OK, so I am the Real Life hypothetical guy who is starting in the digtal age with only a CD collection(about 200 and growing) and a computer ready for anything.I am literally starting from scratch,I DON"T have any software,a MP3 player or iPOD! I know you guys have been around the block with all this stuff,so I would appreciate your advice in how to set all of this up. I don't mind spending a little money if it is going to serve me well. Here is what I would like to do:

1) Catalogue all of my CDs by Artist, Album,Genre,etc. I would like to fill in the holes of my colllection,but I would like to find a way to simplify the research required to figure out what albums of various artists I am missing or if I even want these albums. I would like to figure out if my various "Greatest Hits" albums are covering my needs. I want to create a wish list and whittle it down with purchases of used CDs from Ebay or something.Is there something a little simpler than running searches on various artists and making lists?

2)Digitize my CD collection. I need to convert my CDs to digital format.I am looking to get the software needed to convert to the types of files I need.Do you have any tips for preserving the highest sound quality? I enjoy listening to my music at home on my stereos or in the car,not a fan of the ear bud yet. What types of files will suit my needs? What is the best way to backup my collection from loss,fire,computer crash?

3) Be able to Create My Own "Albums" by creating groups of 20 songs based on genre,mood or whatever,for the times I don't wish to listen to an entire album or the inconvenience of playing individual songs

4)Purchase the Components I need.Not sure what I need for playing my digitized music now,or for my future needs. Want the most versatile that shouldn't be outdated next week.

5)Do I need CDs after doing all this? Should I burn new[b] CD's after doing all of this?

Sorry for being a bit long winded but I thought these topics were all related to each other so I lumped them all together.

1. I use amazon.com for this. Someone else can help you better with this.

2. If i were you, what i'd do is use a tool like MAREO, REACT and the like to automatically rip to both MP3 and Wavpack (or the lossless codec of your choice). (Be sure to read the Hydrogenaudio wiki for a guide on how to configure your CD drive with EAC to get perfect quality cd rips.) Why MP3? you mentioned listening in car, maybe you'll even get a portable. No matter which brand you buy, MP3 will always be supported. I like to have that comfort factor. If you car supports other formats, you might want to use them.

As for the lossless format, you can you any format you want. (check the Hydrogenaudio wiki for a comparison of the different formats). It doesn't make a lot of difference, and if you change your mind you can always change from format x to format y without any loss in quality.

3. these are called playlists. nearly every music player supports them.

4. someone else can help you better with this. My lowly setup is a dell laptop with a Shure E2c earphones.

5. i'd keep the cd safe. As a precaution, i'd also burn the lossless rips to a dvd and keep THEM safe too.


so basically, the things you need to do:
1. go to HA wiki and read up on how to configure Exact Audio Copy
2. again at the wiki, read up on various lossless formats
3. look at other replies and make up your mind.

hope that helps.

You'll want bit-perfect copies of your tracks, first. Do this using Exact Audio Copy, and rip right to a lossless format (FLAC or WavPack, probably).

I'd recommend using Omni Encoder with EAC... you can use it to first rip directly to lossless, and then use it to convert to Lame MP3s or whatever other formats you want. You could alternatively try MAREO or REACT like kanak said, but they're pretty intimidating to configure for first time users.

Being new to all this you would prefer a simple all-in-one solution, I think. Likely candidates are iTunes for Windows and Banshee for Linux. They digitize (rip) your CDs, compress the audio, automatically name the tracks, organize the results in a hierachy of folders (artist/album) and give you convenient access to all your music in seconds, including automated playlists based on genre , most-often-heard etc. If you register for an iTunes store account you should also get some artist/album recommendations; Banshee will do that w/o registration.

For long-term, serious backup you want lossless compression It only saves about 50% filespace (you get, say, 300MB per album) but is, well, lossless. iTunes features the Apple lossless codec, Banshee the more popular FLAC. If you are 100% sure that you will never turn into an audiophile, you can use a lossy format, like AAC for iTunes or the more popular Lame-MP3 for Banshee. iTunes AAC and LAME in Banshee at the default settings shrink albums to, say, 60 MBs. For listening to your music in the car you won't need anything higher.

If you think you could turn into an audiophile you might one day get worried that iTunes doesn't have an accurate ripping mode that checks for glitches (due to scratches, dirt etc. on the CDs) and _tries_ to repair them while ripping. (Banshee does have error correction.) In that case you should turn to the more complex ripping process of using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) for ripping to FLAC or MP3. You will find ample help on that in the Hydrogenaudio knowledge-base project.

Don't throw away your CDs, you rips are just backups - although the lossless ones are safer backups than the original CDs themselves. Make sure you have redundant backups (like store on HD and CD).

What I would do:
1. Make sure I have plenty of hard-disc space.
2. Rip to FLAC or another lossless format with EAC or dBPowerAMP.
3. Tag the FLAC files with Musicbrainz
4. Keep the cds and perhaps (if you really don't want to loose your collection), backup the FLAC files onto an (external) hard drive and store that hard drive in a safe. I believe hard disks are better for storage since cds and dvds apparently start to "rot" after a period of time.

1) good way to get new CDs is lala.com
2)I suggest dbpoweramp R12 for being easy to use, very powerful, and the most accurate ripper available for ripping your CDs

Personally, I use Exact Audio Copy with my Plextor DVD drive and rip everything into Wavpack. Then I use Amazon and download all of the album art work (maybe a bit masochistic but so what). I think the best solution for you would be to use iTunes for ripping and encoding. I know that there are better (or more accurate) solutions; however, iTunes is very easy to use and the quality is very good. Its simple and great for someone who doesn't know a lot about psychoacoustic compression.

You might want to visit allmusic.com. At least for my musical taste it's a very valuable resource (discographies, reviews).

The new dbpoweramp CD Ripper uses AMG for metadata, including all the above mentioned and more.

1)

use program like MAC 2.93 , Mpeg audio collection, for archiving your music.


2) Digitize my CD collection. I need to convert my CDs to digital format.I am looking to get the software needed to convert to the types of files I need.Do you have any tips for preserving the highest sound quality? I enjoy listening to my music at home on my stereos or in the car,not a fan of the ear bud yet. What types of files will suit my needs? What is the best way to backup my collection from loss,fire,computer crash?

EAC with mareo.exe for 1 step ripping, tagging, compressing to Lossless (I suggest flac -8 -V) format AND MP3/Lame eg. lame 3.97 -V5 --vbr-new following tutorial at http://www.High-Quality.ch.vu
Lossless (flac) for home HiFi listening, the mp3 for portable playback like in car.



3) Be able to Create My Own "Albums" by creating groups of 20 songs based on genre,mood or whatever,for the times I don't wish to listen to an entire album or the inconvenience of playing individual songs

My recommendation, like I do:
Rip to single tracks exactly like the above guide describes, not CD-Images like some others have as personal preference, as someone else said, the image rips are more considered to be archival, maybe not listening to the music, but that's more personal preference, everything is possible.

4) Purchase the Components I need.Not sure what I need for playing my digitized music now,or for my future needs. Want the most versatile that shouldn't be outdated next week.
- (good) soundcard with digital out , spdif optical or coaxial; amp/receiver with appropriate digital in.
Take care, that the soundcard does NOT resample internally to 48 kHz, if you want to play DTS-CD , or HDCD in true perfection.
- car: car-(CD)-radio with usb connection and/or SD/MMC card slots for connecting (mp3)-USB-stick eg., maybe also analogue in at front of the radio.
There's already DVD-car-radio out with usb at front, Clatronic 737 iirc, ca. 180-200 € Euro.

5) Do I need CDs after doing all this? Should I burn new CD's after doing all of this?

No. After you archived Lossless following http://www.high-quality.ch.vu you have more quality/convenience than by the original CD, you could sell your originals.
If you have digital connection without resampling between your PC and HiFi, you don't need to burn CDs anymore.
What I do for archiving my CDs, I burn them to DVD+R in 3 copies for each album,
every copy of course on a different DVD, in case 1 DVD breaks for any reason.
1. DVD full of MP3 Lame -V5 --vbr-new album versions for listening during running outdoors via usb stick & headphones Koss KSC 75 & listening in car - ca. 130 kbit/s vbr mp3,
2. DVD with MPC --quality 8 --ms 15 album versions (as priceworthy small sized quasi-archive backup, though it is technically lossy mpc format) - ca. 260 k vbr
3. DVD with Lossless Flac -8 -V as true archive, for listening also, obviously, as that's the goal of music ! (sometimes I get an impression, some guys forget this ) - ca. 850 k vbr , between 700 - 1000 k depending on the album.
1. - 3. all in 1 step by EAC & mareo.exe following http://www.high-quality.ch.vu
Those DVDs are catalogized by MAC 2.93.
Some music is always on PC and laptop, either as mpc q8, or Lossless.
The DVDs can be played by the PC or laptop drive, of course, also, no need to copy on HD of the PC.
Some figures, how many "normal" albums fit on 1 DVD+R 4.7 GB:
ca. 13 Lossless flac albums,
ca. 35 MPC q8 albums
ca. 77 MP3 Lame -V5 albums (130 k),
but don't nail me on these numbers, rough figures I have now as examples in my mind.

here is what i'd do:


1) Catalogue all of my CDs by Artist, Album,Genre,etc. I would like to fill in the holes of my colllection,but I would like to find a way to simplify the research required to figure out what albums of various artists I am missing or if I even want these albums. I would like to figure out if my various "Greatest Hits" albums are covering my needs. I want to create a wish list and whittle it down with purchases of used CDs from Ebay or something.Is there something a little simpler than running searches on various artists and making lists?

i'd use itunes or any player with media-library for this, like foobar2000, or winamp. you can register at last.fm and use their scrobbler to get recommendations for new artists and albums.

2)Digitize my CD collection. I need to convert my CDs to digital format.I am looking to get the software needed to convert to the types of files I need.Do you have any tips for preserving the highest sound quality? I enjoy listening to my music at home on my stereos or in the car,not a fan of the ear bud yet. What types of files will suit my needs? What is the best way to backup my collection from loss,fire,computer crash?

i'd go with dbpoweramp as the ripping-software and FLAC as the lossless codec - you won'T be able to use itunes then, because itunes doesn't understand this codec.. they have their own lossless one, called ALAC.
and i would convert those lossless files into mp3 whenever i need a format which is widely supported with foobars diskwriter or with dbpoweramp. you can then choose the quality of the files depending on your needs.


3) Be able to Create My Own "Albums" by creating groups of 20 songs based on genre,mood or whatever,for the times I don't wish to listen to an entire album or the inconvenience of playing individual songs

almost every player supports playlists. they partially support intelligent playlists, too, like "all artists of the 90's"

4)Purchase the Components I need.Not sure what I need for playing my digitized music now,or for my future needs. Want the most versatile that shouldn't be outdated next week.

you don't need much.. at home an amp,speakers and a soundcard.. the quality is another question. average joe doesn't need that much i'd say. my personal setup is as follows: macbook with mp3s on it (lossless backup of my cd-collection on an external HD), encoded at around 130 kbps to safe space - I don't need excellent quality - my amp is an average one for around 250 EURO and with speaker at the same price-range. this music is streamed wirelessly to my amp with an airtunes-unit from apple for 150 EURO (I really recommend something like this when you are using a laptop!!)

5)Do I need CDs after doing all this? Should I burn new[b] CD's after doing all of this?

you don't really need your cds but i'd keep them in a dark, dry and cold place - as a backup.

Mediamonkey is another great all-in-one tool that is simple enuff for the beginner, yet powerful enuff for most power users. However if you want 'secure' rips, you will need to use EAC or dbpoweramp R12 (or other 'secure' rippers), but management/mp3player syncing/converting are all done well with Mediamonkey.

You should at least give Omni Encoder a try... it'll grab that art for you (from Amazon) as well as convert to WavPack.

@user

Could you clarify what the MPC files are for?

EAC secure rips and some form of lossless archive. The lossless files can be used to make whatever compressed format you wish with whatever quality you require.

Suggest tagging and artwork embedding with Tag&Rename.

This was one of my first and biggest mistakes, not tagging or getting album art

What's next???

Read, study ...explore, learn. This is the best part.

Start here
http://users.pandora.be/satcp/tutorials.htm

Thank you everyone for the input! I'm trying to digest most of this by giving myself a fast tutorial through the Wiki (thanks kanak).Since this is pretty new to me,I'm going to sit back and take it in,until I can make a halfway intelligent comment on this information,but let me assure you it is a great help and will make things so much easier and of a greater quality for the job ahead of me.I'm looking to get the best value and quality out of the hours that I spend on doing this project.

2 things though,Are there any more suggestions on how and what to store the files on for what figures to be about 300 albums at some point? How long would you estimate that this job will take me?

i'd buy an external hd with, say, 320 GB. you can get something that big for around 100 euro. then rip to lossless and back those files up on that external hd.

I'd say, you'll need around 15 minutes for one album, depending on hw much you are going to alter the metadata, which comes from freedb, cddb, gracenote or whatever.

For the holes in your collection, go to a music-selling (Amazon...) or cataloging website & search an artist.

ls your computer well equiped for audio? Is it silent, does it have good storage (consider adding more), a decent sound card?

What condition are your CDs? If they are not scratched, start with iTunes, CDEx or another simple extractor to transfer your collection to the PC. But take time to learn how to use EAC. Make sure the music is properly tagged: artist, album etc.

When you are more confident with EAC, start using that for extracting the CDs. The main lossy formats are: MP3, AAC and Vorbis. For MP3 use Lame or Helix. For AAC, use iTunes or Nero.

(edit: Xiph->Helix)

I don't think Xing is reccomendable.

I think Xiph was meant for ogg vorbis. Look at www.xiph.org.

It was under "MP3".

I do fine using Windows Media Player and WMA Lossless. Rips fast, doesn't seem to drop out, you can crossfade tracks, MOST of the time the associated information is right (and you can fix it)...

Simple, effective, quick.

I beg to differ. why not do it once, do it right? Configuring EAC isn't all that difficult, given the number of guides that help set it up right.

If the CDs are not scratched, what difference does it make?

I was talking under the assumption that the original poster may not be specially technology-oriented, so if he can afford starting with a simpler software that would give him a more pleasant start. But I agree, EAC is better on the long-term and the tutorials help. (link?)

(I won't tell how I went from Helix to Xiph... sorry for the mistake!)

To the poster above that suggested Windows Media Player, notice that he said WMA lossless. Don't use WMA standard (it is one of the main lossy codecs, but not recommended for compatibility and vendor lock-in reasons)

Yes,I am not especially technology oriented,however I have been guided to many very good tutorials,including this one,
http://users.pandora.be/satcp/tutorials.htm
(thank you gonza)that I believe I can configure EAC just fine.
But does everyone believe that this is a good way for me to go? Once I learn to use whichever method I go with,I'd like to stick with it through my project,and hopefully to have it serve me well in the future.

BTW,most of my CDs are in very good to excellent condition,but some may be in a little less of a condition.

EAC will serve you very well - for ages.

but - if your cds are in a good condition, go with dbpoweramp. the new rc is very secure, as far as i read (don't care that much) and it is much faster! i think that whole secure-ripping with lead-in and out etc is overrated anyway. especially now that accuraterip is available in dbpoweramps ripper: have a read here
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=47415

what is the goal of the whole process? bit-secure backup? or to have high-quality music files on your pc? well, bit-perfect copy will most likely be done with eac (and dbpoweramp? - i think so - read the link i gave you... )but is it really necessary? considering the plus of time spent?

the resulting lossless files will sound perfect! and you can transcode from them to any format you like with every quality you like. and - you already have a backup. the original cds!

OK,am I safe to say that EAC should be considered the "Gold Standard"?
Yes,of course the idea is to listen and enjoy the music,isn't it? And yes,I listen with my Human ears! I'm getting the impression that there may be a "gap" between digital accuracy and what the human ear can detect. I'd like to set my quality standard as: a situation where I am listening to music alone in a room with reasonably good accoustics playing music through a $1000 amplifier and $3000.00 in speakers. What is the digital quality I need to optomize my listening pleasure? That is going to be the limitsof my listening experiences,along with the car and headphones/earbuds,of course.

But understand this,I will always err to the side of accuracy,I realize that every time a new process is performed to the CD,digital file,etc. is a chance to lose more detail, I just want to be reasonable about it ,not religious.

Yes,I need to consider the time factor somewhat. I would like to rip about 200 albums initially without giving it a whole lot of thought about which are my favorites,which am I currently listening to,etc.,etc. Once I get going, I am determined enough to stay the course with a couple of hours a night and the weekends untill I am finished. As for the condition of the CDs,I think most are OK,however I am not going to spend time listening to them to be sure,I'd rather just get to work on it!

Listing,categorizing creating playlists,and filling in my collection I also look at as being equally important! (see my original post) It's all about fun and pleasure,isn't it! Maybe there is a "one stop" solution for this without a compromise of sound quality and future versatility. However,maybe an "a la carte" solution is best.I'm trying to decide.

on accuracy: well, we did not talk about the drive which you are going to use to extract the digital audio. this is way more important when it comes to scratched discs then the software used.
did you read the link in my previous post? consider getting a plextor drive which handles scratched/copyprotected cds well, grab the latest beta of dbpoweramps ripper, take a lossless codec of choice, and start ripping. if i were you i would't bother setting up eac. dbpoweramp ist easier to use and faster in ripping.

there were apps mentioned already to organize your collection etc.


but once again. if your cds are in a good condition then just start ripping.. the weakest link in your chain will be the speakers and/or a lossy codec used. therefor - use a lossless codec. which one depends on personal taste and software used.

OK,if I consider the Plextor drive,how much would I expect to pay? Can you give me some guidance on which model/specs I should be looking at?

What are the advantages of dbpoweramp? How much quicker is quicker? Is there any disadvantage to dbpoweramp?

Maybe this question is getting ahead of the research that I need to do,but how should I choose a lossless codec?

for reviews on optical drives have a look at http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Ho...px?CategoryId=1 that should be a good starting point.
do a search for plextor here on HA - you'll get plenty usefull results. just look at the DAE quality and how good it is at copyprotection. speed is also important.

on speed: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc-speed-test.htm , i can't see any disandvantages of dbpoweramp, at least for me - maybe there are some theoretically.

on lossless: http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html . facts to consider are software/hardware support, compression, encoding/decoding time etc..

i guess flac and wavpack are the mostly used lossless codecs here on HA.

I'd recommend ripping to flac. Best compromise between speed and compression for lossless formats. For a graphic comparison of all lossless formats see here and the page following here.

Here are beginners guides to ripping and tagging.

I like to play my flacs with the slimserver/squeezebox system. Open source and free software, and a hardware player ("squeezebox") to stream to your home stereo system, which is optional because a software emulator of the player is included in the free distribution, so any spare computer can be used as a player. Player has a scrolling display, remote control interface, and can also be controlled from a web interface, and can mp3 stream your collection on the internet if you desire. Very cool company, recently acquired by logitech, so we'll see. Harmony remotes seem to have survived the same fate.

So what do you do with all those CDs? I trade on LaLa.com. Trade with other members for $1.75 per trade, with 20% of proceeds being returned to the artists, or being used to fund a foundation that provides health and retirement benefits to working musicians. Fuck the RIAA and support the artists at the same time, what could be better?

Good luck. It's a lot of work at the beginning, but then never having to deal with organizing CDs again is wonderful, my collection is so much more accessible to me now, I feel like I'm rediscovering a lot of it.

1) For cataloging, I use collectorz.com. I then export the database to my Pocket PC, Cell, iPod so it’s always with me. I only use amazon.com as a secondary information source. I prefer allmusic.com as the main source of album info. For tagging I use Tag&Rename, which can access all the databases for album info and tag art. Plenty of taggers out there.

2) If you want the technically best rips, then go lossless (flac, aac, etc). Depending on what you’re going to play things on, mp3 is the way to go. I only rip my CDs once to my hard drive. I don’t waste my time creating duplicates if I own the original. Instead I have a raid array setup so that should the hard drive fail, the backup is there automatically and can be easily rebuilt once a replacement drive is installed. I put the CDs in storage. Odd files I burn to CD/DVD and archive with the rest of the CDs.

3) Depends on how much and what you burn. If you only burn music, then you might want to check out combined programs like Easy CD-DA Extractor or dbpoweramp as examples. It will depend on your preferred format. I don’t burn compilations, so I’m sure others here have more burning alternatives and suggestions.

4) Personal choice. Until recently I mainly used mini-disc. Multiple hours of music, easily changeable discs, no skips while hiking/driving, and easy to find, cheap to buy batteries. AA's are everywhere! Now I also have an iPod, which is nice for the music packrat, like me. I’ve got my 60GB filled and then some. The amount depends, of course, on the file size.

5) I cannot imagine getting rid of my CDs, but that’s me. People do, but I still use mine and with all the legal issues surrounding ripping, it can’t hurt to keep’em. I’ve got over 1000 in my collection, so if you decide to keep them, you may want to opt to remove the jewel cases and go with a binder or other high volume storage. Check out http://www.jewelsleeve.com for one possible storage method.

Good Luck!

That is the general consensus here.

You might want to wait a while for dbpoweramp R12 though. It looks very promising (more details).

As a bonus, it gets tags from AMG so atleast some of your cataloguing problems is solved. (Although you can get AMG data in your files by using Mp3tag with the amg script. there maybe other easier ways too).

My main suggestion to you is do some reading and don't start ripping until you're confident you won't have to do it again (this will inevitably involve ripping to some lossless format to be "future-proof").

I have been doing a lot of reading and I am just starting to catch on now. I'm starting to see some concensus on some issues and how those choices were made.

I am certain that I am going to rip my collection down to a lossless codec (probably FLAC). But I need to address the issue of how to handle ripping worn or damaged CDs.How should I handle this so as not to upset and slow down my whole ripping process. Should I set aside any CDs that appear to be well used or ones that I seem to remember having a problem with and handle them differently?

Using a secure ripper (only choices are EAC and dbpoweramp R12) you should know if a disc has a problem. You can often repair them if the scratch is on the bottom with a CD repair kit (ie Digital Innovations AutoMax). They can seriously slow down the ripping process. In fact, thats why I dont use EAC anymore as it seems to become unstable when in error correction and often crashes, many times bringing down the whole computer with it.

OK,because I'm new to this I hope you'll help with some pretty basic questions.

If you use anything other than a "secure ripper",such as dbpoweramp prior to R12,how do you know when you have a problem with a disc? How reliable is typical visual examination of a disc's condition going to be?What happens with all of the damaged discs that people are ripping with "unsecure rippers"?

Also,as I mentioned previously,I am seeking a ripping method that will serve me well for now and the future.EAC seems to be the answer as of now,as the ultimate.From a bit of browsing I see that dbpoweramp R12 is being developed right now.Does this seem to be a great advancement? How far off is it and will it suit a newbie like me,or will it need a period of time for the bugs to get worked out before I should consider it?

As far as drives go,the computer I will be performing the ripping on is a fairly new,and powerful Dell laptop.Are there factors to consider with the drive as far as the laptop goes? Are there ways to optomize the performance of the drive,after I purchase it? Will certain drives perform better with different ripping software,such as EAC or dbpoweramp?

Since dbpoweramp R12 is a secure ripper,will it rip much slower than the current versions?

That is exactly the reason why it is recommended to use a secure ripper in the first place. If you rip with an un-secure ripper, then you can never know when an error has occured and hence, you will need to listen all rips you make after closely afterwards and then re-rip bad discs. If using a secure ripper, then you don't need to do this. Granted, it will take some more time to use a secure ripper as opposed to an un-secure one, but if you then consider the time needed to verify the un-secure rip manually, then using a secure ripper will defenetly save you time in the end.

Don't forget foobar.

I have not seen any evaluation of the foobar secure ripper mode. iTunes also has a secure mode, but once again, nothing to back up performance. There is plextools if you have a plextor drive but it only relies on C2. I would cont to argue that your only real choices are eac and dbpoweramp.

If you click on the little red arrow in Peter's quote you'll find one, although it was mainly conducted by me, and therefore completely half-arsed.

It would be interesting to see more tests performed on foobar's ripper, but I've seen very little mentioned about it. Members seem to have been far more keen to test dbPowerAmp R12 than foobar.

With that in mind, I agree that EAC, and perhaps the soon-to-be-released dbPowerAmp, are the likely choices. I use EAC, and see little need to change.

My experience with a Plextor PX712A is that Plextools actually provides some interesting additional ripping capabilities, over & above what's possible with EAC.

When the CDs being ripped are error-free, or if any errors are minor enough that re-reads and/or speed reductions can fix them, then Plextools and EAC seem to perform about on a par.

However, if a CD has errors bad enough that EAC can't get a good rip, then you tend to end up with clicks in the rip. In this case, using Plextools and switching OFF audio error detection can result in an audibly better rip. I'm not sure of the exact cause, but my hypothesis is as follows:

1. The Plextor drive has an excellent error concealment algorithm.
2. If you ask the drive to report C2 errors, then it does not deploy its error concealment.
3. As far as I can tell, there's no way to get EAC to tell the Plextor drive not to report C2 errors (ie. get it to do the equivalent of the "no audio error detection" option in Plextools).

As I said, the above is just a hypothesis to try and explain why I was able to get a clean rip of a CD that EAC simply could not read without lots of serious glitches. I'd be interested if anyone knows about this in more depth.

As long as you're using a secure ripper (Like EAC - in secure mode), you don't have to worry about damaged discs unless EAC reports read or sync errors.

For discs that give read or sync errors in EAC, do the following:

Hold them up to a light. If you can see through in spots, then the aluminum layer is scratched and there is nothing you can do. If they sound bad, turf 'em.

For other scratches, keep the following on hand:

1) A microfiber cloth.
2) Brasso brass polish.
3) Some really, really fine sandpaper.

The scratches that cause problems are concentric ones (the ones that run around the disc, not in-out). If you're getting errors, look for these. Try buffing them out with the brasso and cloth, first. Rub hard and fast in an in-out manner (never, ever buff concentrically - you might make it worse!).

Get your mind out of the gutter

If the scratch won't go away, use the sandpaper to wear it down. The sandpaper will make the disc opaque though and you'll need to buff pretty hard afterwards with the brasso to make the disc usable again.

Generally speaking, you should be able to fix any disc in this manner, provided the aluminum layer isn't scratched.

> dbpoweramp R12 is being developed right now...How far off is it

Full release next week

> will it need a period of time for the bugs to get worked out before I should consider it?

It has been in testing (R12) for over 1 year, the ripper was pretty much finished 3-4 months ago with minor fixes being done in the mean time.

>Will certain drives perform better with different ripping software,such as EAC or dbpoweramp?

If your rive supports c2 well then you can put much faith in that, and speed up the rip.

>Since dbpoweramp R12 is a secure ripper,will it rip much slower than the current versions?

The way r12 was written, it is as fast as r11.5 burst (if your cd is in accuraterip and was ripped without error, think of r12 as secure with speed).

DBpoweramp r12,certainly sounds promising and the timing of it all is amazing. From my amateur observation it seems to be getting a long look from the EAC faithful and could be a pretty good jump ahead if it performs as it should. I think I'll wait to hear a little more about it after its release to see how everyone likes it before I really get into the project.

I still have some drive questions,though (remember,I'm a complete newbie). I'd like to make some comparisons,but I'd like to narrow it down to those that support c2,of course. And I'm not sure how versatile and how many formats I need it to support now and for the future. Am I better off getting one that is a little limited,and less expensive and waiting till the future to see how these formats shake out, or getting a very,very good one now?I'd appreciate any opinions,guidance or links.

I'll be doing this work on a Dell laptop with XP.

FYI... I have been able to recover "see-thru" CDs by slapping on a plain label, topside.

RE: 1) Microfiber... Or any decent CD/DVD cleaner and/or scratch removal kit.
RE: 2) Brasso... Never tried myself, but have heard positive results. Also toothpaste.
RE: 3) Sandpaper... I would never use sandpaper. Use Abralon (or similar) sanding pads in 1000-4000 grits, and use wet. Otherwise plastic polish (Meguiar's #10) [+ plastic cleaner (Meguiar's #17)].

A moot point though, since now you can go up to the local DVD rental store and they will run it through their professional machine for cheap or free.

I have only ever had two CDs scratched to cause read errors, and they were both purchased used and were badly abused.

What formats are you thinking of? HD or BlueRay? I am not sure it is the time to rush into these. Better get a good CD/DVD unit for less money.

DVD-RAM is a plus, if the drive supports it.

I have been researching and gathering info as best I can,which leads me to some more questions:

a) If I am ripping a couple hundred CDs,should I consider multiple drives? Even after this project,knowing myself, I probably won't rip a CD or 2 at a time,it will probably be dozens per project. Having multiple drives should save time as far as the loading/unloading discs process and the rythm of the whole job shouldn't it?

b) Should I have any concerns about about an external drive? Is an external enclosure a better way to go?

c) Will the USB connections on my laptop handle this data alright?

d) If I go with 2 or 3 drives,would I go with the same model,same manufacturer,or doesn't matter? Do I go with drives that have differen't characteristics (example: one that tends to read damaged discs better,one that rips faster,etc.)

e) I plan on storing the CDs on something like a 400 gig hard drive,what types of considerations do I have to give to my choice.

f) I plan to rip in either EAC or dbpoweramp r12,Do I have software considerations for the whole multiple drives/ripping software/hard drive situation?

f) How do I do this and keep the costs reasonable?

NOTE: I am doing all of this on a Dell laptop running XP. I know that some drives perform best or worst on certain operating systems,a consideration.

I really think it depends on how many cds you're going to rip. You may experience drive fatigue if you are secure ripping a lot of scratched cds, but if you're just doing either a Burst Test and Copy or R12's accuraterip method or your CDs are in a decent condition, i wouldn't worry so much about drive fatigue. You mentioned you're using a dell laptop, if i were you, I'd ensure the external drive were a plextor just so i could use PlexTools (I'm not 100% sure about using external CD drives, but I'm guessing you can just buy one and plug it in an external enclosure and get it to work just fine... maybe someone else can help you there).

Regarding external hard drives, since you're planning on storing lossless file, I'd recommend you get the biggest hard drive you can afford. I have a dell laptop and i bought a 320 gig hard drive to dump all my music. It became full pretty fast, and now i have yet another external drive holding the remainder of my collection... not a nice situation. So my suggestions are:

1. Determine your budget: see the largest size internal hard drive you can get for that. Add ~$50 to factor in the cost of enclosure (in reality the enclosure will probably cost less).
2. Now check to see what is the largest external hard drive you can get for your budget. Sometimes, due to rebates and discounts, you can get one for a lower price.

My main suggestion is this: don't skimp on the hard drive size. Nothing sucks more than having a hard drive full!

Not having it backed up. My advice get two drives and keep them in sync and maybe store the backup drive at work if you can.

edit: typo