Considerable Improvement with EAC Rips

associated equipment:
-Squeezebox III w/ Transparent Reference Digital Link .wav or .aiff
-dCS Delius
-dCS Purcell Upsampler 1394 (DSD)
-Levison 336
-B&W N802
-Transparent Reference Cabling and Power Conditioning
-ASC Tower Traps

I will be short and to the point. I think error correction, or "secure ripping" is absolutely crucial to hard drive based music server performance and I think the free program EAC probably performs this task better than iTunes. The difference is audible.

On disc after disc, EAC ripped tracks had a more refined, pleasant presentation, greater resolution, improved dynamics, with better imaging and instrument separation than iTunes tracks. In addition, electric and acoustic bass was tighter with more articulation and string attack. The imaging of loud swells in the music that on the iTunes tracks would sound "congested" held together more on the EAC tracks. Vocals were not as boomy or forward sounding. It goes on and on.

I tested with a fellow audiophile and we both heard and were able to describe to each other the same type of improvement on each track in most cases. In every case we heard a material difference in the tracks and on the majority of the discs we could successfully identify and distinguish EAC tracks from iTunes tracks in a blind test.

In some cases, tracks that iTunes ripped rather quickly took over an hour to rip as EAC read and reread bad sectors on the disc. Average rip speed was around 4-6x normal playing speed and on some discs dropped as low as .1x normal playing speed. We used iTunesEncode to allow EAC to automatically use iTunes' encoders to convert the raw EAC wav into .aiff and add it to the iTunes library with the proper metadeta. The entire process of EAC ripping and adding to iTunes is one click, once setup properly.

EAC indicated it was performing error correction on several discs that were thought to be in good enough condition for real time playback on a CD transport.

As a side note, the CD drive we have used has, what based on my research (also known as googling), is the best combination of features for a CD-ROM ripper: 1. it does NOT cache audio when ripping 2. it uses c2 error correction and 3. it utilizes "accurate stream".

I believe the final result with EAC is as good, if not better than the Goldmund Mim36 transport the Squeezebox replaced. On almost every disc I found myself saying "it sounds like the old transport!"

The bottom line is that if you are seriously building an archive on PC you should probably at least test this program. If you can't bring yourself to use EAC, at a minimum, iTunes error correction should be engaged.

This is a tweak for serious listening and like a lot of audiophile upgrades the differences are subtle, but important. I could not identify a difference on my Pro-Ject Headbox SEII, Sennheiser HD600 headphones and PC soundcard, but out of my main system it was obvious to me.

In conclusion, the right drive and EAC has made the system sound better than ever, without a doubt. There may be other software that rips as well or better but I am not aware of it. It also suggests computer software may play an important role in the future of the hobby, especially with USB DACS on the rise.

At the very least, the meticulous manner in which EAC reads and rereads suspicious sections of a disc, the ability to detect and compensate for unwanted drive behavior like caching, the reduced speed at which it rips, the accuracy reports it gives, and the program's reputation give me piece of mind that my files are about as good as they could be.

It is either my imagination or the best free tweak I have found to date.