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[RemyJ]

Well, I've spent the past few evenings running some comparisons between EAC and MJ in terms of ripping and encoding.   I'm sure this will spark some debate and hopefully result in some suggestions for V9.

The test isn't perfect of course, but I did try to make sure I was comparing apples to apples in all cases.  Only speed was assesed.  No quality judgements were made.  The same LAME executable with the same options was used for both EAC and MJ.

The full results are here:
Results
but here's a summary...

• EAC rips and encodes full CDs faster than MJ
  
• EAC with 2 encoder threads is fastest even on a single processor machine
  
• MJ rips individual tracks at a higher rate than EAC
  
• EAC rips a full CD to uncompressed wav faster than MJ even though MJ rips individual tracks at a higher rate(MJ pauses between tracks)
  
• MJs V8 "Rip and Encode Simultaneously" was always the worst performer.
  

My conclusions:  MJ's guts are OK.  They just need some infrastructure work to take full advantage of them.  BTW, EAC with 1 encoder is exactly what MJ's V7 "Rip and Encode Simultaneous" did (and why some of us wanted that behaviour back).  This is also an example of why some of us would prefer that MJ concentrated on music for a while longer.  I already have image management software that works quite well but if I can stop using EAC...

Oh yeah, I know I can rip to uncompressed wav then batch encode but that's neither convenient for me nor the point.

Now, any volunteers to repeat the experiment so we can compare results?  I'm going to repeat it on my older dual 400mhz machine in the next 24 hours.

Remy

[PhatPhreddy]

Personally I am not too hung up on speed....

I would like however to see a more secure digital secure... If errors terminate rip even... Most of my rips are 100% but the odd bad disk I could drop back to EAC for...

Disk at once rip with APE/ APL's please ??

I dont know what has happened but I paused my ripping processes when I had no net connection on my ripping box and now EAC is buggering around with me... I rebuilt the box and may need to add an ASPI (should't though I dont think I did before) layer but ??

Would be so much nicer if I could rip within MJ the way I want to rather than EAC / MA / MJ combo...

[sekim]

Remy,

I'll bet you find out that 99% of the people that use EAC do so because of its quality rips. Most don't care about the speed. Especially if they have it set up with Test and Copy. That is slow, but it will nail just about anything that you can throw at it.

I had some brand spanking new discs that MJ couldn't copy. No protection, just poor pressings I believe. EAC got every one of those tracks. But it took almost 45 minutes to do a disc! In case your wondering they were: The Blues Box, The Blues Box Volume II, and An Anthology of Blues. The label says Excelsior.

However, I understand what you are trying to do here. I do think MJ is good at what it does, and agree that a little wrenching could make it even better.

[JimH]

Remy,
We welcome the testing you're doing.  If you can pinpoint things we can do, we will take a hard look at them.  The pause between tracks was a good find.

Thanks,

Jim

[stalag131]

It would be sweet if MJ could do like Nero when ripping and apply error correction to tracks.  This a) defeats several stupid copy protection things, and b) keeps the pops out of discs that just can't be ripped perfectly.  (stop playing frizby with my disks!)

[Doof]

What does EAC's Test and Copy do that a regular Copy won't?

What settings do you guys recommend for the best possible rips? I have some CD's that are pretty scratched up, and I'd like to see what EAC can do with them.

I used EAC on a disc at home and I had sections with really bad pops and screeching and things. I brought the same disc to work and let the drive here at it. It's got some CAS thing (I have no idea what that is) and the disc ripped perfectly!

[RemyJ]

Quality is definitely important but I couldn't figure out an objective way to measure it.   I have to say though that after ripping about 900 CDs, I had only 1 or 2 that MJ couldn't rip successfully but EAC could.   In fact, I think I 've had a few that EAC gave up on but MJ ripped fine with no apparent quality loss.  At least I couldn't hear any.

[sekim]

Test and copy basically compares two of the same file to make sure there is no difference in them.

Most likely for someone who doesn't have a life away from the computer and needs mental assuredness that their copy is the absolute best.

Until the next version of EAC comes out...

[Xstatic]

Good initiative - I have missed a comparison between eac and mj.

However, speed is very inferior to my needs - I go for quality. I have experienced when ripping scratched cd's that mj give up very fast, and then I use eac - I takes a very very long time to rip it - but it comes out perfect or close to perfect- whereas mj conclude that there were hard errors and it couldnt rip.

[RemyJ]

For those that prefer quality (I do as well, just for the record) how do you measure it?   Specifically, I mean what criteria to you use?   Is it just that the rip is successful or do you use some other criteria?

[Doof]

Me personally... I rip the CD with EAC, then if it reports errors or suspicious sections, I go listen to those sections. If there are no audible skips, pops, or scratches, I proclaim it "Perfect" and move on.

[rocketsauce]

EAC has an option to compare 2 wav files.  Maybe rip a track from a CD that is in good condition and also rip a track from a CD that is scratched using both MJ & EAC.  I would imagine that there might not be much difference between the tracks ripped from the good CD, but on the damaged CD, the differences in the quality of the rip might be more apparent.  That might be a place to start anyway.

Also, have you set EAC up to take advantage of its advanced features and used settings appropriate to the hardware that you are using to rip?  If you don't already know about it, there is a pretty comprehensive tutorial on setting up EAC here:

http://www.ping.be/satcp/

Rob

[RemyJ]

Yep, I know how to use EAC to it's fullest extent but comparing 2 wav files doesn't tell you which one is correct, it just indicates what their relationship is to each other.  

Has anyone done a real quality test between the 2 programs?

[rocketsauce]

After thinking about it a little, it seems maybe there are two aspects of quality that can be measured.  Are the respective rippers producing wavs that meet the technical specs for what a wav file should be? And, more subjectively, are there differences in the sound quality of wavs produced by different rippers.  

Anyway, I've come across a lot at HA Forum and EAC forum by someone who posts under the name Pio2001 who has done a lot of testing on EAC.  Maybe looking up some of his posts might point you in the right direction.

Rob

Listening to: 'December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)' from 'Who Loves You' by 'The Four Seasons' on Media Jukebox

[sekim]

Remy,

Not me. I guess the only reason I installed EAC was to see if it could grab the above mentioned tracks that MJ couldn't. Which it eventually did.

And another thing, of all the tracks I have ripped, I cannot tell which ones were done by either program. Even if I knew which tracks were done by what program I probably couldn't tell. I think there is a huge placebo effect when it comes to this kind of stuff. I think that is a better indicator (does it sound good?) then what some Byzantine users would indicate.

[Bill Ko]

One thing EAC has MJ absolutely beat on is waveform editing, particularly editing bad parts out, like clicks and stuff.  If some samples are missing, you can have EAC interpolate what's supposed to go there, and it does a great job.  You can also have EAC auto-fix pops and stuff, or you can actually edit the waveform itself.

In EAC, you can also record a waveform and then add a "cue sheet" that tells EAC where to mark the beginning of each track.  That way, you can record a live vinyl album as an entire waveform, and EAC will burn it as an entire waveform with no breaks, but will insert indexes so that the CD player will know where each track begins.  So you can play it all the way through with no breaks, or you can zero in on any track you want to.

EAC does what it's supposed to do best; MJ does what IT is supposed to do best.

Bill

[JaredH]

Doof, in response to your poast about your scratched cds. May i suggest before even ripping that you go out and snag you a piece of equipment called Skip Doctor. It is a CD collectors dream. Rather than a cd cleaner, it is a CD resurfacer and 80% of the time buffs out to a like new CD shine and buffs most scratches out. I dunno what anyone else things, but as far as im concerned it is an absolutely priceless, invaluable piece of equipment. They run about 20 -30 USD. I doubt youll be disappointed

[RemyJ]

I'll second the recommendation on the skip doctor.  Worked like a champ on CDs neither MJ nor EAC would read.

On an unrelated note, I just performed a super scientific test on ripping quality.

I took a pristine CD and ripped it twice with EAC and twice with MJ both in secure mode.  All 4 copies of each track matched perfectly according to EAC's wav comparator.

I then scuffed up the CD and tried ripping it again with both programs.  MJ reported a 100% successful rip for all tracks with only a slight decrease in performance.  I killed EAC after 2 hours when it only reached track 7 and had multiple read and sync errors.

Neither produced tracks that matched the original 4 but I couldn't tell the difference between the 2 ripped with errors and the 4 original ones when listening to them with headphones via my SB Audigy.

All of which means only 1 thing:  I'll stick to complaining about things I can quantify.

Well, maybe...

[Matt]

I'm an MJ secure-mode convert from EAC.  It's a little slower, but it's also more secure. (EAC is faster because it uses C2 information, which Andre himself acknowledges isn't reliable)

To me, security comes from being made aware of errors, not from fancy "error fixing" routines.  If the program can't get a perfect rip, I want to know.  For this, MJ's secure mode report works like a charm.  It's never let me down.

I have a bunch of CD's that even after multiple passes through the Skip Doctor, neither EAC nor MJ can rip.  For these, maybe there is a difference in what different programs can salvage.  But at least in my anal-retentive view of the world, I don't even care.  It just kills me to have some APE files sitting around that I know aren't right, so I don't even rip those few CD's.

[dragyn]

The only reason I'm using EAC is for the CUE sheets. If MJ could do this, EAC would be out the window.

Matt, you think v9 could be able to handle this?

[sekim]

I have a bunch of CD's that even after multiple passes through the Skip Doctor, neither EAC nor MJ can rip.

Maybe this is pointless, but couldn't you run a line in from a regular cd player and try to record that way? But, would it be digital extraction this way? I guess that may depend on soundcard and output from stand alone player....

Plan B:Buy a new copy?  

[rocketsauce]

I have a bunch of CD's that even after multiple passes through the Skip Doctor, neither EAC nor MJ can rip.

Maybe try CDex in paranoid mode.  I recall reading several threads over at HA where hardcore EAC users also keep CDex around for those occasional discs that EAC can't rip.  Also, I have a few "unrippable" discs in my collection, and finally resorted to ripping them in EAC's burst mode and they came out just fine.

EAC is faster because it uses C2 information, which Andre himself acknowledges isn't reliable.

But you can also use it without C2.  Pretty much everything I have read on setting up EAC recommends not using C2 for this reason anyway, even for drives that are supposed to support it.

Rob

[sekim]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a Plextor drive and use the Plex Tools that are available on the european site? If so, how does that compare with any of the above mentioned tactics for getting accurate info?

[RemyJ]

Matt: I'm an MJ secure-mode convert from EAC.  It's a little slower, but it's also more secure. (EAC is faster because it uses C2 information, which Andre himself acknowledges isn't reliable)

EAC is faster, really?  Hmmmm.  I found that MJ is actually faster on a track by track basis.  It's when you try to rip and encode multiple tracks that MJ slows down.

Matt: To me, security comes from being made aware of errors, not from fancy "error fixing" routines.  If the program can't get a perfect rip, I want to know.  For this, MJ's secure mode report works like a charm.  It's never let me down

I agree with you on the first part but MJ reported 100% rips in the test I did last night with the scuffed up CD even thought the data stream definitely didn't match the original.  Of course EAC did the same thing it just took 2 hours to do it.