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Best way to copy tracks from CD to harddrive?

Discussion in 'Audio' started by jasonjunk, Oct 28, 2010.

  1. jasonjunk

    jasonjunk Member

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    I am wondering about the easiest way to burn individual tracks from my CD collection to my harddrive and still retain all the info (song , album , album cover etc.) For instance when I play my purchased tunes from e-music on foobar it shows the album cover and other info. Just want to do the same with cuts from my owned cd's. Also do I need to convert to mp3 and use tags or can I save as full wav files? Thanks for your suggestions on software and technique!
     
  2. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    Read the top sticky before thinking any further. It will provide you will everything you need to make a very informed decision. Kudos for using e-music instead of garbage like itunes.

    There is almost an unlimited ways you can rip a CD. The big question is how close do you want it? Perfection is not a wave file but a CDa file. They can only be used by one product and can not be played, only burned. My personal opinion is the best quality for the least space will be a VBR created by either Lame or Helix. Anything above 190 and probably 160 BR will sound exactly like the CD. Then you ought to archive the CD and never play it again. Only played burned CDs. You could rip to CDa burn an exact replica, then convert the CDas to vbr mp3s and delete the CDas. This may be over kill. I personally rip to a high bit rate VBR archive the CDs and burn the VBRs to disk. I can't tell the difference. I really have too many CDs to burn archive CDs for every one. Most of my CD players will play mp3s so the exact copy is not necessary.
     
  3. jasonjunk

    jasonjunk Member

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    Thank you kind Mez for the great response! I am not sure what you mean by the "top sticky". I am basically ;ooking for a program that will allow me to put selected cuts from my CD collection onto my computer that will provide fairly good quality, allows organization and will provide the info like album name, cover art etc. I do not plan on making backups ... just want the ease of selecting tunes from my computer. Thanks Again!!!!
     
  4. k00ka

    k00ka Regular member

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    Jason my friend, I know you stated "I do not plan on making backups", however I suggest you re-consider..That said One of the easiest and(IMO) user-friendly apps to copy individual track(s) from your personal CD collection is dBpoweramp..Not free but it's 21-day free trial..
    I would rip/copy to a lossless format e.g flac with tag (metadata)..Since you use foobar2k(as do I)they will happily be played and display "all the info (song , album , album cover etc"...Trust me when I say, you will not be disappointed..
    There are of course some very good free apps/proggies e.g EAC, F2K, etc..EAC being another one of my faves..
    From these flacs you can transcode/convert to whatever lossless or lossy format of your choosing..I almost never rip to a lossy format, b/c I can later go to my flac archive collection and convert from my flac(s) w/o having to touch my original CDs again..
    Good luck..
     
  5. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    I concur with k00ka however to each their own... My wife who insists on using original CDs ruins several a year. Some are hard to come by and costs money to replace. Blank CDs can be bought 5 per dollar.

    A playback of ripped lossless file read from your HD is consistently superior to a read from a CD. People like your self assume they would be worse but they are better. Top rippers like the ones mentioned, go to extreme lengths to read a block of audio perfectly. The read each block many times to verify the block was read exactly right. Players never get it all right. They must rely on error correction data to fudge the read so it sounds OK. Optical reads are not as 'clean' as the general public assumes. Magnetic reads are 99.999999999999% accurate. Once they are on your computer you can put them on an mp3 player. Again, without hearing an mp3 player with high fidelity ear buds one would underestimate the fidelity. HiFi buds will out perform your expensive stereo unless it is very old or you paid more than 5K USDs. The only thing is the base note can't rattle your body. The power just is not there.

    The 'stickies' are at the top of the forum. They are called stickies because they never move. You too can be an audio expert will expose you to great detail.

    If that is too much effort then download and rip with dbpoweramp. I would use Lame VBR setting less than -5, I use -0. -0 is the highest quality of a lossy audio with the possible exception of the Helix VBR extreme setting. Both exceed the limits of human hearing.

    The biggest advantage of dbPowerAmp over EAC is it uses a professional tag database. EAC uses a free tag data base. You can rip a CD in less than 30 min. You can process a huge quantity of CDs in 21 days. Each rip will have accurate complete tag data and the front picture of the album.

    After the 21 days use EAC. The audio is just as good but because the software is free they can't use a professionally maintained database so you will use freeDB which is very good. This is maintained by users who add the data. The quality and completeness is less than a professional database.
     
  6. jasonjunk

    jasonjunk Member

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    Thank you both so very much.... I had no idea that a rip would sound better than the cd itself (and the explanation behind it)..... I have been an audio head for a long time.... shows you , you learn new things everyday. I will give both dbPowerAmp and EAC , any other recommendations appreciated. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your help!! Thanks again.
     
  7. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    All the regulars of this forum are extreme audio heads. I love to help people like you out to enjoy your music.

    Correction
    is different than sounds better. You probably can't hear the difference but supposedly you can see the difference with the right equipment. Human hearing is a very blunt instrument. The thing to remember is it is not worse like you would suspect but more accurate.

    What is even more amazing is the fidelity you can get out of an mp3 player. Most named brand mp3 players put out extremely hifi. The catch is the ear buds. Mine produce both sub sonic and ultra sonic tones 6 Hz - 23 kHz. How ever the mug me white ear buds that come with an ipod are lofi. 40 Hz - 15 kHz. I think I am right with the 40 but I am not so sure about the high end. To be HiFi the device need to be or exceed the defined limits of human hearing 20 Hz - 20 kHz. I think the ipod has the best software but I picked up a 8g View for 20 USDs. It's software is fine except for audio books and pod casts.

    Because of my mp3 devices I listen to a good deal of music. The family hates my stereo because the base can shake the house and can be heard every where. I am grateful to be able to hear HiFi again anytime I want.
     
  8. jasonjunk

    jasonjunk Member

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    You are correct, I would assume, as from album to tape, that each transfer may cause some loss or error (compared to just listening to a CD from a CD player). I now think I understand the software "reads" the cd more accuratly than a "cd player" that samples and uses error correction. However by backing it up to a hard drive using appropriate software, it actually reads the data more accurately; which results in possible , but likely, inaudible accuracy. This was my worry .... I did not want to degrade the sound to the hard drive.... then if I make an mp3 for my player that would reduce the accuracy again. I think I will rip to my hard drive as close to lossless as possible. So, which of the two programs mentioned are more user friendly. even if I have to pay a few bucks. Assuming the rip quality would be the same; which rips with all the album info better and makes the the organization of the music more easy(or maybe it does not matter). Thanks thanks thanks!
     
  9. Deadrum33

    Deadrum33 Active member

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    My preferred method is using EAC to rip to FLAC. I like it because EAC will lookup your CD info and fill in the track info for you.
     
  10. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    Yes that is a GREAT method. EAC & dbPowerAmp are in a league by themselves as far as quality goes. * EAC is free and dbPA is not. Because dbPA is a paid for subscription it uses a paid for tag database which has ALL the tag data for ALL copyrighted CDs and it is double checked for accuracy. I have hundreds of old CDs most are not in freedb. That is why I paid for dbPA. Also, if you had read the posting in the top sticky you would know EAC caved in to the Germans and will not read copy protected CDs. dbPA had enough money to fight the Germans and never took out that ability. I also posted a link to the last release of EAC that only reads the original track listing, eliminating the copy protection. The linked discussion goes into this in great depth.


    *I forgot to add the next major release of Media Monkey,4, significantly improves its ripping capabilities, and will add it to the big two making the big 3. All 3 will produce an exact replica or warn you of the problem.
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2010
  11. Deadrum33

    Deadrum33 Active member

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    I admit I have not read the sticky thread, or knew about the inability to read copy protected discs. I had never had the issue as AnyDVD eliminates protection on audio CD's also. I never had an issue, therefore i never dealt with any of the free program's shortcomings.
     
  12. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    That exactly how most of us go through life why fix something that is not broke for you. I think you would get a lot out of the top sticky. AnyDVD is better than dbPA. It works on even the nastiest CDs I have seen. dbPA would have legal issues if it went that extra step. It just reads true like an audio player which can also play protected CDs. That was their defense.
     
  13. ps355528

    ps355528 Active member

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    I thought dbpoweramp was freeeeeee.. just the mp3 codecs which you have to pay for (or not as the case may be) Theres really not much need for the mp3 side of things to just rip cd's tho is there?
     
  14. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    No, it is about 25 USDs/yr. The encoders are free, and you can install as many as you like if your license is current. However, the converter and many of the tools work after the free trial period. The professional tag database only works if your license is current. That is the biggest difference between it and EAC. Both deliver an exact copy. You can't get better than that. They even use the same tool to verify the accuracy.

    There is a great deal of sophistication that goes into the top rippers. Even non copy protected CDs are designed not to be clearly read. Two stickies go into this topic, one into great detail. CD players use error correction data stored on the CD to adjust flawed reads. They still aren't right but good enough not to be able to hear a difference. It is unlikely you can hear any problems but trusted sources agree that they are there. Again read the stickies, I think there some links to some of the sources.

    Both EAC and dbPA use the same external database to verify your reads are correct or will warn you that an error occurred or that the CD was not in the database. Media Monkey 4 is supposed to use it as well when it comes out.

    Most rippers read the block once and you get what you get. There is no error correction because if you were picky and informed you would not be using that software.

    Not even all mp3s are equal even at the same bit rate. That is why dbPA gives you a selection of 20 or so. Even the Lame encode will create 4 different mp3s with different compression strategies. There are 4 because in some situations each of the three are best. Unfortunately, you actually need to do your homework to know which is best for a particular need. I prefer VBR for a HiFi lossy from a lossless source mp3.
     
  15. jasonjunk

    jasonjunk Member

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    Thanks again for all of your help... I have decided to cut my teeth on EAC and in the process downloaded and installed FoxTab Audio converter by mistake(download now banner ad).... can't figure out how to uninstall as there is no uninstall program and it does not show up in windows uninstall option but that is neither here nor there. After trying out a few options and reading the "stickies"I have yeat another question. If i want to back up entire CD's to my harddrive for the best quality and usaability should I select:
    Test and Copy selected tracks (uncompressed)
    or
    Test and Copy image and creat cue sheet (uncompresses) or

    other suggestions?

    Thanks so very much!

    P,S, If I can get a two-fer. When I am done extracting I get a "confidence" level , any feedback on that? Higher number better? what is an asseptable range? (I couldnt find that in the guides.... maybe missed it.


    Thanks again
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2010
  16. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    EAC will give you a great copy. You use accurip for the confidence level as you rip. I wouldn't trust anything else. Even without, EAC uses a secure mode which is the mode you need to use with EAC. dbPA Uses a quick and dirty mode till it detects a problem then it goes into secure more or other modes till it gets it right. You may as well go the cue route. The best quality and usability would be 2 different formats. Lossless gives you the best quality. You can't hear a difference between lossless and hi end losslesss VRB mp3s. They are the most usable. If you are willing to archive the CDs then by all means rip to VBR. Otherwise if you are preserving your CDs go lossless. Try to compress them as much as possible to save space.
     

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