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Topic: Ripping Australian CD's to flac (Read 3385 times) previous topic - next topic
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Ripping Australian CD's to flac

OK I have so far ripped 10 out of 300 odd cd's to flac and every one so far has this message in the log "No tracks could be verified as accurate, You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database" Does this mean hardly any Australians use CUETools? The other thing is only 2/10 are actually 22 KHZ in spek spectrograph 8/10 are 20 KHZ indicating they are put on the CD initially as 320 kbps. Is Australian CD's degraded in such ways? I bought most from Sanity like 30 years ago. Plus I am getting a lot of errors in the logs. Here is an example of a log and spek output. 
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=EDD1A8254074A5D6&id=EDD1A8254074A5D6%211337&parId=root&o=OneUp

So Basically what I want to know is are these flacs actually flac quality even though the spectrographs suggest otherwise?
Can I turn off the matching database to reduce errors.
Can I specify any flac settings like bitrate etc?
Are Australian CD's inferior as it seems it like to me?
Ripper setup below,

Read offset is actually 6 - no idea why this shows 0.

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #1
Please post extraction log as text (within code tags). Files do not exist at link.

Quote
So Basically what I want to know is are these flacs actually flac quality even though the spectrographs suggest otherwise?
FLAC is lossless.
Quote
Can I specify any flac settings like bitrate etc?
You can only specify compression level from the CUERipper window. Clicking the gear symbol next to the encoder name will reveal other available options.
korth

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #2
Code: [Select]
CUERipper v2.1.6 Copyright (C) 2008-13 Grigory Chudov

EAC extraction logfile from 15. August 2020, 12:31

Talking Heads / Little Creatures

Used drive  : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50   Adapter: 1  ID: 0

Read mode               : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache      : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction                      : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : Yes
Used interface                              : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling                                : Appended to previous track

Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
Sample format      : 44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo


TOC of the extracted CD

     Track |   Start  |  Length  | Start sector | End sector
    ---------------------------------------------------------
        1  |  0:00.33 |  3:40.57 |        33    |    16589  
        2  |  3:41.15 |  3:22.00 |     16590    |    31739  
        3  |  7:03.15 |  4:16.10 |     31740    |    50949  
        4  | 11:19.25 |  3:59.43 |     50950    |    68917  
        5  | 15:18.68 |  4:27.47 |     68918    |    88989  
        6  | 19:46.40 |  3:44.43 |     88990    |   105832  
        7  | 23:31.08 |  4:44.37 |    105833    |   127169  
        8  | 28:15.45 |  6:11.65 |    127170    |   155059  
        9  | 34:27.35 |  4:21.48 |    155060    |   174682  
       10  | 38:49.08 |  6:50.65 |    174683    |   205497  


Track  1

     Filename C:\Users\Mick\Music\Talking Heads\1985 - Little Creatures\01  And She Was.wav

     Pre-gap length  0:00:02.44

     Suspicious position 0:03:07 - 0:03:08
     Suspicious position 0:03:24

     Peak level 100.0 %
     Track quality 98.6 %
     Test CRC 3F0E3796
     Copy CRC 1335397B
     Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 525)  [03A2EF75], AccurateRip returned [5E256385]
     Copy OK

Track  2

     Filename C:\Users\Mick\Music\Talking Heads\1985 - Little Creatures\02  Give Me Back My Name.wav

     Pre-gap length  0:00:01.40

     Suspicious position 0:00:21 - 0:00:22
     Suspicious position 0:03:01
     Suspicious position 0:03:10
     Suspicious position 0:03:12
     Suspicious position 0:03:16

     Peak level 83.2 %
     Track quality 97.3 %
     Test CRC CBDCA8D3
     Copy CRC 5F92D6CB
     Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 527)  [2BB69347], AccurateRip returned [28DFAA74]
     Copy OK

Track  3

     Filename C:\Users\Mick\Music\Talking Heads\1985 - Little Creatures\03  Creatures of Love.wav

     Pre-gap length  0:00:01.56

     Suspicious position 0:00:12 - 0:00:18
     Suspicious position 0:00:20
     Suspicious position 0:00:22 - 0:00:24

     Peak level 88.1 %
     Track quality 93.8 %
     Test CRC 1DE2545F
     Copy CRC AAEDEB70
     Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 536)  [A1807B50], AccurateRip returned [60D11813]
     Copy OK

Track  4

     Filename C:\Users\Mick\Music\Talking Heads\1985 - Little Creatures\04  The Lady Don’t Mind.wav

     Pre-gap length  0:00:01.56

     Peak level 90.4 %
     Track quality 99.9 %
     Test CRC 3127A5BB
     Copy CRC 3127A5BB
     Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 536)  [DC48733C], AccurateRip returned [DDD5DA42]
     Copy OK

Track  5

     Filename C:\Users\Mick\Music\Talking Heads\1985 - Little Creatures\05  Perfect World.wav

     Pre-gap length  0:00:01.33

     Peak level 82.1 %
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 7B19E5B2
     Copy CRC 7B19E5B2
     Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 535)  [C5953F82], AccurateRip returned [336BAED4]
     Copy OK

Track  6

     Filename C:\Users\Mick\Music\Talking Heads\1985 - Little Creatures\06  Stay Up Late.wav

     Pre-gap length  0:00:01.80

     Peak level 85.2 %
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 28FF9804
     Copy CRC 28FF9804
     Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 535)  [2BCD3A15], AccurateRip returned [8A0C7F1A]
     Copy OK

Track  7

     Filename C:\Users\Mick\Music\Talking Heads\1985 - Little Creatures\07  Walk It Down.wav

     Pre-gap length  0:00:01.17

     Peak level 100.0 %
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC B03A3A3E
     Copy CRC B03A3A3E
     Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 531)  [679FCFC3], AccurateRip returned [8F86341C]
     Copy OK

Track  8

     Filename C:\Users\Mick\Music\Talking Heads\1985 - Little Creatures\08  Television Man.wav

     Pre-gap length  0:00:01.09

     Suspicious position 0:05:56 - 0:05:57
     Suspicious position 0:06:00 - 0:06:02

     Peak level 98.3 %
     Track quality 99.5 %
     Test CRC E4596FE1
     Copy CRC 48A10898
     Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 530)  [1341060D], AccurateRip returned [D0F7D785]
     Copy OK

Track  9

     Filename C:\Users\Mick\Music\Talking Heads\1985 - Little Creatures\09  Road to Nowhere.wav

     Pre-gap length  0:00:01.29

     Suspicious position 0:00:49 - 0:00:51
     Suspicious position 0:02:48 - 0:02:52
     Suspicious position 0:02:54 - 0:03:03
     Suspicious position 0:04:07 - 0:04:09

     Peak level 79.8 %
     Track quality 92.1 %
     Test CRC B0E85C1E
     Copy CRC 6F4FD992
     Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 537)  [F66127E5], AccurateRip returned [26311D06]
     Copy OK

Track 10

     Filename C:\Users\Mick\Music\Talking Heads\1985 - Little Creatures\10  The Lady Don’t Mind (extended mix).wav

     Pre-gap length  0:00:01.24

     Suspicious position 0:00:59
     Suspicious position 0:04:03

     Peak level 100.0 %
     Track quality 99.7 %
     Test CRC 7155F1A5
     Copy CRC 7155F1A5
     Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 520)  [C1382DB8], AccurateRip returned [C8F2794E]
     Copy OK


No tracks could be verified as accurate
You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database

There were errors

End of status report

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #3
Quote
The other thing is only 2/10 are actually 22 KHZ in spek spectrograph 8/10 are 20 KHZ indicating they are put on the CD initially as 320 kbps.

I'd like to add that it doesn't work like that. There are lots of possible reasons why the recording could be silent above 20 kHz.
Very often it's as intended and doesn't mean that lossy compression was used at some point.

The inverse is also true, it's possible to compress things with a lossy codec in such a way that there's no lowpass filtering. (but there usually isn't a good reason to do this)

Quote
Suspicious position

This means the CD drive could not confidently read some part. This could happen if CD is damaged.


MOD Edit: Add quote tags
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #4
Quote
Can I turn off the matching database to reduce errors.

Yes, but what do you mean by "reduce errors"? The actual audio content won't change, you're just deciding to skip the step when it compares it with a database of known rips.


MOD Edit: Add quote tags
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #5
Quote
This could happen if CD is damaged.
The above mention ones all play in the players no skips but CD players are generally pretty forgiving. Most Cd's are good, a few light scuffs here and there but nothing deep plus I clean them well before ripping.
Quote
The actual audio content won't change, you're just deciding to skip the step when it compares it with a database of known rips.
Yes I thought the ripping process will be a lot faster if I can turn something off. Even so the error CD's all play perfectly on flac playback.

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #6
Quote
Yes I thought the ripping process will be a lot faster if I can turn something off. Even so the error CD's all play perfectly on flac playback.
You could try switching the extraction method from 'Secure' to 'Burst'.
korth

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #7
Thanks Korth and Magicgoose for your replies - I did do one on burst that took over half an hour and that went a lot faster - good idea for the trouble rips thanks again.

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #8
Have you tried turning your computer upside down?


(Sorry.)

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #9
Thanks Korth and Magicgoose for your replies - I did do one on burst that took over half an hour and that went a lot faster - good idea for the trouble rips thanks again.
Please be warned though that this can potentially give worse results (depends a lot on the CD drive though).
Would be a good idea to take several pairs of rips from same CDs with burst mode and with "secure" and compare them. If they are bit-identical, chances are it's okay to continue with burst mode. If not identical, you might want to compare the affected pieces to decide which sounds more like an error-free rip. A good tool for comparison is foobar2000 plugin "Binary Comparator". It will automatically tell you where the differences are, if any.
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #10
Quote
Please be warned though that this can potentially give worse results (depends a lot on the CD drive though).
Though rare, consistent errors are possible so Burst mode also has the potential of producing a better result.

Quote
you might want to compare the affected pieces to decide which sounds more like an error-free rip.
agree
korth

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #11
Track  5
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 7B19E5B2
     Copy CRC 7B19E5B2

Track  6
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 28FF9804
     Copy CRC 28FF9804

Track  7
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC B03A3A3E
     Copy CRC B03A3A3E

different pressing

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #12
AccurateRip is great!      But, I don't think I've ever had an audible defect when the ripper reported "no errors", regardless of AccurateRip.

And in some cases I've had "suspicious  positions" and there was no audible defect.   After a period of time, I can't remember which rips were perhaps imperfect.  

I have multiple computers/drives so if I do get a reported error (audible or not) I'll try a different drive.

When I've  had audible errors - I replaced a couple of CDs,  I've downloaded "replacement" MP3s,  Sometimes I've been able to repair the sound with an audio editor,   Sometimes the rip has audible errors but the CD will play without audible errors and I've "recorded" it.

Oh...  Sometimes cleaning will help but I've never had any luck polishing the CDs.   CDs can be damaged from the top and the top can't be polished without further damaging the data-layer, so I assume that's what happened to my CDs.

Quote
The other thing is only 2/10 are actually 22 KHZ in spek spectrograph 8/10 are 20 KHZ indicating they are put on the CD initially as 320 kbps....

...I bought most from Sanity like 30 years ago.
It couldn't have been from MP3...  Happy 25th birthday to MP3!  ;)

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #13
Well my burner (was pretty new too) gave up the ghost on a pristine, never been played perfectly clean CD, it ripped clean to song 10 then sat on errors for like 3 hours so I decided to cancel the operation then the program froze so had to ctrl-alt-del to stop it. Then the drawer wouldn't open so I used a paper clip in the tiny hole and still won't open - I felt the clip hit the tag but the drawer stayed shut. Ordered a new one.
On the spectro side of it, it seems almost impossible to tell if a flac is a flac and not an mp3 when the cutoffs are at 20 MHZ - after some reading, in the past like 20+ years ago, sound engineers used to cutoff at 20KHZ for certain reasons but nowdays they don't. This would explain why my old CD's are producing 20KHZ flac cutoffs.

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #14
Quote
On the spectro side of it, it seems almost impossible to tell if a flac is a flac and not an mp3 when the cutoffs are at 20 [kHz]
The bandwidth is just a "hint" or a "clue".    There should be very few or commercially released FLACs or CDs sourced from MP3s.   Most are probably homemade or pirated copies.   But in any case, you have no control how the music was recorded/produced    Maybe you like the sound and maybe you don't....

Quote
after some reading, in the past like 20+ years ago, sound engineers used to cutoff at 20KHZ for certain reasons but nowdays they don't. This would explain why my old CD's are producing 20KHZ flac cutoffs.
There could be several reasons...

20kHz is the "traditional" limit of human hearing.   Most adults can't actually hear that high but most equipment is specified to 20-20kHz to "safely" cover the full audio range.     I could build a preamp that goes into the MHz range but that doesn't improve the sound (and it might make it more prone to radio frequency interference).     Most microphones & speakers drop-off near 20kHz.

In the context of music the highest frequencies are masked (drowned-out) by lower-stronger frequencies.   You might be able to hear "loud" 20 kHz test tones in a hearing test but that doesn't mean you'll hear lower-level high-frequency harmonics & overtones while the music is playing.    The main "trick" to  MP3 compression is to throw-away sounds that are masked.   But, it's not simply throwing-away high frequencies.   It's actively analyzing the spectrum moment-to-moment to determine what's masked. 
 
Any energy in the ultrasonic or subsonic range reduces the dynamic range available for the actual audio (the audio that you can hear).   That was a big concern in the vinyl days and the extreme highs & lows were usually intentionally filtered-out.    But it's still a concern with digital audio, especially in the subsonic range. 

In order to prevent aliasing everything over 22.05kHz on a CD has to be filtered-out, but there are no perfect "brick-wall" filters so you have to start rolling-off below 22.05kHz before the signal is digitized.  If you get can flat response to 20kHz and then "completely" remove audio above 22.05, that's still a pretty-sharp filter.  

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #15
There are very few sourced from MP3s. But I have seen "high profile" "musicians" on televised "courtroom" (binding arbitration) shows, and usually, the artists submit their music to their producer in the form of burning a set of MP3 files to a CD and sending it to them.

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #16
In order to prevent aliasing everything over 22.05kHz on a CD has to be filtered-out, but there are no perfect "brick-wall" filters so you have to start rolling-off below 22.05kHz before the signal is digitized.  If you get can flat response to 20kHz and then "completely" remove audio above 22.05, that's still a pretty-sharp filter.  
Aliasing is also limited in frequency depending on the offending signal frequency (it's mirrored), so you just need to make sure that the aliasing doesn't go lower than 20 kHz. If this kind of inaudible aliasing is allowed, then the filter can be not extremely sharp and still leave stuff up to 22.05 kHz. (From the listening perspective though, there isn't really a benefit to either case)
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #17
OK I have so far ripped 10 out of 300 odd cd's to flac and every one so far has this message in the log "No tracks could be verified as accurate, You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database" Does this mean hardly any Australians use CUETools? The other thing is only 2/10 are actually 22 KHZ in spek spectroograph 8/10 are 20 KHZ indicating they are put on the CD initially as 320 kbps. Is Australian CD's degraded in such ways? I bought most from Sanity like 30 years ago. Plus I am getting a lot of errors in the logs.

Are Australian CD's inferior as it seems it like to me?
If this Talking Heads CD was from about 30 years ago, it would’ve been made from the original 1985 mastering not current 1990s or 2000s remasters. It would be interesting to compare spectrograms of the US and EU CDs from The 80s with this, but they really should be the same. All territories would’ve been supplied with CD masters made by the original mastering studio and it would not be easy or standard practice for EMI Australia or the CD manufacturing plant to change the digital audio of the CD masters which would’ve been uncompressed digital audio encoded on a umatic video tape in the 80s.

Do the eight CDs you ripped from the 80s that cut off at 20 K have anything in common? Same record label, same original mastering engineer or studio? From what I can tell the original mastering engineer on this was Jack Skinner.

Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #18
The other thing is only 2/10 are actually 22 KHZ in spek spectrograph 8/10 are 20 KHZ indicating they are put on the CD initially as 320 kbps. Is Australian CD's degraded in such ways? I bought most from Sanity like 30 years ago.
Maybe more importantly, do the two that go above 20K have anything in common? Mastering studio or mastering engineer? The vast majority of 1980s CD masters were made with a Sony 1600 1610 or 1630 processor. But some were made with a JVC processor. I can’t imagine the Sony didn’t go over 20 K, but then again I haven’t looked at spectrum of 1980s CDs before.



Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #19
Quote
Maybe more importantly, do the two that go above 20K have anything in common?

Three of the first 10 were 22.5 MHZ, they were
1. 1979 - Tim Buckley - Greetings From LA - 7599272612 -  Warner Music International>Warner Australlia
2. 1994 - Tom Jones - The Lead and How to Swing it - 6544924982 - Interscope Records>Atlantic Recording Corporation.
3.  1996 - Tex Perkins - Far Be it From Me - 533 062-2 - Polydor Records Australia>Slick Productions

The other 7 at 20 MHZ cutoff ranged from  1985 - 1998 so it looks to me the dates are unimportant.

Spelling edit.


Re: Ripping Australian CD's to flac

Reply #20
Quote
Maybe more importantly, do the two that go above 20K have anything in common?

Three of the first 10 were 22.5 MHZ, they were
1. 1979 - Tim Buckley - Greetings From LA - 7599272612 -  Warner Music International>Warner Australlia
2. 1994 - Tom Jones - The Lead and How to Swing it - 6544924982 - Interscope Records>Atlantic Recording Corporation.
3.  1996 - Tex Perkins - Far Be it From Me - 533 062-2 - Polydor Records Australia>Slick Productions

The other 7 at 20 MHZ cutoff ranged from  1985 - 1998 so it looks to me the dates are unimportant.

Spelling edit.


Sony PCM 1630 was used well into the 90s and was probably used even on your latest CD from 1998. The transition to DDP took a number of years even after that. But I think you’re right that what you’re seeing is the result of the mastering engineer filtering. But that was most likely for vinyl and the question could be asked why did it end up on the digital CD master. I can think of some possible reasons but it would just be speculation. Also you could buy a little creatures US or UK CD from that era on eBay to confirm that the Australian CD is the same. I don’t think it was remastered until the 2000s. Even with this deficiency many people would prefer the 80s and early 90s CDs to later ones simply because There was less limiting and compression going on in mastering back then.