eac vs itunes ripping

For Bob and all Mac users:

For the equivelent of EAC on Macintosh check out Max. It has a "full paranoia" setting plus it lets you select how many times you want the software to reread the problem bytes before it skips (plus a never skip checkbox) and will keep a log (if you so desire).

I have been using it for about four months and believe it is the best Ripping software available (at least for Macs). I have watched CDs being ripped and it zips through most but if you have it set for "Full Paranoia" and "never skip" as I do, it will slow down (sometimes to a crawl) when it finds a bad soundByte. ;)

Max is also a converter. It can translate between some 20+ formats.

Best of all: it's free!

EAC has acquired a sort of mystic status which is not based on reality.

Sure, if you have a particularly bad CD, or your optical drive does not have C2 error correction then it has its place.

I use a Plextor PX-708UF drive and rip to WMA lossless using Windows Media Player which is a heck of lot more convenient that fiddling around with EAC's cumbersome functions.

When I binary compare with files ripped by EAC there is precisely no difference in the audio bits. Some of the header and footer information shows up as being differnt but that is all. I have tried this with old CDs that need error correction and the result is the same.

I'm sure iTunes can do just fine too. Don't believe the hype - check it out for yourself.

EAC's mythic status can easily be explained. Some years ago, it really was just about the only way to make sure you were getting a bit-perfect copy. So naturally it was widely touted at the time as "the best."

But EAC wasn't doing anything impossible or, for that matter, proprietary. And pretty soon, bit-perfect copies became run-of-the-mill. But thanks to the Wayback Machine, there are still all those old posts on the Web declaring EAC to be "the best," and impressionable consumers believe them.

At least EAC and Max are free, so no "Audiophool" is paying for them. Except their times I guess.