Ripping CD's - Is iTunes good enough?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by colby2415, Oct 5, 2017.

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  1. cdash99

    cdash99 Senior Member

    Location:
    Mass
    I've had no problem in using iTunes, though I'm using XLD more frequently.

    To the earlier poster who mentioned iTunes Match, my understanding is that they are still overwriting artwork and metadata if you sync your library with Apple Music. A poster on one of the streaming threads discussed this a few days ago.
     
  2. rockin_since_58

    rockin_since_58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Simi Valley, CA
    I would use XLD if it wasn't so painfully slow. I am using an LG GE24NU40 external drive. When using XLD, I get 2x to 4x speed. Using the same drive with iTunes, I get 20x to 30x speed. I can rip most CD's in less than 2 minutes in iTunes.
     
  3. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    That is because iTunes is ripping in burst mode. It does no error correction. Burst mode is very fast. Basically as fast as the drive can read the CD.

    Rippers like XLD typically default to a more secure mode of ripping. A mode where data is checked and verified that it was read correctly. That slows down the ripping.

    I have never used XLD, but it should have a way to switch to burst mode. As long as the rips are being verified by AccurateRip then burst mode is just fine and you'll get the same quality of rip as you would in a secure ripping mode. Burst mode verified by AccurateRip is the smart way to do ripping. It's faster. Much faster. If a rip fails the AccurateRip verification then re-rip the CD using a secure mode that is slower.
     
  4. rockin_since_58

    rockin_since_58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Simi Valley, CA
    Thanks for the info. I will see if there is a "burst mode" setting for XLD.
     
  5. rockin_since_58

    rockin_since_58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Simi Valley, CA
    Getting 20x+ now with XLD in burst mode...Thanks Ham Sandwich!
     
    AudioEnz likes this.
  6. BayouTiger

    BayouTiger Forum Resident

    Great info. I will give it a try!
     
  7. rockin_since_58

    rockin_since_58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Simi Valley, CA
    Plus verified by AccurateRip.
     
    Ham Sandwich likes this.
  8. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    Awesome. Now just make sure to always have AccurateRip enabled when using burst mode so you can catch if burst mode has a read error.

    You'll find that some scratched CDs or used CDs will have read errors when using burst mode. Burst mode doesn't attempt any sort of error correction to detect and correct read errors. So you need AccurateRip to catch those errors when using burst mode. If your discs are clean and in good condition, and your CDR drive happens to be good at ripping, you shouldn't see many errors in burst mode. Those occasional errors will be caught by AccurateRip and you can re-rip that disc using the slower secure mode.

    Burst rips with errors that are caught by AccurateRip are errors that iTunes would have let get right through. Sometimes those errors are just 1 or 2 samples and will not be audible when playing the file. Other times the errors may be 100s or 1000s of samples in a row (like from a bad scratch on the disc) and those errors will be audible as a glitch during playback.
     
    boiledbeans and showtaper like this.
  9. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    I can give another recommendation for dBpoweramp, there are only 3 or 4 things to enable via the radio buttons and then it's identical to EAC as far as accuracy and has better tagging.
     
    George P likes this.
  10. MrRom92

    MrRom92 Forum Supermodel

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    On this note, I find that sometimes burst mode will actually allow me to read through heavily damaged discs where a mark may completely choke up secure modes. My theory is they may become less visible to the laser while rotating faster if the disc gets up to 30-40x speed rather than 1-2x as found in burst mode. Often enough it’ll just plow right through the track without trouble, if not giving me an accuraterip right away then at least giving me a rip with few enough damaged samples that I can still go and repair it with CueTools to get an accurate rip. Very rarely am I unable to get a perfect rip of a particular disc, even if I have to use both secure and burst modes on certain tracks.
     
    patient_ot likes this.
  11. rockin_since_58

    rockin_since_58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Simi Valley, CA
    If I get a result that has errors, I will play around with different modes to see what I get. A lot of the time after ripping with XLD, I need to run the files through MetaDatics to imbed the artwork but not a big deal. XLD finds artwork about half of the time.
     
  12. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

    Not sure why so many people have glitches when ripping with iTunes. I'm nearing 100,000 songs and I have had MAYBE 10 tracks have audible glitches over the past 15 years. Out of those almost all were because of scratched up discs.
     
    DBR70, Bingo Bongo, dalem5467 and 5 others like this.
  13. rfs

    rfs Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lansing, MI USA
    I mainly use MediaMonkey, which has AccurateRip built in, and is very easy to use, and go to EAC for problem discs. I'm not a fan of iTunes at all - the Windows port was abysmal.
     
  14. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    It does depend on the condition of the CDs you rip. If you're ripping CDs that were purchased new and taken care of then a burst mode ripper like iTunes or any other burst mode ripper will likely do just fine for over 99.9% of the discs. But if you purchase used CDs you'll likely find more CDs that have ripping errors. Some of those ripping errors will be audible as glitches, some won't be audible.

    I primarily buy used CDs now. Many have scratches. Some have some bad scratches. Burst mode won't read many of those CDs without errors. I rely on secure mode rips and AccurateRip and CTDB to get good rips of those CDs. I'm willing to buy used CDs that have obvious scratches because I know I can get a good rip. I wouldn't have that confidence if I was using iTunes.
     
    Last edited: Oct 6, 2017
  15. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

  16. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    I use iTunes for managing my music library and various iPods and agree that it is excellent for that purpose. For ripping, however, a bit of time setting up something like dBPoweramp is worth the effort IMHO. As well as AccurateRip, which can be set up using burst mode so your ripping speed remains fast, the metadata and artwork management in dBPoweramp is much slicker and accurate vs. iTunes. I also set it to rip an mp3 version of my album and a FLAC version, all saved to different locations.

    Not sure why people are getting so heated about this; it makes no difference to me whether other people use iTunes, EAC, tube amps, vinyl, open reel or wax cylinders. I ended up ripping my CD collection twice before discovering dBPoweramp and doing it a third time properly.

    Ripping CDs is really tedious, and all I would suggest to anyone about to embark on ripping a large collection is to spend a little bit of time looking at your workflow, which includes possibly looking at different ripping software, before getting several hundred CDs in and realising the results aren’t what you really want.

    Windows users might want to at least look at EAC and dBPoweramp, and XLD and dBPoweramp are worth looking at for Mac users. If iTunes does what you want, use it. Makes no difference to me.:winkgrin:
     
    Balthazar and Bubbamike like this.
  17. I use the FLAC feature on WMP, but I used to rip to iTunes. I think either is fine to use and it's just right for me. I rip to preserve content and listen on the computer, I don't store my CDs and I play them when I feel like it, or I play what's on the computer when I feel like it.
     
  18. BayouTiger

    BayouTiger Forum Resident

    Just did a rip in XLD with Burst mode and the files match the ones done in the Secure Ripper mode. Rip time was a fraction. Of course that was a pretty pristine CD. This will save me a bunch of time and still be confident that it has run through the database check.
     
    patient_ot and rockin_since_58 like this.
  19. anorak2

    anorak2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    He isn't knocking itunes. There is a fundamental flaw with the way CD-ROM drives read audio CDs. A ripping software that isn't written to deal with this problem will produce the occasional audio file with crackles. This is not a specific problem of itunes, the majority of ripping software is like that, especially those where ripping isn't the main function but only one among several others. There are only very few apps that deal with that problem correctly, and itunes just isn't one of t hem.
     
    Sevoflurane likes this.
  20. anorak2

    anorak2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    Yes you can, and it doesn't sound good. It's cracks or grinding noises. The thing is, audio CD players get the same errors of course, but they apply a number of masking tricks to prevent you from hearing them. CD-ROM drives don't, they just hand the erratic audio data down to the ripping software. The software has to deal with that, and if it doesn't you get cracking.
     
  21. anorak2

    anorak2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    They don't occur that often, most rips are fine anyway. But sometimes they do, and you don't notice it until you listen to the file maybe months later. Why not prevent it from happening if you can.
     
    cmcintyre likes this.
  22. I have thousands of CDs. I have never had this problem.
     
    dalem5467 likes this.
  23. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

    Because it is not worth any extraneous effort. I use XLD when I have the occasional hiccup.
     
  24. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    So what? You're either very lucky or not very observant about these things.
     
    Grant likes this.
  25. yeah buddy, so what
     
    dalem5467 likes this.
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