Talk:Exact Audio Copy

Are special features important?

Dear friends - At the recommendation of a friend, I've been using EAC for a few months now. I rip in the most secure modes. I came here to find out more about WHY. In particular, how often does it really make a difference, especially on new CDs? I understand the value of EAC on scratched CDs, and clearly hear the difference. But are there really a lot of errors on new CDs? Does iTunes really not detect most of them, even when one checks its "correct errors" box?

I had been happily ripping my new mint condition CDs with iTunes for years, until my friend told me he uses EAC exclusively and why. I am a technically trained CS graduate and understand all the bits and the mp3 internal formats and all the tech talk. But I'm not an audiophile, and I never actually *heard* any problems with my iTunes rips. My friend says that if I listen really carefully I will hear plenty of little glitches, even on mint condition CDs. I must admit that even on new CDs, I often see EAC go into its "line of 8" error correction(often just one set of 8 re-tries, very rarely more). But when I listen to the iTunes-ripped version of the CD vs the EAC I don't really hear any differences. Admittedly, that's not a side-by-side A/B comparison, just a good listen to each version of the same track.

So can you add any content here, a paragraph or two, on this topic. How often does it make a difference? An essay to convince me I aught to switch to EAC when iTunes ripping is about 20x faster and I don't actually hear any problems with it?

I have gone to a few other websites on EAC, esp. those recommended in this article (a number of which are 404's btw), and find no essay on this topic. How about helping me out? Thanks! SB.

It sounds like you don't have a Golden Ear. Like most of us! There are two ways to go at this: 1) If you can't tell the difference, it does not matter. By this standard, you should be happy with iTunes or whatever. 2) You want the best. Even if you can't tell the difference. If anyone anywhere claims to be able to hear a difference, you want what they say is the best. If any tech test can tell the difference, it must be real... By this standard, seems like EAC would be the One! -69.87.203.95 01:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

A bit of (unverified) history may shed some light on the value of EAC. Prior to its inception, competing rippers (with the exception of then Linux-only cdparanoia) had only primitive error detection and correcting methods. Even with a perfect disc, many/most 1990s-era CD drives didn't have a prayer of extracting 80 minutes of audio without some audible errors, and manually verifying that much audio was frustrating to say the least, not to mention time lost in re-ripping and re-encoding. EAC provided means, albeit in a hardware dependent fashion, to securely extract audio; for the first time (on Windows), listening to every extracted track was unnecessary.

Over time, however, both hardware and competing software have improved. Rips from Media Player and iTunes generally sound without audible defects to my ears, and the aforementioned even have competitive feature sets. However EAC:

• remains arguably the most secure audio extraction option on Windows
• exports via user-defined encoding to far more formats than WMP or iTunes
• has comprehensive guides dedicated to highest quality ripping
• supports advanced gap and offset detection/correction, the former being important for "album as a song", e.g. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, and the latter making "bit exact" copies possible (though still difficult)
• collects song info from freedb and tags to any format (via user defined encoding)

Most people should be satisfied with the output quality of iTunes and WMP, but, for me, a single error in an extracted song overrules any other advantages. I just don't want to dig out the CD again and rip all over. iTunes and WMP also lock you into their codec sets; don't want AAC, WMA, or so-so MP3? Then you're out of luck. Finally, since I've used EAC for years, it's easier for me to stick with it instead of learning the quirks of other software. A potential plus for EAC is it's barely changed over the years, so there's little relearning with new releases. Whelkman 21:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Slow

EAC can be slow, needs quite a bit of computer power. On a PII-266 Win98SE laptop, the overall speed of extraction to MP3 is about 0.5X -- it takes over twice as long to rip, comparing to playing the CD normally. Most of the delay is converting to MP3 -- it seems to read the WAV file at about 4X. -69.87.203.95 01:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The speed of the conversion from WAV to MP3 is dependent on the speed of the computer processor. Likewise, if the processor is a Pentium-II, it can take a very long time for the file to convert. If the processor used is one of the mainstream/hi-end types, then the conversion is a lot faster than the older-generation processors. The speed of ripping a CD in EAC is dependant on the drive used to rip the CD, the extraction mode, and how scratched the CD is. --Bruin_rrss23 (talk) 13:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, EAC doesn't not compress tracks. It simply calls another, seperately program to do that, such as LAME. Any compressor that can be called from the command line may be used with EAC. As such, compression time is not really a valid criticism of an audio extractor. 67.175.166.240 17:47, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah you should probably get an encoder optimized for your processor, see http://www.rarewares.org/. In fact, that should be added to the article if its not already here... Uselesswarrior 18:43, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Digital audio extraction is heavy on I/O, which DMA alleviates. Unfortunately, older DMA functionality is often buggy and/or disabled completely in the absence of updated drivers/firmware, so bad chipsets are a common issue. Note that in the absence of functioning DMA, the CPU is interrupted, and it would appear EAC (or whatever) is hogging the CPU when, in fact, the CPU stalls while starving for data. That said, 4x is within normal range, considering age of hardware and that EAC reads every sector at least twice. What the others say is true regarding MP3 conversion; the LAME presets are especially hungry, even on modern hardware. Whelkman 23:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

but EAC is for audiophiles who will doubtlessly wait patienly to get the best quality music —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.28.200 (talk) 03:36, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

malware?

When trying to download it, we get a malware warning. 22:56, 19 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.179.182.131 (talk) --87.178.104.202 (talk) 13:56, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I had no such difficulty and neither Malwarebytes nor Spybot have complained about it. Jopower (talk) 06:25, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Any proof/sources for this?

"It works with a new technology, reading audio CDs almost perfectly. EAC reads even some damaged or scratched CDs almost perfectly."--87.178.104.202 (talk) 13:56, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Update badly needed: June 2013

This has been a stub for such a long time now, I've noticed. If anyone can possibly update the info, lay it out better, possibly add cites, then please contribute. It certainly needs info on OS operability c.2013 (eg. possible usage in VM's, as the only way for non-Win usage?), formats update (interoperability with other software), a history section, current status (inc. current development status), and much clearer info on how to use.
This is REALLY important to do sooner rather than later, as I get the impression the software has ceased future development ('the perpetual beta'), and may or may not be superseded now or in the future, and WP will lose the info forever! So if there are any fans or regular users of this, PLEASE do contribute. Thanks. Jimthing (talk) 02:09, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Don't have answers to those questions, but I added a mention of the latest release (1.03b, Sep 2011). NeoAdamite (talk) 00:31, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Install Now Requires dotNET 2

I note on the most recent EAC version 1.1 that Microsoft Windows dotNET Version 2 is required. I didn't recall this for 0.95 (or it was already installed and I didn't get any notice about it). Some are adverse to dotNET operations and should be warned in advance. If you go in into the proceedure uninformed, Exact Audio Copy is helpful in that it asks if you wish to install dotNET 2. If you select YES it automatically proceeds to do this and completes it's own install without comment. If you select NO, EAC installation stops and backs out. Jopower (talk) 06:26, 7 November 2015 (UTC)