CD ripper with CDDB

[BobOnTheJob]

What's the CD Ripper of choice these days that has a working CDDB (or equivalent) utility?

 

[Charlie]

I have been using Exact Audio Copy for over 10 years - it's free, works with CDDB and has a variety of ripping/encoding options to get tracks into the format and titling that you desire.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I have been using Exact Audio Copy for over 10 years - it's free, works with CDDB and has a variety of ripping/encoding options to get tracks into the format and titling that you desire.

Audio GRABBER has served me well for several years now. Also free. It doesn't say CDDB on the screen, but try the little button with the penguin on it.

 

[chriscollins]

I use dbpoweramp for a ton of stuff... It has an excellent batch audio converter and it can convert .ts mpeg files from XDS receivers.

 

[ChiefOperator]

Exact Audio Copy and DBPoweramp are both great programs. I've used both and add my endorsement.

Often, it's Adobe Audition. But another freebie that I really like is "CDex." It normalizes as well and has a basic, uncluttered interface.

http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

 

[rrsounds]

Since I already have iTunes, that's what I use. It's pretty versatile and it's free.

Kind Regards,
David

 

[TomZ]

Is it safe to say "anything other than windows mediaplayer"|?|

 

[jesseg]

The problem with almost every ripper besides EAC and dbPowerAmp, is that they use a burst mode of data transfer from the drive. This is almost guaranteed to have errors & glitches (many times audible) when you rip a CD, scratched or fresh from the polywrap.

EAC & dbPowerAmp use a secure form of ripping that not only reads the data using a much lower level method, but when they do come across a real true uncorrectable (C2) error on the CD, they will re-read that same section multiple times... moving the laser across it from different points and at different speeds, to get the best idea of what the data probably was. The end result is that you will get exactly what was on the original CD, and if there's any errors it still sounds better than playing it in any CD player at any price. Especially for the "protected" (read: broken) CDs a few of the majors were putting out for a while.

iTunes uses burst mode. Furthermore it's well know that the Apple-tweaked FhG (Fraunhofer) encoder in iTunes sounds worse at 320 than Lame does at 128. And of course iTunes doesn't support FLAC, where EAC & dbPowerAmp do (and they support Apple Lossless too).

http://i.imgur.com/XBBmd.jpg

 

[radiorob2.0]

I had good luck with Speedy offered by BSI (Simian). It's $100 and has CDDB capability along with writing that information to RIFF if your automation supports that data.

 

[richard.vanderveen]

EAC & dbPowerAmp use a secure form of ripping that not only reads the data using a much lower level method, but when they do come across a real true uncorrectable (C2) error on the CD, they will re-read that same section multiple times... moving the laser across it from different points and at different speeds, to get the best idea of what the data probably was.

Exactly the reason I use dbPowerAmp... ;D
And besides ripping it is a very nice tool for tagging, encoding, decoding and, if you really, really have to.., transcoding

 

[satech]

I use EAC and it works great, but you have to be careful with old and obscure CDs because it does not compensate for CDs that were mastered with pre-emphasis. The resulting WAV files will be unnaturally bright sounding unless you then go and apply the de-emphasis curve using an audio editor like Adobe Audition or Audacity. iTunes is not nearly as good, however, it _does_ apply the necessary de-emphasis when "ripping" tracks from pre-emphasized CDs.

 

[jesseg]

I use EAC and it works great, but you have to be careful with old and obscure CDs because it does not compensate for CDs that were mastered with pre-emphasis.

That's partly why I switched to dbPowerAmp. With EAC... you'd be outputting a .que to see if it's got pre-emphasis, and then ripping to wave, running them through a de-emphasis program, and then having to manually tag it all after encoding to flac/mp3/whatever.

 

[satech]

That's partly why I switched to dbPowerAmp. With EAC... you'd be outputting a .que to see if it's got pre-emphasis, and then ripping to wave, running them through a de-emphasis program, and then having to manually tag it all after encoding to flac/mp3/whatever.

dbPowerAmp also has a plugin to do HDCD decoding, which outputs a 24-bit WAV file and gives you up to 6 dB of "peak extension" -- basically "declipping" of the standard CD audio. Not all HDCDs are mastered using peak extension, but many are. Also some CDs are HDCD encoded, sometimes even only on specific tracks, even if the liner notes and disc itself don't have the HDCD logo anywhere on them. So whenever I "rip" any CD newer than 1994, I run the resulting WAV files through the HDCD decoder, just in case it picks up anything.