says 'unknown'?

4) how do i enable the c2 mode? my drive's compatable with c2 and it's referred to in the user guide appendix but i can't find how to enable it...

hopefully these questions aren't too basic, i've managed to sort out everything else so i just need the above confirmed to give me ripping peace of mind

thanks in advance,

sticklebrick

1. Not sure, haven't used EAC in a while.

2. These options are no different as far as ripping is concerned. Only difference is if you want EAC to automatically launch an encoder after it rips the wavs.

3. I would play it safe and detect gaps before creating the cue sheet.

4. You should leave C2 disabled unless you know for sure that your optical drive has good C2 accuracy.

cheers, thanks for that p0wder

the c2 issue is more just a time-saving thing, i guess it seems a hassle now as i've got 200+ cd's to rip but when i'm adding to the library going forward it won't be such a hassle.

3)

Yes you can skip the gap detection without a problem. Gap info is required to create the Cue sheet, so you can be sure EAC effectively detects the gaps. Like you say, EAC says 'unknown' but actually EAC knows the gap results but just doesn't show them - i'm not sure why this is - my guess is that it is for safety reasons: so that the default gap appending is not altered by accident (such altering is the only reason for a gap detection IMO).

To convince yourself that EAC really knows the gaps:
A gap detection usually takes time (e.g. half a minute). But if you do a gap detection after EAC has made a Cue sheet, then you will notice that the job is done immediately. This is because EAC already knew where the gaps are, it didn't need to detect them.

You can also verify that a preliminary gap detection has no effect on the Cue sheet, nor on the WAVs.

4)

To enable C2, go to 'Drive options' - 'Extraction Method' - 'Drive is capable of retrieving C2 error info'.

Completely normal. They just tell you that ripping/encoding is complete. One beep after ripping to wav is complete, two beeps after all encoding is complete (if you ripped to compressed).



EAC -> Dive Options, or F10. Check "Drive is capable of retrieving C2 information". Though sometimes, that a drive "supports" C2 doesn't guarentee it's capable of doing C2 flawlessly. You can try out the "Examine C2 Feature..." button by burning an audio CD and scratching up the surface, to make sure C2 properly works and is not merely a PR stunt.

great, thanks for the replies peeps, much appreciated