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Is Itunes OK to rip CD's to AIFF?

I'm ripping a lot of of CD's and putting them on a network server so I can access them from any computer/stereo system in my house. Does any one know of any blinded listening studies where they compared Itunes-ripped wave files (AIFF) to AIFF ripped by another program? If no studies, is there any technical reason (and I'm no computer expert) that an Itunes ripped AIFF might be inferior to an AIFF file ripped by another program?
ldworet
ldworet OP
48 posts
 
Thanks for all the help. How do you tell if a CDROM drive error correction capability. And would this apply if I'm using a PC? For CDROM I'm mostly using a SONY DRX-810UL. I went to the dBpoweramp page and saw support for Apple lossless but no support for AIFF which I prefer. Anyone know if dBpoweramp has some hidden (at least to me) ability to generate AIFF?
paulfolbrecht
603 posts
 
If you set error correction on with iTunes how could you get anything other than a perfect rip?
paulfolbrecht
603 posts
 
One other question: Does Pure Music handle ripping, too? IOW if you have it installed and rip through iTunes is PM software doing the ripping?
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
If you set error correction on with iTunes how could you get anything other than a perfect rip?

The offset is screwed-up.

Try this: rip a track to .wav with dbpoweramp with Accurate-Rip enabled. Then rip the same track with itunes and compare the SQ of the two.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
paulfolbrecht
603 posts
 
Steve: so they have a flat-out bug in the software? Ought to be easy to fix. How long has it existed?

I went through your experiment using Beethoven's 9th. The dbpoweramp rip sounds awesome but the iTunes rip sounds exactly like the studio version of Stairway to Heaven! Something is off indeed.

Seriously, I don't doubt the phenomena (though it is surprising). I may end up re-ripping in the near future so I'm glad I came across this. I'd always though iTunes with error correction on was golden.
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