Recommended External CD Drive For Ripping?

[Audio_ELF]

Dot Rip as fast as you can

RIP as slow as you can, more accurate

And if you want best possible sound,

LPS power supply or battery supply

 

For good quality ripping you should use a CD only drives, you may find first generation Plextor or LG on ebay.

 

I disagree ... if you use dbPowerAmp and utilise SecureRip then once the CD is ripped and matches to the database, you are assured you have a "perfect" copy.

 

Everything else is irrelevant.

 

Eloise

 

PS. yes I know some people will disagree ...

[Audio_ELF]

As a general reply to the OP ... depending on how much you have to spend on doing this...

 

Buy a case such as...

...and add a high capacity PSU. Then add a motherboard, processor and memory and extra SATA controllers.

 

Stuff it with 6 CD (or DVD) drives. Add a couple of HDDs (for OS and for storages).

 

Then use dbPowerAmp and you can insert 6 CDs at a time, walk away. Next time you pass swap for 6 more.

[Audio_ELF]

Did you read the link dbpoweramp secure ripping test.

With respect did you?

 

"Overtime AccurateRip can become like a wise-friend, someone you can rely on and trust. It works by storing peoples ripping results and comparing your result with theirs. For example 100 people rip Madonnas latest CD, of those 100 twenty have errors, the other 80 all have identical rips. If you were to rip your Madonna CD there are 2 possibilities, AccurateRip would report that 80 other people agree with your rip (confidence of 80), or that 80 disagree if your had errors. What are the odds of 80 people agreeing with your rip, but they really had a bad rip (ie those 80 people had bad rips which happened to give the same check code)? the odds are 4 billion x 4 billion (repeated 80 times), an astronomical number. If more than 3 people agree with your rip, it is 100% certainty it is accurate."

 

Eloise

[Audio_ELF]

Yes I did:) but you should read the detailed results.

I did ... if you read what I wrote ...

if you use dbPowerAmp and utilise SecureRip then once the CD is ripped and matches to the database, you are assured you have a "perfect" copy.

 

Everything else is irrelevant.

It is not at odds at all with either dbPowerAmp's summary nor the detailed results!

 

I know there are some people who disagree and think how the perfect result was obtained matters; I disagree with them but I was hoping not to get into an argument.

 

I was simply offering another opinion. One which is not in disagreement with the link you posted.

 

Certain drives may be quicker, or read difficult to read or badly maintained CDs; but (IMO) the end result is always identical if the checksums match.

 

Eloise

[Audio_ELF]

C2 pointers avoid non reported errors, now read this:

 

https://dbpoweramp.com/spoons-audio-guide-cd-ripping.htm

 

PS:If the errors are not reported you can forget about accurate rip

You mean I should read another link which agrees with me that in the most part any modern CD reader is perfectly adequate and nothing special is needed?

 

Or is there a particular part I've missed where it says "always use a CD only drive for best results"?

[Audio_ELF]

You know better Eloise sorry for advising on things I don't understand.

Sorry I just have no idea what you are posting these articles in support of. The way I read them they support the position that (with a few exceptions) any modern drive will read a CD well, and once compared with AccurateRip you have close to 100% confidence that the drive has read it well. Given that Spoon is promoting how good and how easy his software is to use I would think that is the impression he is trying to portray! His articles say there have been problems ripping in the past, but with EAC and now dbPowerAmp they have been overcome.

 

Obviously your interpretation is very different.

 

If there is a particular paragraph or two in this (or another article) which supports your view point that DVD readers are bad, perhaps you would paste it here (along with a link to the original article) rather than linking to articles generally which (to my reading) support the position that there is no need to worry in the most part.

 

Eloise

[Audio_ELF]

Eloise, alfe is an R&D Engineer specialized on this kind of drives (if memory serves me, from another thread).

Then I don't understand why he repeatedly posts links to articles by Spoon which to my understanding are saying that (and I am paraphrasing) while there are better and worse drives, but if your rip matches AccurateRip database then you are close to 100% assured a perfect rip, and if it matches 3 then it's almost impossible (statistically) that your rip is not perfect!

 

For example in the link you "quoted" -- https://dbpoweramp.com/spoons-audio-guide-cd-ripping.htm -- the Secure Ripping section says (again my paraphrasing): in the past you had to rely on C2 Error Pointers - which let 3% or so of errors though; and re-reading - which lets through errors when you repeatedly read the same error. So yes, take these two "issues" and different CD readers produce different results. But the section concludes by saying: with AccurateRip checksums these errors are caught as you are comparing to other people's rips and your CD is unlikely to have identical scratches, etc. as someone else's.

 

Eloise

[Audio_ELF]

I tested so many drives that I can't count them, for many reasons (numerical aperture , diffraction filters ,aberrations, etc) to avoid to be to technical I will advise to use CD only drives for ripping for the rest YMMV.

Lets get to the heart of this comment if I may...

 

Are you saying you have "tested so many drives that I can't count them" and the rips resulting from them are passed by dbPowerAmp but still have different checksums and therefore not passed as "AccurateRip? Or do they have identical checksums and therefore pass as AccurateRip yet the rips SOUND different at playback?

 

Eloise

[Audio_ELF]

[...deleted at Alfe's request...]

[Audio_ELF]

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