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Ripping CDs under Mac...NEW test results!

S

scootermaster

Platinum Member
So, I'm finally ready to rip my CD collection. I'm doing this under a Hackintosh -- thanks kaido! -- and I'm sort of lost. Obviously I'd use EAC and .flac under Windows, but what about a Mac?

I've been googling and it seems there is finally some interoperability between Alac and Flac, so perhaps that isn't so important, but I think I'd like to stay with .flac, and then use fluke to import to iTunes.

So, questions:

1. Best, accurate CD ripping software for Mac?
2. Best way to encode to flac, with tags (and artwork embedded, if possible)
3. Anyone have any experience with fluke and artwork in iTunes? I can't figure out when it works and when it doesn't.
4. Anything else I should know?

The biggest thing is I don't want to have to physically rip the collection more than once, or do a lot of [re]tagging. I also would like bitperfect rips, which I've read iTunes sometimes has a problem with. So I'm pretty format agnostic, but if I need to switch between the two, it'd be nice if the tags were there. Also, I prefer a non-iTunes "artist - song.flac" format, but that's a minor thing.

Thoughts?
 
I'm sure people have done more extensive tests, but for the record, I took a CD (I used the first four tracks of The Dandy Warhol's Thirteen Tales of Urban Bohemia) and ripped it to .flac under windows using EAC (with a super error-correcting setting and the CD drive the program recommended) as well as iTunes (to ALAC) and Max (to .flac, using the normal ripper setting). I also compared ripping directly to wav (i.e. as close as I could come, I think, to no encoding, although it's confusing which settings to us. I picked 16 bit PCM, figuring that's what a CD is). I used the compare and cdparanoia settings for this. I then converted all that need to be converted to WAV using Max.

For the record, the filesizes for all, once finally converted to WAV were identical. And the md5s were identical...except, of course, the EAC one. The other four were the same.

Not sure exactly what, if anything, that means, but I'm worried that somehow the EAC one is the "right" bitperfect reading. I guess the good news is that the CDparanoia ripping setting might be a little overkill for CDs that are in good shape, but I'm not sure why the EAC version would be different (unless there's something like gaps in the music...but even then, wouldn't the filesizes be different?)
 
If you want to rip to FLAC, use XLD [link]. It's the closest thing to EAC for OSX. Like EAC, it also supports Secure ripping for a guaranteed 1:1 copy as well as logs.
 
You could always image it and play back from a mounted ISO. That'd give you 1:1 :laugh:
 
I did some new tests with XLD, and the md5 checksums were the same from the other, Apple set. Luckily, the checksums for EAC under windows and EAC under VM ware were the same. So if that's really the "right" one, then it's still doable. What's also notable, is using EAC's "compare WAVs" feature, comparing one EAC sample (which were all the same) and one Apple sample (again, all the same) the only difference (or "error") is that the Apple version has "6 repeated samples" at position 0:00:00.702. Now, I'm not sure what that means, but it seems like something that happens in the first second of the recording is a little weird, and then the rest is identical. If I'm interpreting that correctly, perhaps I'll try a couple of other samples, but if that's really the only difference, then I think there's no real reason not to use something under Apple, since XLD/Max is easier to set to encode to ALAC (Which I think I'm going to use, since it's now more easily converted to/from Flac) than setting up EAC and dbpoweramp under VMware (which is the best way to get Alac under windows, right?)

Doing some more tests (the first test was with the first track on the album, and I thought maybe that'd screw stuff up) I found that the EAC tracks have "6 missing samples" at time 0:00:00.00 (when compared to an XLD/Max/iTunes track) So I'm not sure what that means either.

Any thoughts?
 
Originally posted by: umrigar
i like XLD - nobody's trying to cure cancer here, right?
Click to expand...

No, but accurate representations of my CDs would be nice. I'm eventually going to build a HTPC with a prosumer sound card, and hook it into my home theater, and if my digital CDs aren't "CD quality" then it sorta defeats the whole purpose.

I don't know enough about those error messages to know if they're significant or not. Just thought someone else might have some insight.
 
FYI, it's not completely uncommon for checksum values to differ from OS to OS -- especially if you're not using the same exact program. Your best bet is to run md5sum [link] against the EAC file in Win32 (using UNIX compatibility mode) then use md5 under OSX.

Of course, being as it's being ripped by 2 different programs it's still entirely likely the hash values will still mismatch. Not saying they definitely will, just most likely to.

Point being, hash values are often calculated differently on various OS platform due to lots of factors (ie. EOF characters are handled differently in a UNIX-based OS than Win32). So, it's really not a valid comparison. The only true method of comparing is to listen to the audio track, let your ears be the judge. Does it sound fine? If so, then what's the problem? I've ripped over 2,000 CDs in the past 3-4 years. Most under EAC, but in the past year I've since migrated to an OSX platform and I've ripped maybe another 200 in XLD. All in FLAC, and all perfect. XLD is the FLAC ripper of choice for most audio-enthusiasts on the Mac -- well, those who don't use EAC (either via Bootcamp or VMWare/Parallels).
 
Originally posted by: magnux
FYI, it's not completely uncommon for checksum values to differ from OS to OS -- especially if you're not using the same exact program. Your best bet is to run md5sum [link] against the EAC file in Win32 (using UNIX compatibility mode) then use md5 under OSX.

Of course, being as it's being ripped by 2 different programs it's still entirely likely the hash values will still mismatch. Not saying they definitely will, just most likely to.

Point being, hash values are often calculated differently on various OS platform due to lots of factors (ie. EOF characters are handled differently in a UNIX-based OS than Win32). So, it's really not a valid comparison. The only true method of comparing is to listen to the audio track, let your ears be the judge. Does it sound fine? If so, then what's the problem? I've ripped over 2,000 CDs in the past 3-4 years. Most under EAC, but in the past year I've since migrated to an OSX platform and I've ripped maybe another 200 in XLD. All in FLAC, and all perfect. XLD is the FLAC ripper of choice for most audio-enthusiasts on the Mac -- well, those who don't use EAC (either via Bootcamp or VMWare/Parallels).
Click to expand...

I did just as you said, and the checksums were the same as they were under Mac OS. So, I think I'm going to use XLD to Alac (so I can burn under iTunes, and stream to my Xbox, since Fluke flacs don't work with Connect360). I'll try with a couple of other CDs I'd ripped before under EAC and Windows, and assuming the Wavs match up as much as they seem to, I'll just go with that.

Thanks for all the advice, and let me know if you need/want further results! (And go post in my DVD ripping thread! =] )
 
Alternatively, rather than using ALAC, you can rip to FLAC and use Fluke to play them in iTunes. Like you, I wanted lossless and I wanted iTunes compatibility -- however, I wasn't keen on submitting to ALAC. Hence, Fluke. Great app, keeps my FLAC flowing. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: magnux
Alternatively, rather than using ALAC, you can rip to FLAC and use Fluke to play them in iTunes. Like you, I wanted lossless and I wanted iTunes compatibility -- however, I wasn't keen on submitting to ALAC. Hence, Fluke. Great app, keeps my FLAC flowing. 🙂
Click to expand...

I've used this for awhile, but I've noticed a couple of things:

1). It seems to choke on cover art. Sometimes. I haven't really tried to figure out what's going on, but I had a folder.jpg in the folder with an album's flac files, and for some reason, it would sometimes recognize that, and sometimes not. What's worse, is it says "cover art not modifiable" for the ones it wouldn't recognize

2). These files aren't available to stream to my Xbox

3). No burning in iTunes, which isn't the end of the world, but it'd be nice to just be able to select a playlist and burn it to disk without launching other programs, or trying to figure out how to save/export an iTunes playlist (I already experienced this once). Moving from ALAC to Flac if needed shouldn't be that hard. Just a night or twos transcoding. All metadata and stuff should be easy to transfer.
 
So, I think I'm going to use XLD to rip. Thanks for the suggestions.

So far, most of my CDs have ripped "accurately", but with varying levels of AccurateRip confidence. Any idea what those numbers even mean? Higher is better?

Also, none of the checksums equal each other. Is that bad?

Sigh.
 
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