Advice: CD's to Hard Drive and Back Again

Maybe I am making it sound overly complicated. It is really not. Nero or Roxio will not give you an accurate rip. There are other programs that will give you an accurate rip but EAC is probably the most popular. There is a database of signatures for most CDs. It is called the Accurip database. EAC will automatically check your rip against this database. If your rip matches in the database then you can be pretty sure it is a proper rip.

EAC will give you a better rip than any disc copy machine. If EAC finds an error on a disc. It will reread that section over and over as many times as necessary to try and resolve the error. An "on the fly" rip can not do this. There can occasionally be timing errors but not often. If there is a timing error EAC will let you know. You can then try to rerip that track. That is why it is always good to check the log and see if there were errors and if the tracks match the database.

Ripping is black and white, either the rip is accurate or it is not. It does not matter what type of drive you use to rip the disc. If the disc matches other discs in the database than you can be pretty sure it is accurate. The more discs it matches the better. Accurip will tell you how many matches there are. I use EAC and rip to wav files. I then create an sfv checksum for the wav files. I then convert the wav files to flac and store them on my hard drive. Unless you have a good rip to start with, you can't make a good copy.

I've found that CD's are neither indestructable nor unscratchable. Ripping them to the HD seems like a good way to prevent the problem of destructed CD's or lost ones. As far as I'm concerned making backup CD's is a pretty painless and thoughtless process and a reasonable thing to do (uh I'm ADD and lose stuff).

Cheaper? Nope. The original CD's are almost always more costly than a burned CD. Any current CD is more costly to buy twice than a purchase of said CD and then a backup of the same one.

Second consideration: I buy the entire CD's to pay the artist for the work; often I purchase those CD's even when I like only a few songs. I then burn CD's as a compilation of various CD's of my lawfully purchased CD collection to create CD's for a "mood" or just because I want to. So I'd still like to be able to rip the CD's flawlessly and burn them flawlessly.

Hey, just color me "anal", but aren't most of us audiophiles anal?

So your questions are, for my purposes, not very helpful. I've asked how to accomplish a task, you've asked "why do you want to do that task?" (should we add the unspoken name associated with the question? - - "Why do you want to do that you *******?"). Naahh lets not do that.

I don't really want to justify why I might want to accomplish the task of ripping CD's to the HD flawlessly - I just want to accomplish my task in the best way possible. If you'd like to offer solutions then I'm all for that, but if you want to say "Why would you want to do a fool thing like that?" then I'm not in for the exchange.

Any folks out there who want to help I'm still up for listening.

Thanks again. Lostbears and 4est.

Others?

"I've found that CD's are neither indestructable nor unscratchable"

This can not be! In 1982 when Phillips and Sony introduced the Compact disc they promised it would bring you perfect sound forever!

No offense intended I assure you. I was just curious.
As for ripping off artists, I too always purchase music legally, have never downloaded any music. It's just that ripping cds to a hard drive is a pain. I know because I am swapping cds in and out of my Mac Mini as I type this. Still though if I wanted a second copy of Sting's Nothing Like The Sun, the cd I that just popped out, I'd go to Amazon and buy it used for $3 including shipping.
Now to your question. After months of researching computer audio, how to get the best bang for the $$, this is my solution. I store my files on a Western Digital hard drive ripped through the Mac Mini. The files are AIFF ripped via itunes with error correction on. My understanding is these are perfect bit for bit copies. I use an ipod touch for remote control of itunes and play them back via a toslink cable to a PS Audio Digital LinkIII dac. As for quality, I hear no difference between the original and the digital copy although I haven't really compared critically yet. Good luck whichever way you decide.

Timrhu,

just for fun, take a couple of the discs folders of AIFF files and convert them to flac. Then compare them to the Accurip database. I don't know if there is a program for the Mac that will do this. There are a number of free programs such as CUETools that will do this on a PC. Flac is a lossless archive so if the rip is accurate it will match.