Hi there,

A couple of folks I`ve spoken to have said that the only way to get a truly perfect rip of a CD is to use something like Exact Audio Copy or Max using CD Paranoia. Apparently, iTunes is not so good generating perfect rips. Is there any truth in this?

I have also heard that using something like CDParanoia puts the internal DVD/CD on a Powerbook under intense strain. Can anyone confirm if this is so?

I don`t really want to put mine under more stress than is really necessary.

Regards

EAC is PC-only, you need Windows to run it.

iTunes does a decent job of ripping a CD however it has limited error correction and it does no attempt to keep the layout of the CD intact. That means that damaged CDs will come up with pops and hisses, and if you try to burn a CD using iTunes you will find that all tracks are separated with 1 second of silence (don't know what is the current status of that with the new gapless support-- the point is, it will not be exactly the same as the original).

Using EAC or CD Paranoia will put more strain on the drive when the CD is damaged. Should not do much different with a good CD. But do you want the pops and hisses?

Yes, ITunes is not secure. cdparanoia putting a strain on the drive? I haven't heard that and last time I checked with mine it didn't, although I would think it would be the opposite it would be EAC would be putting strain on the drive in the error correcting process depending upon what you were attempting to do with the drive.

Ok thanks guys.