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Topic: FB2K vs EAC (Read 8213 times) previous topic - next topic
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FB2K vs EAC

I just encoded a track from an audio cd using foobar and the foo_cdda plugin and converted it to mp4 using foo_neromp4.

I then got an older file which I ripped sometime ago using EAC with flac.  I got the flac file and encoded it to mp4 using foo_neromp4.

Then I did a bitcompare test with foobars bitcompare plugin, and I was supprised to see the results:

Code: [Select]
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : no differences in decoded data found
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : finished successfully

Does this mean that foobar with foo_cdda is as good as EAC ???

Or am I barking up the wrong tree 

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #1 –
If you get identical results, this means that either your CD is in perfect state, or your drive does a good job, or both.
Foo_cdda is based on akrip, so it's basically about the same as CDex with cdparanoia features disabled. It's nowhere close to being as reliable as EAC.
Microsoft Windows: We can't script here, this is bat country.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #2 –
IC.

So if you have good (unscrached) CDs, foo_cdda is as good as EAC.  However, EAC is much better for the not so good (scrached CDs).

Is that correct ?

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #3 –
Yes. EAC is only better because it can detect errors and has tools to correct them.
If there's no errors anything is as good EAC. The problem is that with other programs you have no way of knowing if there were any errors.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #4 –
Quote
The problem is that with other programs you have no way of knowing if there were any errors.

There are other programs that do tell you if an error occured. EAC just happens to be the most well known here.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #6 –
Additionally EAC gives you options like Offset Correction, CUE sheet support, etc.

dev0
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #7 –
Furthermore, EAC is fully configurable for any given command-line-based encoder ... it has built-in burning support (for true offset believers/zealots - it features write offset correction as well) though burning engine sometimes shows incompatibilities to non-MMC-writers or newest models (as an example, the plexwriter premium can only be used when using drive settings from within plextools professional as well) ...
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #8 –
Quote
Foo_cdda is based on akrip, so it's basically about the same as CDex with cdparanoia features disabled.

What is the reason that the cdparanoia features are disabled? Will they be included in an future release?

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #9 –
Quote
. The problem is that with other programs you have no way of knowing if there were any errors.


I thought that was the problem with EAC , all say after me - AccurateRip...AccurateRip.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #10 –
Quote
[What is the reason that the cdparanoia features are disabled? Will they be included in an future release?

zZzZzZz said, akrip has the same quality/features as CDex without cdparanoia.
akrip and cdparanoia are two libraries to extract CDDA

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #11 –
cdparanoia is not used, since it's licensed under the GPL, which prohibits the use in closed-source programs such as foobar2000.
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #12 –
Quote
I know... I tjust happens to be the best as you can see here:
http://doc.hydrogenaudio.org/wikis/hydroge...AudioExtraction

As you can see CDex fails to even report the errors.


But you can't conclude the ultimate superiority of EAC from that test, can you?

First, there were two CDs which none of the tested programmes could do anything useful with.

Then, there was another CD. CDex didn't report the errors, the other programmes did. OK, that's useful, but what is the resulting rip like in all three cases? crap! Differently, but equally crap!

There is also the conclusion that ripping quickly with C2 enabled is just as good, and (obviously) quicker than re-reading samples from the disc to detect errors.



I can imagine that there may be disc + drive combinations where EAC will save the day, while other programmes won't. But there are many many more disc and drive combinations where a simple fast rip (with C2 error checking + correction, if available) will do just as good a job*, and there are of course new (copy protected) discs around where the quicker C2 method works better than anything else.


Is it time to re-evaluate the universal advice that "EAC is best", given that we now have reliable C2 detection on so many drives, many many copy protected CDs out there, damaged CDs where EAC doesn't help, and the widespread observation that well cared for CDs rip properly on modern drives without any hassle.

* Actually, other programmes can be better if you consider that EAC can be slower, and can thrash the drive to extinction (sometimes, some settings). Of course, you can configure EAC to avoid this.


I'm not saying that EAC isn't the best. I'm asking, in all sincerity, what kind of error detection/correction people feel is appropriate for discs in various conditions, drives of various ability, and in the presence or absence of copy protection.

I just can't believe that "one size fits all".

(but I don't understand this field that well, so I'm hoping for more knowledgeable folk to give some explanations. But not quotes from things that were true 3 years ago!)


Cheers,
David.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #13 –
Quote
Quote
I know... I tjust happens to be the best as you can see here:
http://doc.hydrogenaudio.org/wikis/hydroge...AudioExtraction

As you can see CDex fails to even report the errors.


But you can't conclude the ultimate superiority of EAC from that test, can you?

I only wanted to use the test in a reply to the statement that there were other programs that did report errors.


Isn't the whole point of secure ripping that you are guaranteed a perfect rip unless told otherwise?
I don't know if relying on C2 correction can really be considered a safe bet these days.
AFAIK only the more expensive, new drives like plextor's are really relyable.
My consern with C2 is also that it is not easy to detect if the drive actually supports C2 correctly or just reports that it supports it. For me that ruins the idea of secure ripping for me as I again can't be 100% sure that everything is perfect.


About speed: For me personally ripping speed is as irrelevant as encoding speed and doesn't consern me if the slowest method will possibly give me better quality.

I agree however that EAC's advantage is mostly an added warm fussy feeling and that in most cases other programs will do just as good (if you are not a perfectionist and use offset).

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #14 –
Quote
Isn't the whole point of secure ripping that you are guaranteed a perfect rip unless told otherwise?

Well, maybe - I was under the impression that EAC would do better than other programmes. If the usual behaviour (with marginal discs) is simply that it does as bad, but takes longer and tells you there's a problem, then this isn't a huge advantage. If there is a problem, then you'll find out when you play the files. If it's not audible, then there's probably a psychological advantage to not knowing! But yes, I guess I'd rather know.


Quote
I don't know if relying on C2 correction can really be considered a safe bet these days.
AFAIK only the more expensive, new drives like plextor's are really reliable.
My concern with C2 is also that it is not easy to detect if the drive actually supports C2 correctly or just reports that it supports it.


Well, this is important - aren't there tests and websites?

Quote
For me that ruins the idea of secure ripping for me as I again can't be 100% sure that everything is perfect.


If there are C2 errors, then it isn't perfect. If there are no errors, then you don't need EAC anyway?

Quote
About speed: For me personally ripping speed is as irrelevant as encoding speed and doesn't concern me if the slowest method will possibly give me better quality.


But longer encoding time won't significantly reduce the lifetime of your system, and you can batch it to happen while you're not there. Longer ripping time is physically wearing out a mechanical component, and (for most people) you have to be there to change the discs.

Quote
I agree however that EAC's advantage is mostly an added warm fussy feeling and that in most cases other programs will do just as good (if you are not a perfectionist and use offset).


That's what I'm trying to find out - is it almost all just "warm fuzzy feeling"?


I know the terrible rips you could get with old drives in burst mode. (EAC didn't always help with these drives btw - I know, I had one!). But it seems silly for people with perfect condition CDs to thrash their CD/DVD drives and spend longer ripping if they don't really have to. If the net gain is zero, the only people we're helping with the advice are the drive manufacturers!

Cheers,
David.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #15 –
Someone should [span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%']TM[/span] the "Warm fuzzy feeling" quote

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #16 –
Quote
cdparanoia is not used, since it's licensed under the GPL, which prohibits the use in closed-source programs such as foobar2000.

Would anyone be interested in writing a foobar2000 CD ripping component that uses the cdparanoia routines and is configurable? I, for one, would find this quite useful

Edit: Changed quote date and time to ISO 8601 format.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #17 –
Quote
Quote
I don't know if relying on C2 correction can really be considered a safe bet these days.
AFAIK only the more expensive, new drives like plextor's are really reliable.
My concern with C2 is also that it is not easy to detect if the drive actually supports C2 correctly or just reports that it supports it.


Well, this is important - aren't there tests and websites?

Andre's DAE Quality page has a method that can be used to test the C2-ness of drives - but it's not easy to do, and takes quite a bit of time.  Once you create the special test CD, you can use it to test a number of different drives to see how they perform, but as he says in the article, without a standard test disc, comparing tests performed with different discs is not always a good idea.

I have results from my DAE Quality C2 tests with my three drives: an NEC NR-7900A (terrible C2), an LG HL-DT-STCD-RW-8520B (excellent C2), and my laptop drive, an HL-DT-STRW/DVDGCC-4240N (quite good C2).  I have the supporting graphs and data for those who are interested.  When ripping, I enable C2 Error detection for the 8520B, but the more recent versions of EAC do not allow for C2 correction.

As far as 'perfect' CDs go, it's difficult to know when you have one.  Sure, the CD may look completely flawless, but it may be a bad pressing or a decayed disc that doesn't rip quite as easily as you think - and you'll never know without using EAC to do so (or possibly PlexTools.)  While re-ripping my entire collection to FLAC over the last two months (about 750 cds), I ran across a few that looked like brand new, but were unrippable (and not because of copy protection.)  I simply couldn't get matching CRCs.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #18 –
Quote
But you can't conclude the ultimate superiority of EAC from that test, can you?

Then, there was another CD. CDex didn't report the errors, the other programmes did. OK, that's useful, but what is the resulting rip like in all three cases? crap! Differently, but equally crap!
...
I can imagine that there may be disc + drive combinations where EAC will save the day, while other programmes won't. But there are many many more disc and drive combinations where a simple fast rip (with C2 error checking + correction, if available) will do just as good a job*, and there are of course new (copy protected) discs around where the quicker C2 method works better than anything else.

The conclusion that I drew from that article was that CDex fails to report errors when it should.  We shouldn't forget that secure ripping involves detection of errors first.  Correction comes second.

Had you been using CDex to rip CDs, you would have had errors and not known about it (until you listened to it). What's the point of secure ripping if you don't know that errors were produced? In that regard EAC is superior to CDex.

@JEN I believe if you put '(' and ')' around TM, you'll get the trademark symbol like this: Warm Fuzzy Feeling™.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #19 –
Quote
If you get identical results, this means that either your CD is in perfect state, or your drive does a good job, or both.
Foo_cdda is based on akrip, so it's basically about the same as CDex with cdparanoia features disabled. It's nowhere close to being as reliable as EAC.

What is you don't get identical results bitwise, but there are no audible differences?

I bought a Copy Protected CD (I think it is CDS200), usually my drivewith EAC has no problem with this. But this time was different. I just refused to rip.
But the CD could be listened in foobar2000, so I used the diskwriter to output to 16bit, non-dithered wave file.
The results have flawless sound.
Later, I retried with EAC and this time I could extract the CD.
I was curious, so I compared the waves using EAC's "compare wavs" feature.
They were different.

What does this mean?
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #20 –
Is it possible to configure EAC with NEncode so mp4 files can be outputted ???

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #21 –
The conclusion I draw from the Cdex vs EAC test is that CDex Paranoia mode doesn't work with my drive.

Now I must get out and buy a CDS 200 CD in order to test old EAC versions with the use of C2 for correction.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #22 –
Quote
Now I must get out and buy a CDS 200 CD in order to test old EAC versions with the use of C2 for correction.

And against foobar2000, maybe?

As I said in my post, I ripped a CDS200 with both EAC and foobar2000.
The files sound the same to me (can't ABX)
But EAC' wave compare says the files are different.

It would be nice if you tried it and posted some results 
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #23 –
Quote
The conclusion that I drew from that article was that CDex fails to report errors when it should.  We shouldn't forget that secure ripping involves detection of errors first.  Correction comes second.

That's OK if the errors are then corrected, but as far as I could see, they were not.

Quote
Had you been using CDex to rip CDs, you would have had errors and not known about it (until you listened to it). What's the point of secure ripping if you don't know that errors were produced? In that regard EAC is superior to CDex.


What's the point of knowing that errors were produced when there's nothing you can do about it? And, more to the point: it seems there are discs where EAC will tell you there were errors (but produce a horrble sounding rip), and other progs won't report the errors (but produce an OK sounding rip).


I'm not suggesting that people should use CDex. I'm suggesting that this blanket advice to "use EAC" just isn't enough. We (I!) need more information, because it's clear that there are times when EAC (depending on configuration) is not the best choice.

Cheers,
David.

FB2K vs EAC

Reply #24 –
Quote
As I said in my post, I ripped a CDS200 with both EAC and foobar2000.
The files sound the same to me (can't ABX)
But EAC' wave compare says the files are different.

It would be nice if you tried it and posted some results 

I've not got Foobar, but this result is not surprising, it's normal, as we already saw twice ( http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....howtopic=11504& and http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....5370#entry54479 ), to get inconsistent rips from CDS200 CDs.
What would be surprising would be to get consistent different results in EAC and Foobar : always the same in EAC and always the same other in Foobar, but I bet you'll get other results ripping again, maybe sometimes EAC will give you the Foobar rip, and conversely, if there are very few inconsistent errors.

Quote
What's the point of knowing that errors were produced when there's nothing you can do about it?


The point of knowing if errors occured is speed. I've got about 100 old CDRs. EAC tells me at once if the errors are unrecoverable. It takes 2 minutes (inserting, loading, making the directory, start ripping), and I know that I had better to borrow the original again, or to record the vinyl again. Without reporting errors, it takes one hour to realize (listening), and the time spent to to encode, sort, and backup the files, and rebuilt the playlist is lost.

When someone else needs a copy and comes home, I don't have the time to listen, EAC tells me if the copy I make are OK before he goes home, and I can try the Teac drive instead of the Memorex, or pass the CD into Skipdoctor.

EAC is not always the best at reading CDs (it is seldom the best reader, it seems), sometimes CDex or Feurio do a better job at reading the CD. I don't know if CDex reports errors properly with some drives, it has not been tested by someone else to my knowledge. Feurio only works with C2, so it has more limitations than EAC. Plextools only works with Plextor drives, so it's even more limited.
I've got three drives, plus a CD player, and a skipdoctor device.

For me error detection is crucial because there's a lot I can do before giving up a perfect copy and letting other programs try to read as good as they can.