Ripping

[Bruce S.]

This question is in the audiophile thread because of the following problem. I have a laptop CD-ROM drive that fails to recognize many of my CDs; about 1 out of every 5. I suspect it is my drive because they work on my wife's desktop CD-ROM drive. The laptop is a 3+ year old Fujitsu Lifebook.

So it looks like I will have to buy an external CDRW drive for my laptop.

What should I be looking for regarding getting the best unit that will result in not defeating the desire to get audiophile quality rips? As in Brand name/ speed specs/ cost etc. Or is getting a $50 external doomed to poor results?

[jonheal]

This question is in the audiophile thread because of the following problem. I have a laptop CD-ROM drive that fails to recognize many of my CDs; about 1 out of every 5. I suspect it is my drive because they work on my wife's desktop CD-ROM drive. The laptop is a 3+ year old Fujitsu Lifebook.

So it looks like I will have to buy an external CDRW drive for my laptop.

What should I be looking for regarding getting the best unit that will result in not defeating the desire to get audiophile quality rips? As in Brand name/ speed specs/ cost etc. Or is getting a $50 external doomed to poor results?

If you're a freak for alledgedly "super-accurate" rips, then you'll want to get a drive that supports "overreading" the first and last tracks. Unfortunalely (and please someone, correct me if I'm wrong), no new drives have this feature. Your left with scouring eBay for old Plextors.

[Skunk]

Make sure you disable autorun on the laptop just in case there's strange hidden multimedia content (thanks $ony) keeping it from playing. You'll have to edit the registry, I'd search for "_________(your OS)+ autorun".

I wouldn't worry too much about it, as most modern drives can provide a bit accurate RIP with EAC {the first and last couple hundred samples notwithstanding}. Some compuphile names are LG, BenQ, LiteOn (sony), and ebay Plextors. Speed, copy protection defeatability, and under/over read/writeability are all you could gain in a search of esoteric brands.

EAC needs to sync up with whatever drive you get. Pay special attention to options for caching and c2 correction. 90% of the easy setup tutorials give the wrong advice, but you need to check the box for 'drive caches data', and leave 'c2 error' option UN-CHECKED. You can also create an offset test disc, and find the best gap detection method. Install Accurate Rip to compare your results with the rest of the world, or just 'test and copy' and compare CRC data. Anyway, my generic drive works for me...

I think the previous poster is right, in that the ONLY drive that ever supported under reading is the Plextor. That means if your cd 'happens' to have Track 1 index0 info it can retrieve it. Maybe 1 in 100 cd's have enough info (actual hidden track) there to worry about.

What's up with hiding tracks, anyway?

[m1abrams]

A good tutorial on setting up EAC.

http://users.pandora.be/satcp/eac-qs-en.htm

EDIT: FIXED LINK

[Skunk]

[QUOTE=m1abrams]

"A good tutorial on setting up EAC."

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Sorry to disagree. His first suggestion not to fill missing samples with silence seems wrong.

His advice on 'drive caches data' is also wrong. If your drive has this, you must check the box- or EAC cannot defeat it. If EAC is comparing what it just got from the cache, to what is in the cache- of course it will be bit accurate. That doesn't mean what's in the cache is right. EAC will only (re)read what's on the disc if the button is checked. Rather counterintuitive, but that's EAC...

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[m1abrams]

SKUNK you know I just recently saw this and quickly glanced over it and it appeared to give a good HowTo on setting up EAC. However you are completely corret. Maybe our budding in the Ripping forum who is having issues with his FLAC who followed this guide is having issues due to this.

EDIT: after actually clicking on the link I pasted I found I had a cut-n-paste error (you have no idea how often I do this writing code).

This is the link I meant to paste
http://users.pandora.be/satcp/eac-qs-en.htm

[Skunk]

I would do a FAQ thread with lots of nice screenshots if I knew how to upload pics into the thread.

I could also host it on a site, but it would be more valuable if people had a chance to dispute my settings in this forum.