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High Speed Ripping Laboratory for EAC

Apart from my treasured audiophile recordings and SACD's, I have 2-300 CDs kicking around with no slip cases or jewel boxes with the scuffs and scratches that you might expect from moving them around, taking them in and out of the car etc.

Most of them play just fine, but they seem to take a bit of extra time to "rip" if I want skip free music on my PC or iPod.

And the iTunes program doesnt catch many of the errors, leaving some of them unplayable - not on my hardware at home but by the time they get to my iPod.

Therefore, I would like to put them all through the most meticulous EAC reading and ripping, but I am concerned that my computer will be obsolete by the time this gets done.

Have any of you devised ways to save time, save labor etc when using EAC to rip on the SLOWEST, most meticulous settings?

Is there any way to feed CDs into a tray, or hack a CD changing carousel or something?

Are there any audiophile services to rip bit for bit with EAC and maximum error detection and correction?

Or should I just bring a big pile to the office, and switch them out all day while I am working or something?

(My partners might not think this was the best use of my time.)

Thank you for any info on your experiences or suggestions.
cwlondon
yada
158 posts
 
Ripping CD's in their entirety is not too hard. Wait until you decide to extract only those song titles you like on each disc. Now that is a lot of work!

I also second Slothman. The Plextor Drives have a lot of features that make it better than the others. That is based on the advice of my IT helper who I asked to find the best platform. Slothman makes some very good points I was not aware of.

I think most Plextor also do “CD text” which is invaluable when trying to find the song title on my gold Mitsui CDRs. On my computer, I know that I like every song, but I do not always remember what the title and artist is on every CD I burn from my computer. I burn with Ahead Nero and use CD text.

I am at the point where I play the original disc less than 6 times before it is retired and resold or if it really a band I am a fan of, archived.

my setup for audio PC

I use an old fashioned case to hold more hardware.
vladimir
346 posts
 
I don't find ripping CDs to be hard work once you have configured EAC; I use my computer daily and just ripping in the background does it for me.
brb9
33 posts
 
one question that has not been addressed yet:
for autoloading of cd's check out what is refered to as a 'CD DVD Duplicator' of the 'robotic' type. These can be had for as little as $699 (see below) or up to many thousands:

http://www.discmakers.com/duplicators/products/pico.asp

or

http://www.octave.com/cgi-bin/shop/shop.cgi/act/specs/item/1118262551

although this may be a bit pricey for only 300 cds (at $2/cd) ...
etep29
20 posts
 
I would imagine that there are ripping services that would do it for you but they are going to charge you am arm and a leg to do it. Prolly more than the CD's are worth. If your CD takes 20-40+ minutes to rip you are going to be paying by the hour and it aint gonna be cheap. Just my opinion as someone who makes a living with their computer.

Another angle. Have you considered polishing your CD's or having that done. My local mom and pop (more like gang of x bandmembers) CD shop will polish CD's for a buck or two to like new, depending on how many you have. They use a big bench grinder with a buffing wheel and polishing compound, heck you could pick one up on eBay for a song. Once polished, they will play and rip like new.

Now that i think of it, my local independant video store has a big, impressive machine that they use to clean DVD's. I'm pretty sure they farm out cleaning and polishing too.
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