Hey

I got a couple of questions and i would appraciate it if u could help me out.


1. If you rip songs from a cd in Apple Lossless will it be the same quality as the songs from the cd?
2. If you ripped the songs and have it in Apple Lossless can you change it to a smaller format (AAC) and size and bitrate to use in Ipod or something with the same quality as if you would be ripping it directly from the CD to AAC?
3. Is Apple Lossless encoder a good lossless encoder?

thanks in advance

1 & 2: Yes.
3: Depends on what you consider 'good'. Every encoder is lossless so 'sound quality' is of no concern. However there are other things that might be interesting e.g. speed, compatiblity (hardware support, support for multiple platforms), tagging formats, error correction etc.

In case you use Itunes and own an iPod, i would say, yes, Apple Lossless is a good encoder

Edit: Checkout the wiki: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lossless
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...odec_.28ALAC.29

I think it would be better to use EAC or something to rip the tracks to wav and then convert it to ALAC. The feedback that EAC gives about the ripping process (whether or not there were errors) is very valuable. For example, what good is ripping to lossless if there was a ripping error?

One could also use dBpowerAMP to securely/accurately rip straight to ALAC as they have their own ALAC encoder built into the program. I think that would be easier than using EAC to rip to WAV and then using iTunes to encode the WAV files to ALAC. That was the ALAC files have tags to begin with and you won't have to bother with iTunes converting.

Agreed. The main point is that if someone wants to rip to lossless, why not do it right and use a ripper that can actually display errors if something went wrong, as opposed to giving the false impression that everything went right.

Yes, Yes, Yes.

Yep. You might as well do it right if you are going to rip to lossless. iTunes won't report any minor errors (some major errors will be reported and the track will be marked as unreadable) and just blow through the CD. This can result in audible flaws. Granted, most CDs should rip just fine without audible flaws but you just never know.

ok thanks

but is ALAC pretty good for just basic music ripping? I mean its pretty fast and i could always change the format to mp3 at a later time if i want to.

I use ALAC for my archiving purposes. ALAC does a good job for more than just basic music ripping, it is a lossless format with compression ratios that are pretty good. What we are trying to tell you is that you shouldn't use iTunes to rip your CDs to ALAC. iTunes does not have any type of error correction. This means that during the ripping process, iTunes can come across an error and not tell you about it, then the error can result in a audible flaw. You should use a ripper such as EAC or dBpowerAMP. Both of those can securely and accurately rip audio CDs. This means that they will tell you if they come across an error and they can compare your rip to other rips in an online AccurateRip database. Why go through the process of creating bit perfect archives of your music if you aren't going to do it securely/accurately? Hence, we suggest that you should use EAC or dBpowerAMP. Maxx is a good program if you are on Mac OS X, much better than iTunes anyway.

Actually, iTunes does have error correction (see the advanced options). However, who knows what kind of error correction they use? Does it just interpolate? Does it re-read? Does it use C2?

Apple's implementation of error correction is currently a black box.

We know a lot more about EAC's and dbpa's implementations. And both of those also support accuraterip, which is very useful as well.

-brendan

Well, iTunes uses a jitter type error correction. It is basically the same type of error correction in Windows Media Player, MusicMatch, and other popular all-in-one media applications. I consider that to be useless error correction though especially when the application comes across a physical error on the CD. At least dBpowerAMP and EAC will let us know that there is an error. iTunes will just plow right through it without any warning. There are some extreme times when iTunes will tell you that it encountered an error and cannot rip the track but that is it.

About ripping to lossless. Would making an iso image of the disc in let's say Nero and then mounting it in a program like Power Iso for the purpose of ripping result in a better quality rip?
In other words, does the iso extraction eliminate more reading errors than a typical audio ripping application like iTunes or Winamp? Jitter at least would be less of an issue when reading off an iso image on the HD.

I don't have much experience with making ISO backups but I think the error correction used in both EAC and dBpowerAMP will give you superior results than making an ISO with Nero. There was a thread bout this not too long ago and I think everyone agreed that it is better to rip an audio CD over making an ISO backup of it. Not only that but it is much easier to manage digital audio files than it is ISO backups that you have to mount in a program or to a virtual drive.

I am unaware of this being documented. kornchild2002 - would you provide a source for the information you cited?

-brendan

It is not documented but theorized by many people. There is an older post here on Hydrogenaudio where Cygnus X1 give their theory. There are also various other threads in the Apple forums stating that the level of error correction is very minimal, on the same level of jitter correction. I can personally attest that iTunes' error correction is pretty bad. I have had 10 CDs with some funky last tracks. dBpowerAMP rips them securely and accurately, EAC will rip them with some errors but they are fine when compared to the AccurateRip database, and iTunes will take 30 minutes to rip each track while the last 3 minutes of each track comes out as static.

Ok, then by "jitter-correction" you're referring to ensuring that the drive either has accurate-stream or using methods to ensure synchronization of sector reads (e.g. by overlapping reads), correct? I sort of classify that more as "error prevention" in that it's mostly unrelated to problems on the disc, but rather, working around drive issues.

The discussion thread you referenced is over four years old, and since (as I said above) the iTunes Error Correction feature is an undocumented black box, we really have no idea what they have implemented.

Note: I'm not trying to argue that what they did is any better (or worse) than people assumed based on bad results of tests performed four years ago, rather, just that we can't know what they've implemented, esp. in contemporary builds.

-brendan

I can't speak for dbpoweramp as I'm not particularly familiar with it, but EAC does not do any sort of error correction.

dBpa does not perform error correction of any kind. EAC (and others) are capable of performing jitter correction; and yes, this can be a problem with some discs and can be appropriately classified as error correction rather than just "prevention".

We're getting off-topic, though I am always happy to see people challenge speculation/nonsense; especially when it's presented as fact.

This thread was originally posted to the wrong forum, but now I can't tell whether it belongs in Lossless/Other or CD HW/SW.

Ok, I guess we're deep in the weeds at this point, which is my fault...

....and rather than argue which of (re-reads to sync data-stream, reliance on accuratestream drive feature, cache clearing via FUA, cache clearing by reading large amounts of data to flush area of concern, c2 pointer use for targeting rereads or areas to de-glitch or areas to interpolate, accuraterip, multiple re-reads under changing and non-changing drive speed/mode configurations, multiple read modes, ripper-based interpolation of output, ripper-based quasi-interpolation to guess small changes needed to match accuraterip, combining any of the preceeding in a clever algorithm) could be classified as error correction, error detection or error prevention (or error avoidance, or...)...

let's just all agree that itunes error correction feature may or may not still suck and I'll move on.

-brendan

I think both EAC and dBpoweramp can be classed as 'error correctors', by this simple definition:

A track is ripped it has 1 error on it, iTunes and WMP would let that error through.
dBpoweramp and EAC should detect the error and by the virtue of re-reading it is corrected, hence they corrected the error (even if it was the drive which read it finally without error, the higher level program did the correction, which the drive on its own would not have done).

well it seems like more of a hassle


ill just use itunes and if i can hear an audible error ill just re-rip it no problem.
I mean it is kind of rare isnt it? For it to be an ripping error?

It's not really a hassle; after all, you're just using a program like dbpoweramp to do the ripping instead of itunes.

The consensus around here is that ripping again and again is an onerous task, so it should be done once and done right. (And it isn't even hard to do; the setup might take some time, but once you've got the thing set up, you don't even need to look at it again).

Yes, sorry. I tend to forget to add the statements "I think" or "I believe" to my posts. It happens all the time and I am by no means trying to represent my opinion as fact. So I am sorry if it came out that way, I was expressing my opinion.

It depends on the condition of your discs and the drive doing the ripping. It's even possible to have trouble with CDs that are brand new.

It is a little off-topic, but let me just say that's a good point. I was thinking jitter correction was more along the lines of prevention, as you alluded to, but I can see what you mean. I can also see what Spoon means in that dbpa and EAC can correct errors. Very true, but I guess I was just thinking of "error correction" as something more specific and targeted than just re-reading data, looking for matches, and hoping/assuming the matches aren't bad matches. Something like .par files or v.42 error correction for dial-up modems is more what I had in mind. I guess I'll need to expand my definition a bit. heh

Well what i was trying to say was it is more conviniet to just rip it to itunes and manage all the songs and everything with itunes insted of ripping from some other problem and then maybe import it to itunes.

Like everything else it is a tradeoff. For many people the inconvenience of an additional step in the process is a small price to pay for the peace-of-mind in knowing that their CDs were ripped correctly. If this is not an issue for you then by all means go for convenience over accuracy.

To add some figures to the discussion. I am just in the process of ripping all my CDs to FLAC. Using EAC, so far 1 in 14 discs do not rip properly, i.e. EAC rejects one or more tracks on the disc. This is after repeated attempts, cleaning the disc etc. etc. This is enough of a failure rate for me to continue using EAC.