Considerable Improvement with EAC Rips


associated equipment:
-Squeezebox III w/ Transparent Reference Digital Link .wav or .aiff
-dCS Delius
-dCS Purcell Upsampler 1394 (DSD)
-Levison 336
-B&W N802
-Transparent Reference Cabling and Power Conditioning
-ASC Tower Traps

I will be short and to the point. I think error correction, or "secure ripping" is absolutely crucial to hard drive based music server performance and I think the free program EAC probably performs this task better than iTunes. The difference is audible.

On disc after disc, EAC ripped tracks had a more refined, pleasant presentation, greater resolution, improved dynamics, with better imaging and instrument separation than iTunes tracks. In addition, electric and acoustic bass was tighter with more articulation and string attack. The imaging of loud swells in the music that on the iTunes tracks would sound "congested" held together more on the EAC tracks. Vocals were not as boomy or forward sounding. It goes on and on.

I tested with a fellow audiophile and we both heard and were able to describe to each other the same type of improvement on each track in most cases. In every case we heard a material difference in the tracks and on the majority of the discs we could successfully identify and distinguish EAC tracks from iTunes tracks in a blind test.

In some cases, tracks that iTunes ripped rather quickly took over an hour to rip as EAC read and reread bad sectors on the disc. Average rip speed was around 4-6x normal playing speed and on some discs dropped as low as .1x normal playing speed. We used iTunesEncode to allow EAC to automatically use iTunes' encoders to convert the raw EAC wav into .aiff and add it to the iTunes library with the proper metadeta. The entire process of EAC ripping and adding to iTunes is one click, once setup properly.

EAC indicated it was performing error correction on several discs that were thought to be in good enough condition for real time playback on a CD transport.

As a side note, the CD drive we have used has, what based on my research (also known as googling), is the best combination of features for a CD-ROM ripper: 1. it does NOT cache audio when ripping 2. it uses c2 error correction and 3. it utilizes "accurate stream".

I believe the final result with EAC is as good, if not better than the Goldmund Mim36 transport the Squeezebox replaced. On almost every disc I found myself saying "it sounds like the old transport!"

The bottom line is that if you are seriously building an archive on PC you should probably at least test this program. If you can't bring yourself to use EAC, at a minimum, iTunes error correction should be engaged.

This is a tweak for serious listening and like a lot of audiophile upgrades the differences are subtle, but important. I could not identify a difference on my Pro-Ject Headbox SEII, Sennheiser HD600 headphones and PC soundcard, but out of my main system it was obvious to me.

In conclusion, the right drive and EAC has made the system sound better than ever, without a doubt. There may be other software that rips as well or better but I am not aware of it. It also suggests computer software may play an important role in the future of the hobby, especially with USB DACS on the rise.

At the very least, the meticulous manner in which EAC reads and rereads suspicious sections of a disc, the ability to detect and compensate for unwanted drive behavior like caching, the reduced speed at which it rips, the accuracy reports it gives, and the program's reputation give me piece of mind that my files are about as good as they could be.

It is either my imagination or the best free tweak I have found to date.
blackstonejd
What OS is your PC running? I'm curious to know if that makes a difference too.

Enjoy,

TIC
Excellent write... :-)

Kind of wondering why you'd use a lossy compression algorithm after going thru all the trouble to rip them accurately.

I'm also using the setup you describe and ripping to ALAC. I then save the .wav's to an archive drive in case i want to re-rip at a different compression algorithm.....
Maybe I'm missing it but I can't find any mention of anyone using a lossy compression. Just FLAC, WAV, LOSSLESS & AIFF.
Can you compare one of the EAC ripped files that you hear a difference on and the iTunes ripped file bit by bit and see how many differences there are?
To answer all of the above:

I certainly do not use lossy compression. That would be a violation of every audiophile instinct (neuroses) in my body! I use uncompressed .aiff, which as a side note, I believe is identical to .wav in sound quality. I use it because .aiff seems to handle meta data tags better and if the iTunes library every gets corrupted or lost, the files themselves will retain some artist and album information.

The operating system is Windows Vista. In this case, it makes a difference because I am not aware of a program like EAC on the mac. You could do this with XP. Plextools might give similar results on Mac but I'm not sure about that. I don't have a mac.

The process for me is the CD drive straight to an internal hard drive that is separate from my main system disc. The library is managed by iTunes. The Squeezebox III serves the files to the DSC from wifi and provides the interface. My computer (intel quad core) serves as only ripper and file server.

The process to integrate EAC with iTunes is as follows:

1. Download and Install EAC

http://www.digital-world.de/downloads/audio/exact_audio_copy_v_095_beta_4_international/1253089/exact_audio_copy_v_095_beta_4_international.html

2. Download and Install iTunesEncode in the EAC folder

a.download at: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=41a94476ff9f5e9a25eea39e5c88c32d&act=Attach&type=post&id=1617

b. Extract iTunesEncode.exe into the same folder as EAC, usually it is (C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy). Just copy it into the folder, there is no installer program for ItunesEncode.

iTunes Encode is a command line program that needs to be fed a command string to tell it what to do. EAC will feed it that string but you have to set it up.

3. Configure EAC to use iTunesEncode
a. launch EAC (you may have to go through EAC configuration wizard if you haven't yet.)
b. in EAC, go to the following menu: EAC-->Compression Options-->external compression.

c. In external compression, set the following options:
(i). check "use external compression"

(ii). parameter passing scheme: set to "user defined encoder"

(iii). press "browse" and find and select the iTunes encode program, which should be in your EAC folder at this point.

(iv). Make the file extension option the extension of the itunes compatible format you wish to use (.aiff, .alac) but note that changing this only marks the files with the exension, IT DOES NOT ACTUALLY CHANGE THE FORMAT. That part comes next.

(v). Most importantly, enter the following command string into "additional command line options":

-e "AIFF Encoder" -a "%a" -l "%g" -t "%t" -g "%m" -y %y -n %n -i %s -o %d

Just copy and past it in exactly as it is seen above. If you want to use an encoder other than AIFF, change "AIFF Encoder" to to a different encoder. Within those quotes you can name whatever iTunes encoder you want to use and THAT is what will tell iTunes to use the appropriate encoder.

You may choose from "AAC Encoder", "WAV Encoder",
"MP3 Encoder", "AIFF Encoder",
or "Lossless Encoder".
(Default is "AAC Encoder".)

Some of this information is included in the readme file for iTunes encode.

(vi) I don't think the bit rate pull down does anything in this context but just to be safe make it the highest value which is 1024. It don't think it is really a factor though.

Click OK. Now EAC should be configured to encode into itunes. EAC will rip the files and after each file rip, iTunes encode should automatically launch itunes and use it to encode and important the files.

Note that EAC is capable of either retaining the original wav or deleting it. I personally have it delete the original wav automatically.

There is one other nuance here. The way I have my iTunes setup, everything it imports gets neatly COPIED and placed into a series of folders organized by artist and album. iTunes does this automatically for me and probably for you to. Thus after ripping, you may have a copy of the encoded file in your EAC folder, or whatever folder EAC is set to output to, AND in your iTunes music folder. This is a product of iTunes making a copy and keeping your itunes music folder organized. What I do is clear out my EAC folder the same way I would periodically empty the trash bin otherwise the duplicates build up. I also make sure EAC is set to delete the original .wav it creates before encoding or I would actually have three lossless copies on my drive after each rip.

Hope that helps.