Perfect audio-cd backup? generation, software, original, perfect, popular

andy

I'm not sure where else to ask this, but can anyone advise me on software that will allow a perfect backup of a CD?

So far, I have tried Nero, Alcohol, and a few other popular ones, but have been unable to make a copy with no generation loss. That is to say, that I can rip a song with EAC on both the original and the copy and get the same checksum.

I have heard that using quot;cookedquot; mode will allow this, but I'm not sure what software can do this. So?

Cooledit pro or Adobe Audition are good at extracting audio, but are expensive.

Ripping to a lossless format, such as FLAC or Monkeys Audio, with the right tags will provide a better solution than making an image. It'll be smaller, and you can play it back in your favourite media player!

Perhaps this should be placed in the audio forum? Calling a mod!!

Are you looking to create an ISO then? Try quot;Create Image and CUE sheetquot; in EAC, if you're worried about other ISO creators not being accurate enough. When you burn it, of course make sure verify is on, but if you want to be really absolute frabtabulously sure it's the same, rerip it in EAC and compare the file checksums.

Though for most ripping it's probably not necessary to go that far.

if you know the read/write offsets of your drive (and they are actually predictible enough to use), then you can use EAC to make perfect bit-for-bit backups.  rip to wav+cue with secure mode, and turn on all those drive offset options.

you'll have to figure out your drive's offsets though, and the EAC database tends to be missing a lot of popular drives, but it can be figured out by either burning a test disc (i haven't tried this, and it seemed pretty complicated), or doing a test on a known CD (this is also tricky as you'll need to track down an exact pressing of a disc that's on the EAC database - lots of looking at cat numbers and Isrc codes, etc.  even then, you may not get the same result twice).

however, just be safe in the knowledge that there's almost never useful information in the couple of msec your drive is adding or subtracting from the start and end of the disc - practically speaking you will be getting bit-identical rips, only with a slight offset.

however:  if you have CDS200 or similar discs in your collection (look for the decided lack of a quot;compact disc digital audioquot; logo), you will never get a perfect backup because the original data is corrupted to (futilely) prevent ripping.

Yes using EAC for ISO creation and burning with proper read/write offsets produces the perfect copies that I was looking for. Thanks Mug.

The write offset was a pain to get though; I made a offset test CD, but I had no idea what to do with it (and couldn't find any documentation about it). Luckily I found someone on the net who had already discovered it for my drive, tested it, and it worked!


Originally Posted by bkmanI'm not sure where else to ask this, but can anyone advise me on software that will allow a perfect backup of a CD?

Exact Audio Copy.

So far, I have tried Nero, Alcohol, and a few other popular ones, but have been unable to make a copy with no generation loss. That is to say, that I can rip a song with EAC on both the original and the copy and get the same checksum.

Unlikely to ever occur.

I have heard that using quot;cookedquot; mode will allow this, but I'm not sure what software can do this. So?

Actually you would want quot;Rawquot; mode. The problem is that no PC CD drive exists that will actually read the raw bits off of an audio CD. EAC is the closest you'll get, and even that is only quot;mostlyquot; accurate.

from--info on making audio CD backups as perfect as possible. The important step is to find your drive's read and write offsets separately. Also, use only secure mode. Nothing else will do.

I use an LG GCE-8520B to make my audio backups. What's special about this drive is that it can overread into both lead-in and lead-out. (A lot of drives only overread into lead-in, or not at all.)

If the drive supports overreading into lead-in and lead-out, then EAC can help you make as perfect an audio backup as possible (at home level).

I believe most Plextors overread into both regions as well. They're generally regarded as very good drives to use for backing up audio. (At their $$$, they'd better be... lol)

Good ripping hardware + properly configured EAC = almost perfect audio-CD backups!