Nonsense. You are conflating consistency with accuracy.
You either don’t understand why a crowd-sourced checksum is so compelling, or don’t want to. The statistical chance of multiple users using different CD media and different CD-ROMs getting the same MD5 is vanishingly small. It really is the most accurate way to dietermine a flawless rip.
So? You are always comparing to other people who have ripped the same master as you. If there are 3 different masters, and 99+ have the same MD5 on one, 38 have the same MD5 on another and 6 people have the same MD5 on the third, they are ALL accurate rips.
No, they won’t. This is also flat out incorrect.
LOL, no you can’t. A ‘special’ TEAC drive. Do me a favour
Right, so you spent the last 5 paragraphs trying to slag off Accuraterip, then you say you’ve been getting the same results as them for 15 years. WTF?
The drive offset config is a trivial part of the initial setup of AccurateRip, as you well know. If you mess it up (unlikely), then the checksum won’t match anybody else’s. But AccurateRip know this and it’s part of the setup that you use a well known disc from their database to ensure drive offset has been done correctly.
I guess what I’m saying here is we are all try to get the most accurate rips and if you use
EAC
dbPoweramp
VortexBox
or sonicTransporter
you are getting he most accurate rips. I have compared our rips to rips from these other sources and they are always the same.
In several cases people have received 90% accuracy ratings from AccurateRip and wondered if they got a good rip. They have ripped with our products and verified that they get the same bit perfect rip.
Also if you are ripping CDs that are not in the AccurateRip database but you are ripping on a box that has given you good rips in the past you can be sure that the rip is good even though you have no way to verify it other then the fact that you used a known good process.
Because, 99.9% of the time they will be. However, you only know they are with AccurateRip. None of the others have a mechanism compare checksums. Ripping the same disc on the same hardware and getting the same result is consistency. It’s trivial to achieve consistency. Consistency though =/= accuracy.
You can only approach accuracy by comparing CDs of the same master across many different drives, which is exactly what AccurateRip does. None of the others do this.
You can have a reasonable degree of confidence in your drive, but it will tell you nothing about any problems with the media itself. Here, re-ripping can achieve self-consistency and this can help but yes, this is the limitation of crowd-sourced data - there has to be some other data to compare.
I have to say though, the database is vast. It’s pretty difficult to trip it up and even one single comparison with the same MD5 result is pretty compelling.
Thank you for eloquently stating what I thought I was going to have to state after I read Andrew’s post. You did it better than I could have. I really like Andrew but, in this case, he was really way off base and you set things straight.
Yes I agree. There are MANY small independent limited release CDs out there that are not in AccurateRip or only have one other source in AccurateRip. It’s important to have a way to rip these CDs as well.
AccurateRip often comes up with a 90%+ not 100% match. This worries people that they are not get a bit perfect rip when they usually are.
I get it you love AccurateRip! AccurateRip is great and works really well. Keep using it. Tell others to use it. They will get good rips. The original poster asked for some solutions to get good rips. That’s was we are discussing here.
Just because you have a good solution doesn’t mean there aren’t other good solutions out there.
AccurateRip checks on a track-by-track basis. If a track isn’t as matching there’s often a good reason. Often it’s the final track on the disc (hello fingerprints). If dBPoweramp reports that the disc hasn’t ripped correctly I don’t know how you can assert that people can ignore the result and claim it’s a bit perfect rip.
And I get that you have a product to promote. Please don’t do it while making false assertions about dBPoweramp and the AccurateRip database.
Changing the tone, what external CD drive would you recommend for ripping?
Am I better getting an external exclosure (e.g. Vantec NexStar DX) and then install an internal CD burner? Are these more reliable/robust than a standard external CD ripper.
Not exactly. I’m not in disagreement, but you have to qualify your statement or it can be a misleading generalization.
According to Spoon, “Any new drive can rip 100% without error, the better drives are better at recovering from errors for damaged discs.”
So when the CD is in perfect condition we expect all CD-ROMs to rip perfectly. However, when the CD is not in perfect condition the resulting rip can be affected by the drive’s ability to perform error detection. The quality of the drive’s error detection is different from drive to drive (hello foo drives).
I agree that better drives do work better. Especially with challenging discs. I use an OWC external Blu-ray LG drive that is the best I have used in a very long time.
But let’s not get away from the fact that no matter what drive you use, the only way to know you are getting a perfect rip is to use a crowd-sourced checksum database like AccurateRip.
I’m not against AccurateRip and I have used it in the past. However, after ripping as many CDs as I have for myself, friends, family and customers the eye candy gets a little old and I just want something automated like Andrews solution. That 0.1% of the collection which rips incorrectly because of an issue with the CD will likely not be bit perfect regardless. Here is something that would be interesting…having the crowd-sourced data fill in the gaps when data is corrupt.
Eye candy? It’s called a user interface. What is so hard about sticking in a CD and pushing a button? Those that are willing to sacrifice functionality and accuracy for convenience are not very likely the demographic here.
I don’t get you and Andrew being so contrarian on this topic. It’s seems that if you or Andrew did not invent it, it can’t be good. It’s not a good look for you two…
It’s my prerogative to want something different. I have ripped them both ways and after a while of seeing the same old thing over and over again. I don’t rip dirty scratched CDs so the results are not a surprise. I’m also not against anything and you are free to pick which one you like for what every reason you have. I have no skin in the CD ripping game. BTW a friend of mine did some tests and compared ripping software and found them all to be bit perfect. I’ll post a like link later as I have to run now.
All ripping software is bit perfect until they are not. Trust but verify and that is exactly what AccurateRip does: verify.
My CD collection has discs going back to 1984. Some are well used and are not in pristine condition. AccurateRip has help quite a bit with some of these older CDs.
Who said anything about “accurate”. That’s just part of the name. What AccurateRip does is give you a reliable way to verify that your rips are bit perfect instead of just assuming they are. Heck, using PerfectTUNES, you can use AccurateRip to verify that your ripped library is still bit perfect.
So you think any CD drive is the go, but there must be something in one CD drive potentially being better than another. I was hoping to narrow the field down a wee bit more than “get anything, they all work the same”, but thanks anyway for your response.
Andrew
Do you think the Vantec NexStar DX would be a good choice as an external enclosure to fit a full size drive. Any particular TEAC you can recommend (I can’t seem to find any TEAC full size drives here in Australia).
Choosing the right optical drive is not the answer. Rather, having multiple drives at your disposal is the best course of action. Some drives, even well regarded ones, will cough and sputter on certain discs, while commodity level drives may rip those discs with no protest. Hit and miss is the nature of the game. If at first you do not succeed on one drive, try, try, try another drive.
Additionally, a seemingly pristine disc plus a seemingly smooth rip is no guarantee of accuracy. A small percentage of discs are damaged at the microscopic structural level, probably straight from the pressing plant. No rips of these discs ever will be accurate with some drives or even all drives. This also is where crowd sourced databases AccurateRip and CUETools come into play for verification and possibly repair.
