EAC/LAME still viable for ripping on modern PCs?

I have some new CDs, I want to rip to MP3, issue is I haven't done this for a while now.

I know that Exact Audio Copy is still the best ripping tool for Windows, so I will of course be using that, but I am not sure about encoding.

I used to use LAME years ago, is that still one of the best tools to encode WAV to MP3 for Windows? I understand that MP3 isn't the best format out there anymore, but I want to put the encodes on devices that more or less are designed just to play MP3 files.

And the problem with using LAME to encode from WAV to MP3 is that even though I can get cd database information for the tracks and the cds themselves contain text for the album/tracks... WAV files can't store any such metadata, so it woudl be lost when I rip the CD to WAV, and then of course convert the WAV to MP3. Is there any way I can somehow tell LAME to use the data from the database or the cd itself ot tag the MP3s? Or can EAC actually use LAME itself to just straight encode to MP3 with the tag information intact? I don't know about the quality of any built-in MP3 encoder EAC might use over LAME.

Oh, and finally, pretty much all my systems have blu-ray drives in them nowadays, blu-ray bruners no less, they can't even burn a CD below 16x or at best 8x anymore, would these be garbage for trying to get an accurate rip of a music cd?

 

It's been years since I did any MP3 encoding. I still use EAC for ripping/encoding of CDs but it's been ages since I used anything beside FLAC. The only suggestion I can give is to try both MP3 encoding with EAC and later listen to the MP3 versions and try to find any glaring problems. It should be fine IMHO. I use a PC external USB CD/DVD drive to rip so I can't help you on the BD drives issue.

EAC can access CDDB to retrieve information for tagging, have you ever encountered any problems with it?

 

EAC/LAME is still the standard for ripping to high bitrate MP3. If encoding under 224 kbps, I'd probably use TVBR AAC which holds up pretty well down to 160 kbps.

EAC will fetch and write tags to MP3 files while ripping. The "built-in" MP3 encoder in EAC is LAME.

A Blu-ray drive will rip CDs just fine.

 

Blu-Ray burners read/write CD at high speeds. For example, just the first one I found on NewEgg:

ASUS BW-16D1HT

Read Speed:
BD-R : 12X
BD-R(SL, M-DISC) : 12X
BD-RE : 8X
BD-ROM : 8X
BD-R(DL) : 8X
BD-RE(DL) : 6X
BD-ROM(DL) : 8X
BD-R(TL/QL) : 6X
BD-RE(TL) : 4X
DVD+R : 16X
DVD-R : 16X
DVD+RW : 12X
DVD-RW : 12X
DVD-ROM : 16X
DVD+R(DL) : 12X
DVD+R(SL, M-DISC) : 12X
DVD-R(DL) : 12X
DVD-ROM(DL) : 12X
DVD-RAM : 5X
CD-R : 48X
CD-RW : 40X
CD-ROM : 48X

Write Speed:
BD-R : 16X
BD-R(DL) : 12X
BD-R(TL/QL) : 6X
BD-R(LTH) : 6X
BD-R(SL, M-DISC) : 4X
BD-RE : 2X
BD-RE(DL) : 2X
BD-RE(TL) : 2X
DVD+R : 16X
DVD-R : 16X
DVD+RW : 8X
DVD-RW : 6X
DVD+R(DL) : 8X
DVD-R(DL) : 8X
DVD+R(SL, M-DISC) : 4X
DVD-RAM : 5X
CD-R : 48X
CD-RW : 24X

Even with the speed rating actually being CAV 24-48x, that's still just three minutes for a 74 minute disc.

EAC has an accurate rip database. After setting your sample offset for bit-perfect reading, you can verify audio extraction is the same result others have obtained.

 

It is one of the best around, incidentally available on several platforms.

There are several ways to do this, here's mine. YMMV.

Neither LAME nor EAC can encode meta information, but EAC queries an online database and puts title and album information it gathers into the created WAV filename. I use this, but it takes two other tools to actually encode that information into the MP3 file. The first step is of course LAME, which in its default setting creates an MP3 file of the same name as the input WAV file. So you have the meta data transferred to the MP3 filename. Next you open a tool called MP3tag which can automatically retrieve title information from the filename and save it as meta data. It has lots of options for recognizing different filename formats and conversion in either direction, it's really good. It can also embed cover art, but only manually from a file you provide by hand, so that's tedious. So I use a fourth tool called "Creevity MP3 cover downloader". That uses the meta information from the MP3 files, searches the web for matching images, and automatically embeds them into the file. Sometimes it doesn't work, in that case you can alway manually embed them.

I have no experience with BluRay drives, but aren't they completely compatible with audio CDs? EAC can work with DVD-ROM drives, so I see no reason why it shouldn't work with BluRay drives as well.

 

I know that EAC can fecth the data, I just wasn't sure how to encode it to the MP3s. But it seems that EAC has a built in encode-to-MP3 option I can use.... now I just need to figure out how to use it properly to work with LAME.

I know Blu-Ray drives can read CDs, my question was if they would do it with any decent quality. I assumed that since the data is read digitally, it would not matter, but I tried Googling it and I saw people mention that the quality of your rip can differ depending on your drive, and considering that I can't even burn a CD slower than 16x with this drive, I assume that they didn't care much to do anything other than the bare minimum needed to support CDs with mine.... which made me worried if the rip would be of lower quality.

How do I do that?

 

Most of your questions are answered in the wiki maintained by HydrogenAudio. The tagging of files is specifically answered in the "EAC Compression Options" . All you have to do is enable the ID3 tag option in the compressor setting window. This also work with FLAC. Your question about ripping with a BD drive is indirectly answered in the AccurateRip page of the EAC web site If the option is activated correctly, the CRC of your rips will be checked against a database that contains the CRC of known accurate rips. If it match, your OK. Personally I think that questions specific to EAC will be better answered by the members of the EAC forum

 

As far as I know EAC can make sure that the rip is bit perfect even on its own, by reading a track twice.

 

First off, MP3 is still a viable format. But I would recommend ripping to FLAC, onto an external hard drive for a safety/backup copy. And then convert those to MP3. The reason I say that is because FLAC will have all the metadata which WAV will not. Then just use something like foobar2000 and convert them to MP3s. As for Blu-ray drives, these will work. I use mine for ripping and have no issues.

 

You can actually add tags to WAV files, but there's no real standard so it may or may not work between applications. I believe AIFF has basic tagging capabilities, but I personally just use FLAC as my go-to for archive backups.

As for the on-the-go file option, I use AAC over MP3. But LAME is a very viable option even today is one is looking for both good SQ but something that should work on the vast major of hardware out there.

 

I am surprised that no one has mentioned dBpoweramp so far. It costs a little, but it is just as accurate as EAC, and far faster. It also queries more tag databases for helping you get the metadata right. It will save the files as any format you like, and I believe it can be set (with a little fiddling) to save both mp3 and flac versions of a rip.

Have fun!

 

I assumed he was looking for "free." But yes, I would agree - dBpoweramp is a great program, much faster than EAC and the metadata options are better.

 

This won't help you in cases of reproducible errors. Comparing your rip with other rips using AccurateRip is the safest way to assure bit-perfectness.

 

I'm using EAC as well as CUERipper/CUETools.

EAC and dBpoweramp will not detect pre-emphasis in Q subchannel, while CUERipper will. In addition, with CUETools you can often repair defective rips.

Don't waste your precious ripping and tagging time with lossy rips. Rip lossless and then simply convert on demand.