Best cda ripper

[Lenin1928]

I want to incode my cd's with a lossless compression, but ripping the files from cda to a format other then that, I'm wondering if that would lose some quality right there. Say cda to wav how much quality am I loseing there?

[Lenin1928]

I have been using nero to save the tracks on the audio cd to a wav format, but I know nero doesn't nessarily do a 1:1 copy, primarily because of the copy protections, I'm wondering if theres a clone CD type program that will save tracks.

[Lenin1928]

Anyone have any experience with MP3 observer?

[notbob]

there is no loss from cda to wav--it isn't compressed at all

wav to other formats is where loss happens, but here's where the big shn/ ape vs 256 /320 mp3 comes in-- i suugest you read this site carefully, as it gves cogent arguements for and against certain compression schemes/encoders http://www.r3mix.net/

[Lenin1928]

notbob, lame 3.92 has come out, stick with 3.85?


Other then that I believe I've settled this, your website was most informative. Exactly what I was looking for.

[Rickio]

EAC or Exact Audio Copy is THE best ripper.
once you have a wave, if you want lossless compression you might look a monkeyaudio format .ape

If you check out the EAC website I believe there is a link for the lame.dll, definately go to the lame website as their are links to the lossless compression sites and do get the newset lame upgrade

[notbob]

i use lame 3.89, i haven't heard that any of the newer versions are better or worse--encoding at lame vbr is one of the best options for preserving quality, but if size isn't an option, by all means use wav

as for shn and monkeys audio, i'd stay away from them, as they are proprietary formats(same reason not to use real,wma, or any of the player specific formats), and will never have the sort of universal compatibility of wav or mp3

[Rickio]

I thought part of the questions was about lossless compression so I mentioned monkeys audio and from what I remember it is freeware.

I recommend at least reading about it and it does compress better than a few of the other lossless compression formats I have seen...

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/
I just went th the site and souce code is freely available, it is technicaly not open source but as close as you can get and still keep some control over the code. They are making it open for anyone to use the code, restrictions are for people trying to make money. I also mentioned it as I have been seeing more people use it. I was not intending to promote a popular format though, but something that works well and of course it is lossless which was the point.

Ogg Vorbis is open source freeware and very good, but it is a lossy format. Some say it is better than mp3.

oh! as for newer versions of lame, well....not sure why they made them then if it wasn't to actually fine tune it as they say...

EAC always comes with newest version of lame bundled with it. I guess I got the newer version because EAC upgrade came with it. But I do try and get the newer (stable) version always.

[Nothingface5384]

flac is also a lossless compression but monkey audo is better..dbpoweramp supports this also..and you can dl other codec plugins if you like..you can get it at the tool section of this site

[Power Penguin]

You've got to compress so we can download from you. :fire

[thebeak]

Originally posted by notbob
i use lame 3.89, i haven't heard that any of the newer versions are better or worse--encoding at lame vbr is one of the best options for preserving quality, but if size isn't an option, by all means use wav



There are significant advantages in using Lame 3.92, especially if you use vbr.

--alt-preset standard activates a series of code level tweaks that solve or partially solve most inherent drawbacks of the mp3 format.

Average bitrates are about 192 for a variety of music.

As for the best ripper, EAC will rip and encode directly to Monkey's for you.

But as was pointed out, these files are a little tedious to download.