EAC question about audio caching
Reply #7 – 2005-12-23 06:18:20
As far as my knowledge affords me, turning off the caching option in EAC doesn't disable caching on the drive, but merely stops EAC from compensating for the caching feature - a potentially bad situation if you're looking for bit-perfect rips. However, the fact is that if any EAC image rip completes, it's more than likely to be a successful rip by audible standards (even if there were errors, they're inaudible anyway). For example, I ripped my fairly (but not unreadably) scratched Nirvana - Nevermind CD using WMP 10. I've listened to the rip and found it to be fantastic with no skips, pops, artifacts or the like. Recently however, in a massive project to backup my entire original CD collection, I ripped the same disc using EAC with the software's cache option enabled on my caching Plextor PX-716UF. EAC took no less than 7 hours to complete the job. Moral of the story as far as I'm concerned is that unless you're interested in bit-perfect rips, the whole cache issue is moot. By the way, I've since switched to ripping using my Toshiba laptop's non-caching SD-R2412 CD+/-RW/DVD-ROM drive, and have noticed fantastic improvement in rip speed (EAC settings: Secure, cache off, C2 on), but with the same resulting accuracy as with the Plextor (EAC settings: Secure, cache on, C2 on). Bottom line in my opinion is that if you're DAE-ing and you must have a bit-perfect rip, use a non-caching drive, period. If you have to use a caching drive, however, don't disable EAC's cache feature - you could potentially be missing a lot of errors that way, especially with scratched discs. In any case, the only difference you're likely notice between caching and non-caching drives (with the corresponding compensating setting on EAC applied) is in the ripping speed, not the accuracy of the output. As usual, there are exceptions that are more likely to occur the more damaged the disc is. If you only need a transparent rip, feel free to pare back EAC's more secure features without much worry, since commodity software does a good job of it anyway.