Best CD ripping transport.

[Randy Myers]

Even though I do not rip that much now, I have ripped some in the past. I also do format conversions some. I use JRivers to do both and it works perfect for me, and it is easy. Of course I use Roon for playback....

[tjarmstrong]

I use Jriver as well. If you care more about accuracy and less about speed, you want to be sure "secure" mode is selected in Jriver. It will do multiple pass reads to be sure the data is accurate. I don't think it compares data to an online database (a.k.a AccurateRip) as dbpoweramp and EAC do. I think of AccurateRip as an added layer of confidence when ripping CD's with scratches which require multiple re-tries. On a clean CD, AccurateRip should not be necessary although it won't hurt either ...

One way to put all this in perspective, a lot of us use a transport to play CD's and as long as we don't hear any obvious pops or skips, we think it sounds great with no idea of bit perfect accuracy.

[The Lost Bears]

You may not care now but you may care later. Ripping takes a lot of time and work. You don't want to end up doing it over. Checking a rip against the AccurateRip database assures you the rip is accurate.

When you play a CD it may have errors you don't know about. When the transport can't read a bit, it uses error correction to extrapolate what it thinks that bit should be. You will probably not hear the error. It is only with a bad scratch or block of bits that the problem becomes audible.

The other thing I would highly recommend is to back all your music files up. I lost everything I ripped the first time due to a hard drive failure. Not only can you loose files outright but they can become corrupt. The track may look fine until you try and play it. I make an sfv file so I can check the rips integrity anytime I want. I also have 3 copies of all my music files. One I keep somewhere other than my house.

[tjarmstrong]

I was perplexed at why AccurateRip is necessary when CD's have error correction data encoded on the disc and any un-correctable read errors should be reported by the drive to the host. Meaning, if no errors are reported, the rip should be bit perfect. Obviously we rely heavily on hard drive data and it's built in error detection/correction with out any 3rd party CRC checksum to validate the data like AccurateRip.
Looking at the data in one of the links posted by Dan, earlier in this thread, it became apparent to me that some crappier optical drives out there can actually read incorrect data and report NO ERRORS (likely due to poorly written firmware). In that case, AccurateRip, is your only guarantee that the rip is bit perfect. Obviously if you have a good drive and decent software, odds of getting a "clean" rip that actually has errors is very slim.

I tried out dBpoweramp today. Enabled ultra secure ripping, C2 error detection, and AccurateRip. Very nice software ...