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cd ripping issue

S

Sgeirk

This one is driving me nuts.

I have a Dell laptop w/Sony CD/DVD burner.

Here's the issue: I rip a CD using EAC, CDEX or Adobe...and the waveforms peak at -1db and sound clipped, and a little distorted...

And on the air? worse.

I can download an identical version online and the online mp3 has more dynamic range and sounds more open than what I'm ripping.

I'm not using any normalization at all, cd's check out fine. I read on an Adobe forum someone having noticed this same issue. But it's not just with Adobe...it's any ripper. I'm running XP.
 
are you ripping to wave or mp3?could it be a sound card issue? best ripper i've ever used is the prophet cd extractor pro with AFC(audio file converter) included.works as stand alone from Nexgen.Price is right at 175.00,but i'll tell you it is well worth it.
 
I don't mean so sound simplistic here, but have you checked your ripper's settings? Most ripper can rip in multiple formats, and have variable settings for each of those formats.

If you rip a music track to 96Kb/s .mp3, it's going to sound clipped and distorted. 96Kb/s in stereo is actually 48Kb/s per track. The actual sampling rate - assuming that you're using 16-bit quantization - is 48,000/16, or 3000 samples per second. At 3000 samples per second, you're highest possible frequency would be 1500 Hz.

Now, I know that we're talking 48Kb/sec compressed, with a compression ratio of maybe 4:1. So, with that in mind, you're highest possible frequency is 6KHz. YUCK!

Bumping up the sampling rate bumps up the frequency range, so check your ripper's settings. You also may need to keep in mind that MP3 players often don't support really high bit-rates.
 
Yes, I would check the settings to see if a poor quality format is being used..... but.....

unless the CDs you are ripping a "home made" that would not explain the -1.0 peaks. Most music CDs seem be down about -4.0 to -6.0 db.

Now, if it is a church service or lecture that I have recorded and edited and normalize, they you might find peaks as high as -0.66..... but this is very unusual.
 
Most current music CD's run at 0dbFS...Clipped to hell. Virtually everything since 1999 has no headroom.

Emmett
 
I haven't compressed a song for on-air playback since 2000. What's the point? Unless, you're shipping files over a WAN.

I'll spend some more time and see if I can re-create the issue with different songs/cd's.

Thanks for the responses.
 
Emmett said:
Most current music CD's run at 0dbFS...Clipped to hell. Virtually everything since 1999 has no headroom.

Emmett
Click to expand...


Interesting that you say that. I've been trading e-mails with another audio guy about this subject. I've been stewing about the clipping on some of the CDs I'm ripping to hard disk.

I finally found a partial solution with Sound Forge's "Clipped Peak" restoration and "Multi-band Dynamics". While it isn't 100% restoring the sound, it does take a lot of the edge off the harshness.
 
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