CD importing/quality questions

That's very thoughtful of you. You certainly don't have to do that for me ^^;

IF you do though, the track is "Rebel Yell" (last) around when it goes from 2:36 to 2:37. May need to turn your speakers up a bit high to catch it (yes I can be that OCD with these things )

PS - The DP album is the static problem, the freeze/hang-up problem is disc 2 of Cradle of Filth's "Lovecraft & Witch Hearts".

 

I'm doing it because I'm curious if it's a copy protection error, mastering error, or something else. I can be a bit OCD about ripping. Which is why I'm curious about this one. Especially if it ends up being a failed copy protection causing the problem.

It's probably not copy protection. If it was then there would be more parts of music with short bits of static rather than just one part. But I want to find out.

 

Sounds good

 

AAC isn't lossless.

Downloading a song in MP3 format and then converting it to AAC will sound even worse than just the MP3 alone as you'll be applying two levels of compression to the recording.

 

He might be getting confused because AAC and Apple Lossless both use the same filename extension (.m4a).

 

The program I used gave me the option to do lossless + m4a. But thanks for the tip. Maybe another time I'll try lossless + MP3 or something like that.

@BrewDrinkRepeat - Maybe that was my problem/mistake, yeah.

 

UPDATE

Ordered a (near mint) copy of the Cradle of Filth album that I was having importing issues with, only a different (earlier) print/pressing of it. I'll see if that works for importing it, where the version I have failed.

 

"Fourth, what are some signs that a disc is probably too scratched/scuffed to import and/or play properly?"

The best sign is when there is a problem with the resulting file! If you have very dirty disks, a gentle wash can help (air dry, so you don't scratch).
EAC is designed to be the most persistent in ripping disks, and it will report the accuracy. If the "accurate rip" settings don't work due to damage, I've sometimes been able to get a listenable result with a less accurate setting. Then, if there are still errors, I've ripped to a wav file, then taken it into an audio editor, and repaired the glitch so it's listenable (EAC will report the time of the problem in the track so it's easy to find).

 

If I understand correctly, and I may not, this "blip" or error you hear is both on the CD and the file you ripped but you have purchased the same song from another source and did not hear the error. If so it is simply within the CD and mastering itself and the file ripped from that CD is replicating that mastering. The playback from which you do not hear the error may be an entirely different mastering and a correction to that error may have taken place to eliminate this.

 

just to clarify, when you copy the tracks off a CD to a file on a PC, it is called "ripping", not "importing"

Typically ripping a CD results in .wav files, which you can encode to any format you want (flac, mp3, etc.) most programs do this in one step, that is they rip a .wav from the disc and then encode it and delete the .wav, so you end up with whatever format you chose for encoding. You should use flac IMO.

 

That could very well be it. SORT OF figured that, myself. But thanks for the further advice