What are you using to rip your cds to a hard drive?

9 things I suspect will improve the whole ripping process:

1. Isolate the CD player and the ripper.

2. Treat the CD being ripped with liquid type enhancer.

3. Demagnetize the CD prior to ripping.

4. Demagnetize the cabling.

5. Use some sort of anti static method prior to ripping.

6. Use better cables and power cords.

7. Color the CD to be treated.

8. Color the CD tray.

9. Ensure CD is absolutely level during ripping.

Be careful with what you read here. Geoffkait, in a previous post, mentions a checklist of things to do before ripping your CD’s. I’ll just highlight one. He says to demagnetize your CD’s before ripping. Huh? Optical discs are encoded with digital ones and zeros that are read with a laser. Any “magnetic charge” that might be possessed by any of the minute metals in the disc will make no difference whatsoever (positive or negative – pun intended) in the data read from the CD that is sent to the DAC. In other words a “demagnetizer” performs no useful function and is a SCAM…even if you pay more than $1800.00 for one – still a scam.

The ONLY buy recommendations you will get for such a device is from those that make, market, distributor or retail this junk. And magazines and reviewers who are paid to review them. And “audiophiles” who took the plunge and now have to justify the wasted money.

The rest of his checklist is equally bogus – only hoping the whole thing was in jest.

I use EAC - Exact Audio Copy.  It does the job very well and has procedures for confirming the validity of the rip.  It is free.  I would not say it is difficult to learn or install.  As for tweaks; I think setting your CD to its slowest speed and not using it for anything else has to assist in a small way - not sure the difference will be audible though.  

I do have one more tweak that I share with my closest and dearest friends.  Send me just $100.00 and I will share it with you. At that price it's a steal!   :->

Dynaquest
Be careful with what you read here. Geoffkait, in a previous post, mentions a checklist of things to do before ripping your CD’s. I’ll just highlight one. He says to demagnetize your CD’s before ripping. Huh? Optical discs are encoded with digital ones and zeros that are read with a laser. Any “magnetic charge” that might be possessed by any of the minute metals in the disc will make no difference whatsoever (positive or negative – pun intended) in the data read from the CD that is sent to the DAC. In other words a “demagnetizer” performs no useful function and is a SCAM…even if you pay more than $1800.00 for one – still a scam.

Huh? The optical discs are not encoded with ones and zeros. They contain pits and between the pits flat spaces (lands), each with variable lengths, which must be decoded to obtain the ones and zeros later on. The reading of the pits and lands is actually an analog process, and one subject to the vagaries of these flakey devices. That’s why demagnetizers and ionizers and coloring of the disc and the tray improves the sound. I know what you’re thinking: gee, but I thought error detection/error correction took care of all that stuff. 😄

As I and many others have acknowledged many times in past threads here, science and engineering can neither explain nor predict a lot about what we hear or don’t hear from our systems. However the science and engineering that is involved in the copying of digital data from one storage medium to another is well understood, well developed, and under reasonable circumstances is robust, reliable, and accurate. Especially, in this case, if the software being used assures bit perfect accuracy.

While I don’t dispute that some of Geoff’s tweaks might be beneficial under some circumstances when a CD is being listened to, they have no relevance whatsoever to the process of copying the data that is on a CD to a hard drive. Assuming, again, that the software is designed to re-read data as necessary to assure bit perfect accuracy, and to indicate an error in the unusual event that it is unable to do so.

I say this as someone having extensive background in digital design, and particular expertise regarding computer technology. I also say this despite Geoff’s disagreement that will inevitably follow. And for some perspective on the kinds of tweaks he recommends, you may find the following excerpt from his post dated 9-7-2012 in this thread to be of interest:

Taking all telephone books out of the house will usually be audible when you go back and listen to the system. Even if the telephone books are in other rooms of the house, they should be removed. The telephone book is perceived as an intruder by virtue of the fact that it is linked to a strong Field created by the tens or hundreds of thousands of identical telephone books. So, the link to that field can be eliminated by removing the telephone books from the house, making the house Safe from the telephone book "information field".

Regards,
-- Al