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Topic: Error Correction Question (Read 3996 times) previous topic - next topic
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Error Correction Question

I became an audiophile early this year. I ripped over 100 GB in WMA Lossless via the WMP, and it took me a span of about half a year to do. However I just learned that the error-correction option was off the entire time, and I wasnt even aware that existed until now.

Does error-correction actually affect the sound of every ripped track or just the tracks that have reported errors? Out of thousands of songs only a few have minor skipping.

I just started using Exact Audio Copy and FLAC yesterday, but I dont want to have to re rip my collection. Would it be worth it to re-rip with error-correction or would my stuff sound the same anyway?

Error Correction Question

Reply #1 –
Your current rips would most likely sound the same except for the CDs in really bad shape. Be aware that your lossless files aren't really lossless if there were errors in the rip not reported by WMP.

Error Correction Question

Reply #2 –
Thank you, the vast majority of the cds were in good condition.  I kind of started panicking hahha.  Ill just have to make a note if i ever hear something skipping or stuttering and try it in EAC

Error Correction Question

Reply #3 –
Quote from: ginseng271 on
Thank you, the vast majority of the cds were in good condition.  I kind of started panicking hahha.  Ill just have to make a note if i ever hear something skipping or stuttering and try it in EAC


Probably the vast majority of your rips are problem free. If you want to be more certain, you could try testing a sample (which may demonstrate that problem tracks really are rare) or all of them. This method might work, and might be less effort than re-ripping:

If you transcode losslessly out of WMA Lossless into, say, FLAC, (you can still keep the WMA Lossless, just use the FLAC as intermediate, as you probably wish to listen on Windows Media Player which doesn't do FLAC out of the box) you might be able to use CUEtools to verify the rips against the AccurateRip database (try it with one or two and see if it can do so with one of your albums - it might not work if some subtle infomation is missing, such as an accurate CUE sheet and it then might be too much trouble to make it work).  If the tracks match two or more people's previous rips you can be very confident there wasn't a problem. If a few of them show as inaccurate with reasonable certainty, you can either re-rip just those in EAC with AccurateRip (fairly quick) or check them closely for audible problems (fairly slow!). For any discs not in AR yet, you can choose to re-rip or just hope for the best.

If this process is able to provide any verification, you could look into how long it takes per album (and how much human effort), whether it's worth verifying all your rips, a sample of them (to get some statistical idea of how many errors your whole collection may have) or none at all and simply make a note of when you hear a problem and try just those in EAC.
Dynamic – the artist formerly known as DickD

Error Correction Question

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Dynamic on
If the tracks match two or more people's previous rips you can be very confident there wasn't a problem.

If the tracks match one or more people's rips you can be very confident there wasn't a problem.

Error Correction Question

Reply #5 –
Quote
Ill just have to make a note if i ever hear something skipping or stuttering and try it in EAC
  That sounds like the best plan!    (Note - Some errors may cause a "tick" sound.)


Quote
I became an audiophile early this year.
  Be careful!  While many of us are true audiophiles in that we love good audio, the term "audiophile" has negative connotations around here.  The "audiophile community" seems to be dominated by people who blow hundreds of dollars on speaker cables or demagnetize their CDs, and then claim that "a veil was lifted".    And, the audiophile community also seems almost universally opposed to double blind testing, which is required here whenever making such claims.
 

Error Correction Question

Reply #6 –
Thank you all for your support.  I actually converted all the wma's to flac because I am ditching the windows media player.  I did the cue thing with cuetools and ran a test on the accuraterip database on 4 albums.  Apparently only about 30-40 percent of the tracks are "accurate," and I did a bit for bit comparison with the old files and found out the conversion wasnt a problem.  I know you guys said a match with the database would say its accurate but seeing the results was difficult to accept.

Do you know if its possible that it says "not accurate" because of the names of the tracks on the cue sheet were different than the database, or because of the ripper in windows media player is different, or some other factor?