i've read somewhere that the best version of eac is the 09b4 one. why is that. the latest beta version is not tested so much? or don't they have much difference?

somewhere along the line EAC removed some "special" features.

i'm not exactly sure when, cuz i've been using debian the last 3 or so years...


later

starting with 0.95pb4, the manual TOC feature wasn't inlcuded anymore. if you don't need that it's probbably best to use the latest version. no problems here with 0.95pb5.

Also 09b4 has a installer and the additional C2 feature "use C2 information for error correction".

I wouldn't call that a big plus ^^

It is for some people (not me, but check alot of the new people posting recently).

haha!

The latest EAC has AccurateRip support, that might be enough to make it worth using. If you encounter a copyprotected CD, you can still go back to the older EAC version that has the TOC detection feature.

EAC V0.95b5 has also the function "Retrieve Native TOC" and works with copyprotected AudioCDs like a charm.

so, summing up unless you need the "use C2 information for error correction" feature (don't do drives that are able to handle C2 errors, e.g. Plextor, can do that natively or what does this option actually do?) or some copyprotected CD is not ripped properly there really is no good reason not to use the latest version as new bugfixes and enhancements went into 0.95pb5.
the only reason apart from eventual problems due to copyprotection (didn't encounter any bye the way) would be the missing installer. but that really is not much of a hassle, just extract the archive where you want it to be. a zip handler is built into WinXP which quite some Windows users are using... (not that I'm using that 'feature', external packers like WinRAR or 7-Zip are much more usable IMO).

bottom line: use the latest version if you are not sure why you shouldn't or some CD can't be properly ripped.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....79&#entry162579

Your recommendation is based on what is important for you yourself. The newest version of a program isn't always the best.
The additional C2 feature gave one times a perfect rip to me, while without it not. It was a C2 capable Plextor drive. Personally I believe Andre removed this feature because with it it may be more easy to rip copyprotected CDs.
09b4 also allows the manual setting of offsets, which I sometimes need for various reasons. 095pb5's offset options are greyed out after configuring accurip.
Also 095pb5 crashes when I try to rip in paranoid mode and with accurip configured.
That's why I'm using both versions together now. Actually I didn't bother to install any new EAC version until accurip support was available. The language selection isn't important for me, actually I'm still using English because I'm used to it.

partly, yes. though a big part of my recommendation was to make it easier for newbies to chose a version.
as I said, it may be needed to change back to an older version, though in my experience it never was. 0.95pb3 to pb5 ran stable and ripped everything for me so far. I'm happy to stand corected though, as others didn't had my luck ^^

maybe this 'what EAC version is best' should be modified and made a sticky?
the question comes along every now and then, just wondering...

The option : "Use C2 information for error correction" was removed from EAC because it was found buggy on some drives, and also because most recent drives allready themselves do interpolation on uncorrectable C2 errors, which then makes the option completely useless. -Martin.

I keep a couple of EAC versions at hand, and I got a Plextor drive. For me the latest version works best in 99% of the cases.... One strong argument for 0.95pb5 is that after the infamoust "Read error" followed by "Sync error" it doesn't have to take 48 hrs to rip the rest of the CD, as pb5 picks up speed again after "suspicious" area are passed, while former versions used a day or something when going into that mode (at least with my settings; secure mode, accurate stream; disable cache, no c2, even if it could, as I'm not sure...)

What do people think of CDex having a Binary compare feature?

what other advantages does EAC have over CDex?

Wow, your settings are even slower than mine! What are your ripping speeds, 0.00x?
Maybe I should also clear my cache, although my drive doesn't cache. I'm well-pleased about such slow ripping speeds!

Better secure mode (CDex isn't of much help on drives that cache audio data)

CUE sheet support

Well, accurip wouldn't be of much use if you could change the offset... But why the need to change the offset correction to something other than the 'correct' one? I can't see any real use for that?

Configuring the write offset? Anyways, uninstalling Accurip gives you back the power to adjust....

examples:
ripping audio from the pregap of the audio session
ripping audio from the lead out
offset shifts on newer pressings of old CDs, correcting them during ripping

Just rename accuraterip.dll in the EAC directory to achieve the same.