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dBpoweramp Accu-rip, trust it or not?

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Posted on August 2, 2011 at 17:02:38
Rod M
Web Geek

Posts: 16242
Location: So. California
Joined: March 1, 1999
Contributor
  Since: March 1, 1999
 I'm ripping 300 CDs from an old jukebox and most rip perfectly. A few or them will have a track or two that comes up Inaccurate, so I click off the good tracks and rip again. Typically, the tracks will get the Accurate rip label the second or third time.

Other ones don't. So I've been doing 3 strikes and you're out. And then there are some CDs that the whole CD comes up as Inaccurate. Often, those have only a few to compare. Others like one I'm doing now show 12 ans 13 which I'd guess are the number in their db. Those ones never seem to get better with multiple tries.

The question is whether or not to trust those results from dBpoweramp? In my old OCD days, I'd probably would have cleaned the CDs, painted them with green pens and retried 14 times. Then I'd re-rip with EAC, just in case.

Now, with more 300 to go, I just move on. I just wonder what others are seeing.



-Rod

 

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RE: dBpoweramp Accu-rip, trust it or not?, posted on August 3, 2011 at 06:21:01
rick_m
Audiophile

Posts: 6230
Location: Oregon
Joined: August 11, 2005
 I'm mainstream or even flakier. If cleaning and a second pass doesn't fix it I just ignore it. A slew of errors are often inaudible or just a tiny tick. You can always erase the track later if it really sucks.

Ripping is like scanning slides, it's easy to spend orders of magnitude more time fussing with something than you ever will spend looking at or listening to it.

Rick

 

Agreed, posted on August 3, 2011 at 13:44:07
krondo.jd
Audiophile

Posts: 105
Location: Mission Viejo, CA
Joined: February 14, 2011
 That pretty much sums up my opinion as well.

Tubes and vinyl are preferred.
Cheers, Jeff

 

RE: dBpoweramp Accu-rip, trust it or not?, posted on August 2, 2011 at 22:27:25
rmilewsk
Audiophile

Posts: 534
Location: So. Cal.
Joined: January 10, 2008
 Most of my rips with dbpoweramp have seemed to be very accurate. Usually when dbpoweramp says it can't rip a disc I can see cracks, scratches etc. on the disc itself. There have been very few occasions where dbpoweramp can't rip a disc successfully and I can't physically see a problem. In thnose cases I listen to the ripped tracks very carefully. If I can hear issues I re buy the discs. If I can't hear any issues I just keep them and listen.

 

RE: dBpoweramp Accu-rip, trust it or not?, posted on August 2, 2011 at 17:08:51
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 You can look at them and see if they are scratched. That's usually the case. I have a few that had problems, without any scratches. I suspect they were some kind of "pit rot".

Usually if there are problems with a CD it's only in one track. dBpoweramp will also report how many problem frames are involved (75 frames per second). Often there is just one frame that's bad. If you go and listen to the track then there is a 50-50 chance you won't hear anything wrong. If you own a CD and it rips with errors and you want to listen to it, then just do so. You may be pleasantly surprised that the error are inaudible.

If you get errors on more than a small fraction of your disks and the disks have no obvious problems then it is likely that your drive isn't working so well. The best thing to do then is to try reading the problem disk on a different drive, e.g. on a different computer.

I haven't seen a pattern on whether EAC or dBpoweramp does better on the marginal disks. I have seen a pattern when using different drives.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: dBpoweramp Accu-rip, trust it or not?, posted on August 3, 2011 at 11:24:12
IslandLizard
Audiophile

Posts: 31
Location: Baltimore, MD
Joined: July 17, 2011
 Ripping the "faulty" CD using a different drive may resolve some of those issues. I've resolved many ripping problems that way.

Also, when problem rips appear, I rip them at least twice (even on different drives) and compare the results either within EAC (WAV Compare) or using a checksum/md5/PAR2 program.

If you have your accuraterip configured correctly and it still shows discrepancies with their database on some tracks or some whole albums, and you yielded 2 identical rips , I'd say ignore AR.

Even when only one bit is flipped it will show a discrepancy, but it maybe totally inaudible. The odds on ripping twice and flipping the same bits are small.

There are even voices that swear by ripping in burst mode, and rely on AR for verification. If it clears AR, you got a good rip in 10 minutes or less.

Extending that philosophy you could rip in burst mode twice (or 3x) and compare the result. That method will likely also yield an accurate rip, particularly if your album is not in AR.

Many of my CDs are not in AR the way it stands, and I'll rip those 2x on different drives with correct offsets applied. I normally use secure, but if the sheer volume is high or time is scarce, I flirt with burst too. If there's a difference, it is usually in the last few frames, due to offset and reading lead-out differences. Those frames tend to be silent anyway.

A few CDs may pop out not yielding comparable rips, whatever method used. I look into those much closer and find a way or the reason.

 

audibility of errors, posted on August 2, 2011 at 20:12:54
mls-stl
 >> If you go and listen to the track then there is a 50-50 chance you won't
>> hear anything wrong. If you own a CD and it rips with errors and you
>> want to listen to it, then just do so. You may be pleasantly surprised
>> that the error are inaudible.

I'd second the motion to give error tracks a listen, especially if the ripper didn't seem to work very hard to get past it. Remember that a misread of one single bit out of millions will cause Accuraterip to report a rip error.

Often, you can't hear the error. Other times, you'll hear an error, but it is a single instance of a click that is no more objectionable than the same sound on a LP. But, sometimes the playback of the ripped track is unacceptable. A different CD drive may give a better results, or it may not.

However, I think Tony's point is a good suggestion - it often pays to listen to the track before discarding it just because of an error report.

It is interesting how much is forgiven in the playback of analog sources, yet things turn so absolute with digital material.

 

RE: audibility of errors, posted on August 3, 2011 at 02:36:58
audioAl
Audiophile

Posts: 1462
Location: So. Texas
Joined: December 16, 2007
 The CD/DVD drive may be ok, but buying another is an option. I want a bluray drive for my pc to replace my Liteon that sticks some times, door doesn't want to open. I've used DBPoweramp and like the results.
Vista Ultimate 64 bit/e5300 Intel 45nm cpu/ASRock G41M-LE/Asus Xonar DS R 7.1/YamahaRX-V465 HT receiver/ Infinity RS1001 & Cambridge SoundWorks speakers/Yamaha YST-SW216 subwolf

 

RE: audibility of errors, posted on August 2, 2011 at 21:28:36
Scab
Audiophile

Posts: 223
Joined: July 18, 2001
 "It is interesting how much is forgiven in the playback of analog sources, yet things turn so absolute with digital material. "

Have analog sources ever been claimed to be Perfect Sound Forever?

 

RE: audibility of errors, posted on August 3, 2011 at 05:32:18
mls-stl
 >> Have analog sources ever been claimed to be Perfect Sound Forever?

You are apparently listening too devotedly to the boys from the advertising agency. When did you ever expect them to tell the unvarnished truth about anything?

Do you take everything from Madison Avenue at face value?

Here's some ad copy from a 1948 Columbia Records piece (the year the LP was first released): "Imagine a new tone quality so lifelike you'll scarcely believe you're listening to a record! New freedom from surface noise! And broken records practically a thing of the past!"

 

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