[richidoo]

I am registered user and I love the features, speed and ease of use. I learned today that there is a new version 11 out now, released in Dec.

I am wondering if its ripping engine is as accurate as EAC, which is very persistent in searching for difficult bits. I have had many CDs fail ripping on EAC, but none with EZCD. Is it guaranteed bit-perfect like EAC? I have heard some bad glitches on recent rips and wondering if the ripping speed is costing me accuracy. Their website doesn't come right out and say 100% accurate bit perfect ripping like EAC does.
Thanks
Rich

[richidoo]

I found that there are several levels of thoroughness that can be selected in Options | Settings...

After reading the help file to understand what everything meant, I chose "Detect, Report and Fix Errors" with C2 Reporting checked.

Now I can see when there are C2 errors, read errors or just plain "error". In ripping 5 disks this afternoon, I have seen plenty of all three errors, never knew they were happening before using the default "Normal" mode. EZ-CD does not guarantee a perfect rip as EAC does. You have to work with it to choose the most suitable settings for your hardware. If you get audible problems, try a higher scan setting is all they say. It does report at the end of the rip whether there were any problems, which for me is good enough.

I haven't tried the new version yet, still 10.5.
Rich

[Nick B]

I presume EZCD is as accurate, although there are a few discs that I haven't been able to rip no matter what setting I've tried. EZCD is just more user friendly than EAC. Just downloaded version 11, but haven't tried it yet
Nick

[carusoracer]

I will know more when I install tonight and rip a few. I will make sure and check the error drop down configuration as well.
The version I have is 11...Lonewolf steered me to the EZCD ripper and I have heard discs from him using the application. They are very,very good.

Richadoo, post your results as well as will I
Cheers

[richidoo]

I have a disc that ripped poorly using normal setting. I will try again  on normal to see if it repeats, and then see if the other settings help. At least with notification enabled it does tell you if there are errors, then you know to try again or read the log to see if any real errors. If there is a dropout in the music there will be C2 errors but not vice versa. The drive has a lot of error correction built in.
Thanks guys
Rich

[mgalusha]

You might also want to check out dbPoweramp cd ripper. It uses AccurateRip (www.accuraterip.com) to compare the CRC from the ripped copy to a database of known good values and is IMO easier to use than EAC. EAC can also use AccurateRip. The value of AccurateRip is that in addition to trying to detect/correct errors it can verify the results against the known good value, guaranteeing 100% accuracy. The Easy CD-DA folks don't offer this as they are not allowed to participate in the AccurateRip database for "unsportsman-ship behavior".

mike

[richidoo]

...for "unsportsman-ship behavior".

Awwww, not another naughty hifi company??     

As usual, you are a font of knowledge Mike. Thanks for the tip, I shall give it a whirl...
Rich

[carusoracer]

Using EZ CD DA in the output config menu on the lower left which format do I choose?
WAV?

Help Appreciated.

[lonewolfny42]

WAV

[carusoracer]

Thanks Lonewolfe

[carusoracer]

Recorded last night with error to fix and no issues or playing problems on my SACDP.

I will be able to take a good listen over the weekend to hear the recording quality. Very easy format to use.

Thanks again to Chris for all of his help

[jholtz]

I spent a little time last night comparing sound quality on rips from EZ CD-DA with the the repair and fix option, EAC with Accurate Rip and DB Power Amp with Accurate Rip.

First of all, *DO* enable the repair and fix option in EZ CD-DA. I'd not been using that option and there is a difference in sound quality to my ears Vs. the better jitter setting. Now to get onto the comparison. I ripped the same CD's (Allison Krause - New Favorites and Bonnie Raitt - The best of) with all three programs and then played various well recorded cuts back to back to compare. Not scientific, just subjective.

I've used EAC in the past and never cared for it. I still don't. The rips are accurate but there is something that has a hint of flatness to my ears. It's subtle but I can hear a slight difference. EZ CD-DA does a very good job with the repair and fix option but I think DB Power Amp does a bit better. Of the three programs, DB Power Amp rips (WAV) had a slightly fuller more analog sound. Again, this is subjective and the differences are small but I believe I can hear the differences.

I'm switching to DB Power Amp as my ripper of choice. YMMV....

Jim

[carusoracer]

Thanks for sharing Jim.

[mgalusha]

FWIW...

At one time I did a byte comparison on a WAV file extracted using EAC and the same track extracted using EZDCDA and they were byte identical, so there is no way to distinguish between them when played back from a hard drive, both return identical data to the PC. That was with EZCDDA's error correction turned on.

I have not done the same thing using dbPoweramp but the accurate rip DB makes that unnecessary. For those wanting to do comparisons, grab one of the free CRC calculators on the net and calculate the CRC for each file, if they are the same then the files are identical, not close but identical. WinXP users can use the file compare utility that comes with the OS, just be sure to use /B switch to compare in binary mode. This is a command line utility.

Note that if the files are not ripped using the exact same options then these comparisons are not valid. Options such as remove leading and trailing silence and save meta data. Even though WAV doesn't really support tags, some rippers include them anyway at the end of the file. The samples below have embedded data that is not part of the audio.

An example of using fc to compare the files:

Code: [Select]

[C:\test\fc]fc /B "16. Country Blues.wav" "16. Country Blues_2.wav"
Comparing files 16. Country Blues.wav and 16. COUNTRY BLUES_2.WAV
FC: no differences encountered


[C:\test\fc]

Now, I did a hex edit on the file and changed one byte from 0x00 to 0x20. The results:

Code: [Select]

[C:\test\fc]fc /B "16. Country Blues.wav" "16. Country Blues_2.wav"
Comparing files 16. Country Blues.wav and 16. COUNTRY BLUES_2.WAV
02407251: 00 20

[C:\test\fc]

Note this does not discount Jim's results. It's entirely possible the files he listened to were not byte identical. The above is just to show a quick way to compare rip results. I'd be surprised if there was not a Mac CRC utility out there somewhere. May even be a built in one since it's based on BSD. And yea, I bought a copy of dbPowerAmp reference as well.

Mike

[TomS]

Great thread and thanks for your insight Mike.  I've been using DBPowerAmp lately and like it a lot.  EZ CD sounded nice too, and I'd been looking at it for ease of use, but I like the AccurateRip feature.

In my (now long ago) youth I coded several flavors of CRC's (in assembler and even microcoded hardware).  Very nasty math with big shift registers and such, but it absolutely does NOT lie!

Tom

[mgalusha]

In my (now long ago) youth I coded several flavors of CRC's (in assembler and even microcoded hardware).  Very nasty math with big shift registers and such, but it absolutely does NOT lie!

Now you're scarin' me Tom. 

[TomS]

he he, I'm "management" now.  Forgot how to do all of that cool stuff and don't know squat because my brain's turned to mush.  A true Dilbert poster child

[mgalusha]

I don't recall you having pointy hair tho. 

[richidoo]

FWIW, When ripping flac or mp3 or whatever file containing metadata (Artist, Title, track no, etc,)  you need to tell EZ CD-DA to enable writing metadata to the ripped file, or it won't do it automatically as does every other ripper I have ever used. Why would anyone want untagged music files? Maybe this is set to "on" by default but mine got unchecked somehow and I have ripped lots of CDs without metadata. I browse by folder anyway, so I never noticed it unchecked. But when I went to convert some flacs to mp3, they had no metadata because the flacs I originally ripped have no metadata in them. The checkbox to enable metadata is located under the output file path field. - "Enable Metadata."

With the "detect, report and fix" setting enabled I am more confident in the quality of the rips. I will still try Mike's recommended software too. Thanks guys!
Rich