Re: Comparing Rippers

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WMP ripping is not considered an error free process, though error
correction is available there can be artefacts produced by the drive
(aka jitter) which some other rippers compensate for by repeating the
read several times - I think EAC and CDEx can do these steps.

This is not a jitter issue but all about a bit perfect copy.
Ripping programs can detect if the error correction of the drive is used.
If so, some of them (EAC or WMP with error correction on) will reread the
sector (EAC up to 80 times).
As you are transferring bits from one media to another, jitter is not an issue

See: http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/CD_transport.htm

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http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com



"Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]" wrote:

On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:46:04 -0700, Brad
<Brad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I am in the process of re-ripping all of my music at a higher bit rate. I had
ripped everything at 192 using wmp, but there is a noticeable difference
between 192 and 320. I use my music for DJ applications. Here's the dilemma.
Many DJs out there feel that the wmp ripper isn't very high quality and that
the music ripped through wmp won't be able to be used with a multitude of DJ
computer programs created specifically for DJing (Serato, PCDJ, Virtual DJ,
etc.) . They recommend using one of the following rippers instead: Lame
Encoder, F&H, Winamp Pro, Monkey's Audio Lossless Encoder, amongst others. I


You could use WMA Lossless, and retain the tagging capabilities of WMA
in media player (ASF content) but lossless by definition is
mathematically equivalent to the origin content, which I assume is
still 16bit CD rather than 24bit HD audio.

This page claims "most users" can't differentiate WMA10 Pro at 384kbps
compared to the CD (PCM) source content
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/codecs/audio.aspx#WindowsMediaAudio9Professional

according to the NSTL report (December 2005)
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/codecs/comparison.aspx


want very high quality (I considered lossless, but 80,000+ songs at lossless
will probably exceed a terabyte harddrive). I really can't hear a difference
between 320 and lossless anyway, so that might be overkill. The reason I want


I guess the question is can your listeners, in a club environment with
people shouting over the music, possibly on sub-optimal repro kit (a
well used D&B soundsystem, with flapping subs anybody ?)


to stay with wma is that every cd I put in my reader will be recognized by
wma because I've already entered all the information in it already. I really
don't want to re-enter all that information again. Before I re-rip
everything, I just want you to let me know (1) if wmp will give me the high
quality I need in comparison to these other programs and (2) if the music


WMP ripping is not considered an error free process, though error
correction is available there can be artefacts produced by the drive
(aka jitter) which some other rippers compensate for by repeating the
read several times - I think EAC and CDEx can do these steps.


will be universally accepted by DJ programs and lastly, (3) is there a sound
difference between programs (and not just speaking of bit rate change?) Some
djs have mentioned that there is a "sound quality" difference


I can't speak for DJ programs, as I don't have experience of using
them to know what formats they support - usually it's a wide range and
would be documented in the user manual provided with the program

HTH
Cheers - Neil
------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2008
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

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