I'm really sorry for another kind of "which ripper is best?" thread but I've been trawling through the mountain of seemingly contradictory posts and wanted to see if I had come to the best conclusion I could have done.

I'm after the most secure (i.e least chance of errors occurring in a rip, most chance of a bit-perfect copy) ripper to work with a PlexWriter Premium2.

As far as I can tell, that would be dbpoweramp due to its method of ripping using C2 pointers and its error correction.

However, although dbpoweramp does now allow ripping to image/cue sheets, it does not rip tracks hidden in the first gap (HTOA -I think they're called?).

I seem to remember that PlexTools used to be considered a superior ripper to EAC when used with later Plex drives but from what I have read recently, this seems to no longer be the case. Is this because EAC introduced the use of C2 pointers?


Basically, my questions are:

1) If I want the best chance of getting the most accurate rip with a PlexWriter Premium2, should I use dbpoweramp? -Please note, I am not worried about ease of use/setup.

2) If I want to preserve HTOA tracks, should I use Exact Audio Copy instead?

3) If the answers to 1 and 2 are both "yes", does anyone know if dbpoweramp is ever going to add support for HTOA, and does anyone know whether EAC will change its ripping method in the future?



/edit

Woops, it looks like dbpoweramp WILL support HTOA:

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=14158

Does anyone know when this will be released? If I want to rip to image/cue flacs, should I wait for this one instead?

I wouldn't say that either EAC or dbpoweramp is "better" - these two are just working differently with more or less comfort. As long as you can get an AR match, you know that the rip was accurate. From this point of view I would suggest you use the program which offers all features you'll need (if HTOA is important, then you have to stick to EAC, as long as you don't want to use an alpha/beta version of dbpoweramp).




I'm also waiting for R13 - hope it will be released soon.

dbpoweramp r13 alphabeta whatever it is today, does rip HTOA, at least in the individual track modes (I have not used the 'rip as one' mode).

Yes, but there are no ripping programs that perform error correction.

EAC has used C2 pointers for quite some time now. The problem with C2 pointers and EAC is that they are only used to speed up a rip and they are not used during re-reads. I'm guessing that problems people were experiencing with PlexTools was due to older versions of SPTD being installed.

Yes, so long as you use the reference version and use C2 pointers.

Ok, thanks, that's all pretty clear!

DBPoweramp r13 it is then! (as long it rips HTOA in Image/Cue mode)


Actually, come to think about it, the only reason I ripped in image/cue mode was because EAC didn't have the option of ripping the first gap if one wanted gaps appended to the end of tracks.

With DBPoweramp, could I rip all tracks individually and append all gaps to the end of tracks EXCEPT the first gap, which would be added to the start of the first track (or, ideally, rip the first gap as a separate track)?

-AND- have DBPoweramp created a CUE sheet so that I could burn the ripped CD and be pretty confident that everything is where it should be?




I must admit that I feel a bit of a traitor in considering ditching Andre's wonderful ripper...


/edit

ok, it seems that I will have to wait a bit before I start ripping as dbpoweramp doesn't support cue sheets yet:

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php...159&page=11

Sure it does. Action menu -> Copy Selected Tracks Index-Based.