best software for audio-cd duplication?

[dougbrad81]

hi,
was wondering, what's the most recommended software for duplicating audio cd's? my roomate been using nero, but i was wondering if there was a software that's duplicates in much higher quality. thanks in advance for any help.

[nox]

Feurio and EAC.
There shouldn't be a difference in quality between burning programs, except when decoding MP3. (Feurio and EAC decode perfectly and Nero not). The wave files aren't compressed so no decoding is necessary (the wave data is exactly what is going to be burned).

Nero has too many bugs compared to Feurio, is slower, and less powerful and comfortable.
EAC is very useful to read scratched CDs but you need more insight to configure it properlly. It's slower ripping because it reads twice to compare if the data was equal. But that only happens with scratched or old CDs.

EAC is free and the demo of Feurio is completely functional.
www.exactaudiocopy.com
www.feurio.com

[dougbrad81]

thanks for the reply. let make sure about EAC. when copying another audio cd, do you have to extract to .wav on the harddisk first, or is this done automatically by the program? any burner supports eac, and/or is there a particular burner you recommend? because i'm currently shopping around for a new one. appreciate your help.

[nox]

EAC is basically a ripper, so it's used to extract to .wav.
Since some tome ago it also burns but irs burning engine is very primitive and only supports MMC compliant drives (all new drives are MMC).
So, you first extract wavs to harddisk and then burn.

If you are newbie I'd recommend beginning with a burst mode ripper like the rest of rippers apart from EAC. EAC is difficult to configure and if you do it wrong it's a waste of time (slower) and you rip with errors while thinking there aren't.

The rest of programs can burn on the fly directly from the disc, but I also wouldn't recommend it until you know the source disc is OK.
Feurio is the best. A little odd at first but much more comfortable and faster when learnt. It has the best burning engine and support for drives is much better than EAC and very well tweaked. (Try it, at least the help has everything)

If your drive supports reading C2 errors correctly, it's a bonus with feurio because you know the condition of the CD and if there are no C2 errors you know that the ripping was perfect as with EAC.

Burners: Plextor and Teac for top quality and LG or LiteOn for performance/money. (LG and LiteOn don't read protected audio CDs).

[dodecahedron]

nox, can i understand from your last replly that Feurio can also rip the source CD?

do you know of any links to tutorials or something to learn how to use EAC, configure it correctly etc. ?

since you say EAC is not for beginners, can you recommend another prog for ripping? (hence my first question about Feurio).

someone recommended CDex for ripping to MP3. do you know it? is it a good ripper (i'm not interested in encoding to MP3).

thanks.

[nox]

since you say EAC is not for beginners, can you recommend another prog for ripping?

Well, I only use Feurio (and EAC) because with Ultraplex 40x Feurio shows the number of c2 errors. So, when I'm concerned about quality and get c2 errors with scratched CDs I use EAC.

Apart from EAC, the rest of rippers use burst mode without no info on errors. Well, CDDAE rips the track twice in order to check differences, but with scratched CDs is no good (too many blips in scratched zones).
I haven't used CDex almost never. I think it has a lot of options to encode/decode but nothing about error info. With Feurio you know that the rip was perfect if you get no c2 errors (some c2 errors are correctable, so c2 errors don't mean there have been real errors actually). The problems is reading c2 errors: a lot of drives don't do it, or don't work with other features enabled (the LG 32x CDRW can't do c2 errors and index marks at the same time).

In order to configure EAC you have to know if your drive has Accurate Stream (nowadays all drives), caches audio and C2-error info.
Well, EAC can detect it but sometimes it fails... EAC reads every sector twice and compares, so if the drive caches audio would get the same result always so EAC has to flush the cache (slower).
If you don't enable c2-error info in EAC, you'll get very good results but maybe is slower. (Don't enable the second option about c2 errors never, I think it's some kind of interpolation correction but will say correct reading when there were actually errors).

In practice, in new/not scratched CDs you can use any ripper and the result will be the same (you can use EAC's "Compare WAVs" tool to check that).
I use Feurio because it is such involving tool to do everything that I can't resist... it has almost everything to do all the process of ripping and burning audio comfortably... (it lacks crossfades and MP3/LAME encoding options, but the track editor is very fast because is non-destructive).

[nox]

since you say EAC is not for beginners, can you recommend another prog for ripping?

Well, I only use Feurio (and EAC) because with Ultraplex 40x Feurio shows the number of c2 errors. So, when I'm concerned about quality and get c2 errors with scratched CDs I use EAC.

Apart from EAC, the rest of rippers use burst mode without no info on errors. Well, CDDAE rips the track twice in order to check differences, but with scratched CDs is no good (too many blips in scratched zones).
I haven't used CDex almost never. I think it has a lot of options to encode/decode but nothing about error info. With Feurio you know that the rip was perfect if you get no c2 errors (a lot of c2 errors are correctable, so c2 errors don't mean there have been real errors actually but it's good to know the condition of a CD). The problems is reading c2 errors: a lot of drives don't do it, or don't work with other features enabled (the LG 32x CDRW can't do c2 errors and index marks at the same time).

In order to configure EAC you have to know if your drive has Accurate Stream (nowadays all drives), caches audio and C2-error info.
Well, EAC can detect it but sometimes it fails... EAC reads every sector twice and compares, so if the drive caches audio would get the same result always so EAC has to flush the cache (slower).
If you don't enable c2-error info in EAC, you'll get very good results but maybe is slower. (Don't enable the second option about c2 errors never, I think it's some kind of interpolation correction but will say correct reading when there were actually errors).

In practice, in new/not scratched CDs you can use any ripper and the result will be the same (you can use EAC's "Compare WAVs" tool to check that).
I use Feurio because it is such involving tool to do everything that I can't resist... it has almost everything to do all the process of ripping and burning audio comfortably... (it lacks crossfades and MP3/LAME encoding options, but the track editor is very fast because is non-destructive).[/quote]

[dodecahedron]

thanks for your detailed answer, but i'm still confused.

1. what are the benefits of using EAC over Feurio? or the other way around? from your ansewr it seems both are good programs to rip audio and make sure there are no errors.

2. you said

If you don't enable c2-error info in EAC, you'll get very good results but maybe is slower.

i don't uderstand. if i DON'T enable the c2 error checking in EAC the results are GOOD??? it is SLOWER???

3. EAC can detect if my drive has the required capabilities (c2 error reporting, accurate stream)? what do you mean sometimes it fails? (btw i have a plextor 40x).

thanks!

[nox]

i don't uderstand. if i DON'T enable the c2 error checking in EAC the results are GOOD??? it is SLOWER???

The results are "perfect" because then every sector is read twice. (So it's slower).
If you enable "use c2-errors" then it could be faster because probably (I'm not sure) the sectors are read only once, and only when the drive warns about a c2 error repeat the reading. (again: a c2 error doesn't mean that there was a real error - usually the last error correct¡on layer can correct those errors).

The problem is to know if the drive can inform of c2 errors correctly.
EAC can detect it but you need a scratched CD, and you can't be sure that the drive does it correctly. So, if you don't check c2 options, EAC will rip perfectly but reading twice and slower.

what are the benefits of using EAC over Feurio?

EAC will tell you if the track was read correctly.
With Feurio you'll know the rip was perfect if there was no error, but it could be also perfect with c2 errors (you can't know it).

Feurio rips as any other ripper (burst mode) but has that c2 bonus.
EAC rips twice usually, so it's slower. But also usually the CDs to read are in good condition so it's a waste of time to rip with EAC. I use Feurio and only when there are c2 errors and I want to make sure I use EAC. (That way I know which CDs are in bad condition)

[dodecahedron]

thanks for clarifying, nox.

so i understand:
if i'm not sure if my drive can report C2 errors, it's better to leave that option off and let it rip twice and compare.

isn't there a list of drive known to report C2 error correctly and work OK with EAC? (like Elaborate Bytes lists the drives that do EFM correctly)?

i think when i'll start using EAC i'll play it safe and let it rip twice (no use C2 errors).

what do you mean that Feurio rips like any other ripper but has the C2 bonus? the bonus you mean that it reports C2 errors it they happen?

With Feurio you'll know the rip was perfect if there was no error, but it could be also perfect with c2 errors (you can't know it).

i'm sorry i didn't quite understand. do you mean that when using Feurio to rip, if it reports no errors then the rip was perfect, but if it did report errors it could be good but could also be not perfect and there's no way of knowing which of the two?

thansk for all your help

[nox]

if i'm not sure if my drive can report C2 errors, it's better to leave that option off and let it rip twice and compare.

Probably.

isn't there a list of drive known to report C2 error correctly and work OK with EAC? (like Elaborate Bytes lists the drives that do EFM correctly)?

I don't know. I'm not much into EAC... I've read discussions about if that option should be enabled or not...
I think it's not clear how C2 errors work and how EAC implements that option...

Anyway, Plextor drives are known to inform of c2 errors perfect or at least well enough to enable that feature.
I would enable it except the second option "use that info to correct" (never check this: it seems that it says perfect ripping when it's not - this is one of the problems: EAC is not very well documented and some things aren't clear enough).

what do you mean that Feurio rips like any other ripper but has the C2 bonus? the bonus you mean that it reports C2 errors it they happen?

No other ripper shows the number of C2 errors after extracting, but it rips in burst mode like the rest (except EAC).
And yes, no c2 errors mean perfect DAE, but c2 errors don't mean bad DAE.

To enable C2 errors info in Feurio go to Program Parameters -> Special Parameters -> C2-error-message and enable "Report C2 errors" only (the another option stops reading when it finds one, and that's not good)

My advice is to use Feurio with c2 errors messages so you'll learn when the discs are good or bad.
You will see that only few times is necessary to use EAC, and even with c2 errors a lot are correctable and a lot are not audible. And you'll save time (also the system of projects of Feurio makes things easier).
Slower speeds can help to do perfect DAE.
Then if you feel that you need higher security you can fight with all the EAC's tweaking...

[dodecahedron]

nox, things are much clearer now, thanks a lot for all the explanations.

sound like you got it right - use Feurio most of the time, and if it says there were C2 errors then to go EAC to make sure the rips are perfect.
when i'll start ripping i'll do it this way, i think.
unless i'll just use EAC all of the time because i'm pedantic/anal and want perfect rips!
oh well...

[cfitz]

Hi Dodecahedron,

I don't know if you have seen this, but it is worth a look if you want to learn more about EAC:

http://www.digital-inn.de/forumdisplay. ... forumid=14

Andre Wiethoff, EAC's author, posts here along with many other EAC experts.

cfitz

[dodecahedron]

thanks, cfitz.

when i have some free time to start fiddling with Audio, ripping, EAC etc. (god knows when that'll be) i'll visit that link too and scan the forum there.

thanks for your help, guys.

[liteoncrasher]

Maybe when I have enough time away from my two kids I'll read all the detailed info posted here. Until then, I'll use CDDAE for ripping and ECDC for burning. The results seem very high quality to me.

It seems that ripping software is the most important link here, although by using CDDAE I was able to find out my old CD-ROM drive was failing. I was able to rip audio at only 0.7 to 0.8x in a 24x GoldStar drive. It was then I figured out why my copies were full of clicks, pops, and dropouts.
I bought a Lite-On LTD-163 and never had a quality problem again.

Now I'm considering switching to Nero, mostly for its overburning capabilities. But I don't expect to lose any audio quality.

[nox]

Now I'm considering switching to Nero, mostly for its overburning capabilities. But I don't expect to lose any audio quality.

For its overburning capabilities you can try Feurio better.

You won't lose any audio quality, except for MP3. Feurio and ECDC (probably) have better decoding algorithms.

[liteoncrasher]

I already purchased ECDC to extend XP's built-in features and Nero came with the Lite-On LTR-48125W I just bought. I'm not going to spend any more money than I already have. If I switch to Nero I'll try overburning. Until then I just have to keep my CD compilations to 80 minutes.

Thanks for the information, though.