iPod to use EAC or not use EAC

[jbforever05]

I have decided that I'm going to rip my cds to the computer in a lossless format so that if I ever decide to switch lossy formats in the future I'll be able to encode the songs without ripping from the actual cds again. I planned on using itunes and ripping my music to apple lossless since this gives smaller file sizes than other lossless formats and is compatible with itunes and my ipod. I've heard that some people don't use itunes ti rip their cds into apple lossless, they use EAC instead. I've never used EAC and am by no means an expert on it so I just know that it has really nifty error correction and reads a damaged sector of a cd repeatedly to get as much information as possible. My question: is it really worth it to use EAC instead of itunes to rip my cds to apple lossless? It seems like a lot more effort than just using the encoder in itunes. My cds are all in pretty good condition with some having some minor scratches, smudges. I'd like great quality lossless files, but is EAC really going to make much, if any, difference at all?

 

[Nermal]

I think it may help for some CDs. One of my CDs, which I got brand new, took multiple rips to get it right - there were clicks and pops in several tracks at first. I had the most luck my dragging the AIFFs from the "virtual CD" that Finder shows you, then converting those inside iTunes.

 

[Tom B.]

iTunes does have it's own 'Use error correction when reading audio CDs' from the advanced options menu, under 'Importing'. It may work in a similar way to EAC, but may be easier and quicker to do.

 

[balamw]

I archive all my CDs using EAC to create a single FLAC file and a CUE file.

I think EAC is excellent and can get much better rips than either iTunes+Error Correction or even PlexTools which is great.

That said, I'm looking at converting over to Apple Lossless from those images to have better/more granular tags...

It also doesn't help that EAC requires Windows and I'm trying to get Windows more and more out of my life.

Another EAC alternative is cdparanoia which in some sense was the precursor to EAC and does more than the standard Error Correction that Apple uses...

B

 

[Nermal]

iTunes does have it's own 'Use error correction when reading audio CDs' from the advanced options menu, under 'Importing'. It may work in a similar way to EAC, but may be easier and quicker to do.

Yeah, I leave that turned on, but it didn't help with that particular problematic CD.