[Empeg-general] Re: I've never ripped CD's and I want to do it right

[Trevor Pendleton]

I've mentioned it here before, but I'm a big fan of the EAC/Lame pair.  As was stated above, you only (hopefuly) rip a CD once, but listen to it many times.

EAC will report the location of a suspicious part in a track.  I have actually then listened to the track, and can (usually) hear the crack, pop, etc that was mentioned.  I usually try re-ripping just that track, and some of the time, it's successful.  Sometimes, the disc is just too damaged at that part to rip cleanly.

If you've read the <A HREF="http://www.r3mix.net" target="_new">r3mix</A> reviews, you know that AudioCatalyst completely kills anything above 16KHz.  Some people can't hear this high, but many can.

VBR is IMHO better than CBR for the very reason it was created.  I rip all of my CDs with a minimum bitrate of 96k, and a max of 320k.  This way if it's a not very demanding section of music (or silence), it doesn't use as much space (granted only 96k instead of 128k or whatever CBR we're comparing it to.)  If it's a demanding piece of music, it sounds <u>much</u> better because it gets more bits allocated to it.

For the last year or so, I used AudioCatalyst because it is _easy_.  Stick the CD in, and click a button.

I'm now in the process of re-ripping everything using EAC/Lame, because I can hear the difference.  I've spent $1400 on the empeg, and another who knows how much on an amp, speakers, wiring, crossover, etc. (I do know, but I don't like to think about it.  ;-))  The last thing I want to do is skimp on the recording and have all of this wonderful hardware sound bad.  (edit:  It's for this very same reason I support Doug in his crusade for subwoofers.  Why spend over $2k on everything else and miss that part of the audio spectrum???)

As the saying goes:  "If it's worth doing, then it's worth doing right."

-Trevor

-----
Mk 2, Green 12GB 080000349<P ID="edit">_Edited by trevorp on 25/9/00 04:47 PM._